Thereupon, Yang Kai recounted the full story — from his entry into the Star Boundary, his exile in the Jade Plumage Sect, his encounter with Wu Mengchuan, the arrangement whereby he was taught the Devouring Battle Technique in exchange for helping Wu Mengchuan escape his imprisonment, and all the way to the killing of Wu Mengchuan in the Shattered Star Sea, which allowed his Dharma Body's cultivation method to be perfected. He laid it all out, holding nothing back.
Yang Yan listened quietly, her elegant brows furrowing and relaxing in turn. Only after he had finished did she turn her gaze toward the Dharma Body that Yang Kai had summoned over, her expression one of deep contemplation.
The Dharma Body had been lurking nearby all along. Yang Kai had originally intended to call it out after breaking the seal on his dantian and undergoing demonic transformation, to join forces against the feather-crowned man. But at the last moment, Yang Yan's sudden appearance had put a stop to that, rendering the Dharma Body's role as a surprise weapon moot.
"So you're saying it was your Dharma Body that cultivated the Devouring Battle Technique?"
"That's right." Yang Kai eyed her warily. "You're not thinking of crippling its cultivation too, are you?"
Then again, the Dharma Body was not a being of flesh and blood — it had no meridians or dantian. Even if Yang Yan truly wanted to cripple it, she would have a hard time doing so, short of shattering it entirely.
"A Stone Puppet's body cultivating the Devouring Battle Technique." Yang Yan circled the Dharma Body several times, her expression one of amazed fascination, as though she had discovered some novel toy. "How did you think of that?"
"It was just a fortunate coincidence," Yang Kai said with a chuckle. "Back when I obtained the Devouring Battle Technique from Wu Mengchuan, I didn't understand his true purpose, but it felt like it couldn't be anything good. Still, the technique was far too profound to abandon, so I had the Dharma Body give it a try. Who could have known that a casual experiment would bear such fruit?"
Yang Yan nodded. "It may not have been mere coincidence — it was destiny, perhaps. Stone Puppets are born with bodies of earth and stone, free from the seven emotions and six desires that afflict other living beings. Their innate divine abilities make it exceedingly easy for them to refine and expel all manner of impurities. Having one cultivate the Devouring Battle Technique may well have been the ideal choice." She understood Stone Puppets and knew the drawbacks of the Devouring Battle Technique. Deep down, she had a feeling that the technique seemed tailor-made for the Stone Puppet race — not something a being of flesh and blood was ever meant to cultivate.
Wu Kuang had not necessarily been cold-blooded and heartless from birth. It was only after cultivating the Devouring Battle Technique that his nature had been twisted, making him view all living things as ants and driving him to destroy countless star domains in pursuit of his own power.
But a Stone Puppet had nothing to fear from that. Its innate divine abilities were more than sufficient to refine away every impurity it absorbed, leaving it completely unaffected.
"No wonder so many who cultivated the Devouring Battle Technique over the years were forever stuck at their bottlenecks," Yang Yan said, her beautiful eyes flickering with sudden understanding. "It turns out they needed to devour another cultivator of the same technique as a catalyst in order to break through the shackles."
Yang Kai was startled. "Many people cultivated the Devouring Battle Technique?"
"That was long ago."
When she said "long ago," she meant not decades or centuries, nor even millennia — it had been tens of thousands of years in the past. Wu Kuang had used a single copy of the Devouring Battle Technique to establish himself as the undisputed greatest of all time. Naturally, the technique had attracted great envy. Somehow, the cultivation method had leaked out, falling into the hands of various interested parties. Some Emperor Realm cultivators had even been willing to throw away their own cultivation and start from scratch in order to practice it.
But every single one of those who had cultivated the Devouring Battle Technique found themselves stuck at the Third-Order Dao Source Stage, with no hope of ever advancing to the Emperor Realm.
It was not because they had cultivated incorrectly, nor because the technique they possessed was flawed. It was simply the nature of the Devouring Battle Technique. Wu Mengchuan was, after all, a descendant of Wu Kuang himself, and even he had been trapped at the Third-Order Dao Source Stage for years without making a shred of progress — what chance did anyone else have?
The breakthrough was simple enough in theory: devour another cultivator of the Devouring Battle Technique and absorb everything they had. It was like raising venomous insects — a culling of one another, where only the survivor had any hope of transcendence.
Wu Mengchuan had taught Yang Kai the Devouring Battle Technique for two reasons: first, as leverage to get Yang Kai to free him from the bone prison, and second, to cultivate a future meal to devour. Unfortunately for him, he had encountered Yang Kai — a warrior from a lower-plane star domain who had never even heard of the Devouring Battle Technique's fearsome reputation — and so had resisted the temptation entirely.
Had it been a native warrior of the Star Boundary, they would almost certainly have begun cultivating the technique immediately, only to meet a tragic end.
And after Wu Kuang, although no small number of people had cultivated the Devouring Battle Technique, none had ever advanced to the Emperor Realm. This led many to a mistaken conclusion — that the technique itself was wrong, that Wu Kuang had never truly passed down the genuine Devouring Battle Technique, and that the real cultivation method had perished with him in the Shattered Star Sea. As the ages passed, the technique gradually fell into obscurity, and no one bothered to cultivate it anymore.
Suddenly, another thought struck Yang Yan. If the Devouring Battle Technique was so sinister, then who had Wu Kuang devoured all those years ago to achieve his own breakthrough? There must have been another being who had also cultivated the Devouring Battle Technique — perhaps there was yet another tale of grudges and entanglements hidden within, lost to the mists of an era so distant that it could never be traced.
She looked up at Gun Gun once more and asked hesitantly, "Is this the... tool spirit of the Mysterious Boundary Bead?" She was no stranger to the Mysterious Boundary Bead — she had originally brought it from the Star Boundary to this star domain all those years ago. Later, when Yang Kai had come into possession of it, she had left it with him. She had never imagined that when they met again, the Mysterious Boundary Bead would have transformed like this — not only manifesting a tool spirit, but developing an astonishing appetite for devouring.
"That's exactly right!" Yang Kai laughed, his face brimming with pride.
The Mysterious Boundary Bead had been in his hands for many years, saving him from danger on numerous occasions. Moreover, its internal spatial realm had been enormously beneficial to his cultivation of spatial abilities. Yang Kai naturally cherished it deeply, and now that it had birthed a tool spirit, it felt as though he had sired a son.
He paused, then scratched his head. "Are you going to take it back?"
"If I truly wanted to take it back, what would you do?" Yang Yan regarded him.
Yang Kai waved his hand. "Then take it." It had been hers to begin with.
Yang Yan was taken aback, never having expected Yang Kai to agree so readily.
"There is one condition you must agree to, however: you must not harm its spiritual nature. I used it as a vessel to cast the Devouring Battle Technique, which is how it came to birth a tool spirit, but the bead itself is blameless. If you agree to that, I have no objection to returning the Mysterious Boundary Bead to you."