The moment those words left her lips, the female Demon King's delicate brows furrowed slightly. She glanced down at her chest and saw Yang Kai's five fingers curled into a claw, hovering right over her left breast. Light flickered at his fingertips, and waves of dangerous aura surged outward.
"Tch..." The female Demon King pouted in annoyance. She had been careless for just a moment, and this fellow had managed to turn the tables on her.
However, being so close and sensing Yang Kai's power fluctuations had at last allowed her to catch a glimpse of something. She frowned slightly and regarded Yang Kai with curiosity: "You're that human the Sacred Lord brought back from the Star Boundary?"
Yang Kai raised an eyebrow: "You know about me?"
The female Demon King giggled: "There are rumors that a human expert was treated extremely unjustly, walked into Fire Demon territory and fell into demonic cultivation, and had nowhere left for him in the Star Boundary. He had no choice but to follow the Sacred Lord to Phantom Continent. That sounds like you."
"That news sure travels fast." Yang Kai wore a thoroughly displeased expression, as though some shameful secret of his had been exposed, his eyes flashing with a murderous glint.
The female Demon King saw right through his thoughts but was entirely unfazed. She said flatly: "Killing me won't accomplish anything. Many people in the Holy City already know — after all, you were personally brought back by the Sacred Lord." She paused, then added: "Besides, if you really want to make a move, it's not certain who would die first."
Yang Kai's eyes flickered for a moment. He looked as if he were struggling with indecision, his expression twisted and menacing — when in reality he was trying to figure out exactly who had leaked this information. He had only been in the Demon Domain for a few days. Yu Rumeng herself would never have spread such a thing around carelessly, so it had to be someone else. But what was their motive?
"Hey, you should let go now." While Yang Kai was deep in thought, the female Demon King tilted her smooth chin and called out to him.
Yang Kai snorted coldly at this, then withdrew his hand without hesitation. Regardless of anything else, having his hand pressed against a woman's chest in front of thousands of spectators was rather unseemly. A flicker of surprise passed through her eyes as he did so, but she likewise lowered her bow.
This bizarre scene left tens of thousands of spectators in the Blood Arena's stands completely bewildered. Just moments ago these two had been fighting each other as though their very lives depended on it. How had they suddenly made peace in the blink of an eye?
Meanwhile, Xiao Wu and the Demon Commander standing behind her both let out a sigh of relief at the same time. Watching Yang Kai with a poisoned arrow pressed against his temple, the two of them had nearly forgotten how to breathe, terrified they would witness something terrible in the next instant. Only now did the weight lift from their hearts, and they slumped back into their seats. That had been far too close.
Inside the Blood Arena, Yang Kai cast a sidelong glance at the female Demon King, his expression unreadable.
The reason he had withdrawn his hand so readily had nothing to do with any chivalrous sentiment toward a beautiful woman. It was simply because, despite the dazzling and vicious chain of attacks she had unleashed earlier, there had been no real killing intent in any of them. She had been probing, mostly.
He wanted to know what this female Demon King was really after.
"Why aren't you staying at the Sacred Lord's palace? What are you doing here in the Blood Arena?" The female Demon King looked him up and down, then suddenly put the question to him. After asking, her face brightened with sudden realization: "Oh, I understand — you came for that prize, didn't you?" She leaned in with an animated expression: "How did you know the Blood Arena would have such a prize? Do you have some inside information? Can you share a little with me?"
Inside information, my foot! Yang Kai cursed silently, then said with undisguised impatience: "If you've got something to say, say it. If you've got something to do, do it!"
That brusque attitude clearly rubbed her the wrong way. She let out a disapproving "tch," idly toyed with the powerful bow in her hands, and lifted her gaze to say coolly: "You owe me a life. Shouldn't you at least say thank you?"
Yang Kai sized her up and down, a look of pity surfacing in his eyes. His lips moved slightly: "Lunatic." He turned and walked away.
The female Demon King froze, and after a moment of stunned silence she flickered forward, blocking Yang Kai's path. She glared at him viciously: "Did you just call me names?"
"Get lost!" Yang Kai thrust his massive fist toward her, his expression savage and fearsome: "I don't like hitting women, but that doesn't mean I won't. If you keep flapping your mouth, I'll end your life right now!"
Killing a female Demon King he had never met before wouldn't burden his conscience in the slightest. One more Demon King dead here meant one less enemy back in the Star Boundary.
The female Demon King looked as though she had been choked into silence, her large eyes going wide. She was so furious she actually laughed: "You think I'm joking with you? Do you have any idea that if I hadn't stopped you just now, you'd already be a dead man?"
"Oh?" Yang Kai's voice held a note of surprise, though his expression remained perfectly composed. He regarded her and said calmly: "Do tell — how exactly would I have died?"
The female Demon King's voice turned cold and sharp: "You'd have been lured into a trap — more than a dozen Demon Kings attacking you at once, including three High-Grade Demon Kings. You think you'd still be alive?"
Yang Kai frowned, his gaze drifting thoughtfully toward the direction the Blood Demon had fled earlier. He then looked back at the Feather Demon: "How did you know?"
More than a dozen Demon Kings, three of them High-Grade — if he were truly besieged by that lot, it would be genuinely troublesome. Even if he could fight his way out, he would inevitably be forced to reveal a large portion of his trump cards.
With so many eyes watching, Yang Kai was not about to let that happen. He had come to the Demon Domain for other purposes entirely. Yu Rumeng knew what he was capable of, but no one else did, and she certainly wasn't going to advertise it. Keeping his claws hidden would make things much easier down the road.
The Feather Demon let out a cold, taunting laugh: "Scared?"
"Scared?" Yang Kai smiled with untamed arrogance: "I rebelled against the Star Boundary, escaped from the clutches of a Great Emperor, and survived pursuit by a False Emperor back in the Star Boundary. I haven't yet learned how to write the word 'fear.'"