Ten thousand li beyond Heavenly Wolf Valley, a streak of light cut across the sky, swift as a falling star. Had there been someone with powerful enough vision, they would have seen that the true form of this light was a half-aged elder, his face ruddy and his eyes bright with vigor.
At this moment, the elder appeared to be fleeing from something, hurtling forward without pause while muttering curses under his breath, his face twisted with indignation.
Suddenly, he seemed to sense something and turned his head toward a particular direction, a look of alarm and uncertainty crossing his face. "Could that aura be... No, surely not..."
At that very moment, the space ahead of his flight path began to churn. Ripples flashed across the void, and the intact expanse seemed on the verge of being torn apart by some tremendous force as a narrow crack suddenly appeared.
The elder's eyes narrowed, and he cursed through gritted teeth: "That brat sure got here fast. Chasing after your grandfather like your life depends on it—you're really going to be the death of me!"
Knowing full well the other party's abilities, he realized that even with his own considerable means he would not be able to shake the pursuit. His eyes darted about, and suddenly a brilliant idea came to mind. He made a sharp turn and headed in the very direction he had just been glancing toward.
And that direction was none other than the location of Heavenly Wolf Valley.
Three breaths later, that narrow spatial crack suddenly widened, and two figures emerged from within at a leisurely pace—a man and a woman. The man was strikingly handsome, the woman lovely as a painting. Standing together, they were like immortals descended to the mortal world.
After a brief scan of the area, the man sighed: "He got away again."
The woman gritted her silver teeth: "That old geezer sure runs fast. It's not like we're trying to take his life—why's he in such a panic?"
The man chuckled: "Well, even if we don't want his life, we do intend to restrict his freedom. Of course he's not going to be happy about that."
The woman shot him a sidelong glance and scoffed: "Oh, so now you're making excuses for him? What, do you want to let him off?"
The man shook his head: "If it were entirely my call, I might consider it—but this is an order from the Superior. A dangerous creature like that is best kept where we can keep an eye on it, in case one day it reverts to its violent nature and brings catastrophe to the innocent." He paused, then smiled: "If he'd stayed in the Southern Region, that would have been fine, but who asked him to come running to the Eastern Region? Since he's crossed paths with our Superior's notice, he'll be staying on Spirit Beast Island."
"Enough talk—hurry up and chase him! If we don't move now, he'll be too far gone," the woman urged impatiently.
The man nodded slightly, reached out and swept his hand forward. Under the influence of his manipulation of the Laws of Space, the void tore open, and the two stepped through together, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
Moments later, the crack slowly healed and disappeared without a trace.
……
Outside Heavenly Wolf Valley, Yang Kai had employed the Void Secret Art at the most critical moment to banish himself into the void, evading the lethal strike of his ambusher. He had then immediately countered with the Seal of Fleeting Time, striking the attacker hard enough to send him spitting blood. Only then did he regard the man with leisurely composure and sneer: "Wu Heng, I've been waiting for quite some time."
The one hiding in the shadows to ambush him was none other than Wu Heng—the very same person with whom he had recently crossed paths in the Dahuang Star Domain, the master of that very Star Domain.
Wu Heng's face was grim. He drove his Emperor Yuan to suppress the temporal force ravaging his body, blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth. Angrily he demanded: "How did you know I was here?"
His enmity with Yang Kai might not stem from the murder of a father or the theft of a wife, but it was no less irreconcilable. After all, Yang Kai had seized billions of li of territory from the Dahuang Star Domain under his control. While that seizure hadn't damaged the fundamental essence of the Star Domain, it had dealt a tremendous blow to his future prospects.
The integrity of a Star Domain was decisive for one's path of martial cultivation. With his Star Domain damaged, the Star Domain essence within him had grown unstable, making it impossible for him to settle into quiet cultivation. Given time, this might not cause his strength to decline, but breaking through to higher levels would be utterly out of reach.
The last time, the Star Court's higher-ups had intervened to settle the matter, forcing him to swallow his grievance. He'd had no choice but to accept the loss of those territories Yang Kai had claimed.
But while the Star Court could intervene in Star Domain affairs—in the Star Realm, however, that woman couldn't interfere again, could she? As long as he could kill Yang Kai, he could reclaim his seized territories and even go on to devour the Heng Luo Star Domain, completing the grand plan he had previously envisioned.
As the master of the Dahuang Star Domain, he naturally had connections with the Yellow Spring Sect. After the last incident, he had taken a brief period to recover before returning to the Star Realm. He had sought out Fu Bo and asked him to keep watch for any trace of Yang Kai.
He hadn't expected heaven to be so generous—Yang Kai, who should have been in the Southern Region, had actually arrived in the Eastern Region this quickly. When the Qi Tian Fort had relayed the news to the Yellow Spring Sect, the Sect had immediately informed Wu Heng, leading to this operation.
What Wu Heng couldn't quite figure out, however, was how Yang Kai seemed to have anticipated his appearance all along.
Yang Kai laughed: "Fu Bo knew about the Dahuang Star Domain because you told him. If the two of you have that kind of connection, and I still didn't know you were lurking in the shadows, wouldn't I be a fool? You could even say that this whole affair was orchestrated by you from behind the scenes." If that weren't the case, why would the perpetually timid Fu Bo have dared to cause trouble with him again?
So that was it! Wu Heng twisted his head to glare at the Mountain and River Bell in the distance, his gaze seeming to pierce right through it as though he could see Fu Bo on the other side. His face was a mask of fury. He hadn't expected that it was all because of a casual remark from Fu Bo that this brat had caught on to the scheme.