Yang Kai slowly shook his head. "No need. Senior, you bully your juniors simply because your strength surpasses mine. If I had enough power, I could teach you a lesson too."
"You've suffered a Qi Deviation!" Zhan Wuhen's expression had turned deadly serious.
"Have I?" The corner of Yang Kai's mouth curled upward, revealing an eerie, unsettling smile. "Then... let me fall!"
He slowly raised his right hand and pressed it against his right eye. A deep, measured voice rolled out: "Pupil Abyss, Eternal Darkness!"
Hummm…
Heaven and earth trembled. The entire world was suddenly swallowed by darkness, not a sliver of light remaining. In the sky, a massive single eye materialized, radiating an uncanny, mesmerizing glow that seemed capable of snatching away the soul. Hundreds of thousands of people in Tiger Roar City simultaneously contorted in pain, tearing their gazes away, not daring to look.
In this world of darkness, an eerie serenity descended, as though time itself had stopped flowing. Most people could not even perceive what was happening afterward — all they knew was that the world had become drenched in demonic energy, so chilling that it sent shivers down their spines.
Only those at the second or third layer of the Emperor Realm could detect the violent surges of power that intermittently rippled outward.
Within that dark world, Yang Kai's Dharma Avatar and the Great Emperor still fought a desperate, bloody battle.
No one knew how long it lasted. Then, without warning, the enormous eye in the sky cracked open a single fissure. The crack spread outward in every direction, branching into a dense web like a spider's lattice. With a deafening sound, the colossal eye shattered completely.
Light flooded back into the world. The darkness receded like a tide, and the oppressive atmosphere vanished as though it had never been.
Everyone turned their heads, straining to see what the final outcome had been.
Zhan Wuhen's furious roar suddenly rang out: "Yang Kai, do you have any idea what you've done?"
Yang Kai's voice followed close behind, but it was laced with exhaustion and frailty: "Senior kept pushing me. This junior had no choice but to resort to this desperate measure!"
Following the source of the voice, the hundreds of thousands of people in Tiger Roar City collectively froze in shock.
There stood Yang Kai, hovering in midair, drenched in blood from head to toe, his appearance utterly wretched. His massive half-dragon form had already dissolved, but one arm and one leg were bent at grotesque, unnatural angles — clearly broken.
Li Jiao's eyelids twitched. This was the first time he had ever seen Yang Kai in such a sorry state. Even when he had stormed Dragon Island all those years ago, things had never been this grim. It went to show that Zhan Wuhen had not held back at all — opposing a Great Emperor never ended well.
But that was not what shocked him the most. What truly stunned him was that a woman now stood in front of Yang Kai. No one had noticed when she appeared, but she was currently being gripped by the throat with one hand, held before him as a hostage.
Li Jiao recognized the woman — she was Zhan Wuhen's disciple, a girl named Lin Yun'er, who reportedly had a good relationship with Yang Kai.
Yet in this moment, Yang Kai had seized her without hesitation. His hand clamped around her pale neck like a claw, poised to kill her at the slightest provocation.
Yang Kai had truly suffered a Qi Deviation! The realization struck Li Jiao like a thunderbolt, his mind nearly short-circuiting. If not for a Qi Deviation, how could Yang Kai ever do something this monstrous? The demonic thoughts erupting within him had already begun to override his rationality.
Li Jiao was overcome with anguish.
Gao Xueting also stared at Yang Kai with a face full of pain.
She was the one who had fetched Lin Yun'er, originally hoping the girl could persuade the Iron-Blooded Great Emperor to ease up on Yang Kai. But who could have predicted that by the time she and Lin Yun'er returned from another city, Tiger Roar City would be cloaked in darkness, and when the light returned, the situation had deteriorated to this?
She hadn't even detected when Yang Kai had captured Lin Yun'er in the first place.
After a moment of stunned silence, she called out urgently: "Junior Brother Yang, let her go! It's not too late to turn back!"
Yang Kai's face was shrouded in demonic energy, making his expression impossible to read. But Gao Xueting distinctly felt him glance her way — and then nothing. He had completely ignored her.
Gao Xueting's heart sank like a stone. This meant Yang Kai's Qi Deviation had run deep — he might not even recognize who she was anymore.
"Uncle Yang..." Lin Yun'er looked down at his broken arm and leg, her eyes reddening in an instant, tears streaming down her cheeks. "Does it hurt?"
The words left her lips, and the demonic energy shrouding Yang Kai's face trembled violently. But her concern drew not the slightest response from him — only a savage snarl: "Shut up!"
Lin Yun'er cried even harder, whether from heartache over his injuries or from the sting of his harsh rebuke, it was impossible to tell.
But the scene before them was one that none of these people could accept.
The man who had single-handedly turned the tide, who had saved Tiger Roar City from disaster time and again, who had always led from the front in every great battle, commanding an army of two hundred thousand and cutting down countless enemies — virtually invincible — had become like this? In order to survive, he had seized a girl and used her as a hostage, and when someone expressed concern for him, he had lashed out with venomous words?
They simply could not accept it. Yet this was the reality staring at hundreds of thousands of people in the face. A hush fell over the crowd as they gazed at Yang Kai, wreathed in demonic energy, with complicated, unreadable expressions — as though they were looking at a complete stranger.
Strictly speaking, once a person suffered a full Qi Deviation, they might as well have become an entirely different person.