Several dozen li away, Bo Ya's breathing was ragged, her face pale, her chest heaving rapidly. The hand gripping her powerful bow trembled ever so slightly.
That volley just now had been executed using her clan's secret technique; without it, she never could have achieved such devastating results. The price, however, was steep — thirty percent of her demonic energy had been drained. In other words, even at her peak, she could only unleash arrows of that caliber three times before she would be completely spent.
The cost was considerable, but the outcome was deeply satisfying.
The High-Order Demon King stationed at that position was dead. Though plenty of enemies remained, they would be hard-pressed to cause any more trouble in front of Yang Kai. The encirclement around Cloud Shadow had been breached, and from here on out — whether they fought or fled — Cloud Shadow now had options.
She was beginning to realize that swearing fealty to Yang Kai was actually not a bad arrangement. With his spatial abilities paired with her masterful archery, they could slaughter unsuspecting High-Order Demon Kings without breaking a sweat. The Blood Arena had proven as much, and today's battle had only refined their coordination further.
Bo Ya drew a deep breath, stored her bow, and clasped a High-Grade Demon Crystal in each hand, trying to recover as much of her spent power as possible. She had shattered one of Lan Yuan's ambush points with a surprise attack, but two more remained — and beyond that, six High-Order Demon Kings were still stationed at the World Gate. The battles ahead would be fierce. She couldn't afford to waste even a single opportunity to rest.
It was then that a tremendous explosion of sound reached her from the other side, and she turned her gaze toward it in suspicion.
A hundred li away, what appeared to be a cataclysmic battle was erupting. Flashes of light flickered erratically, and figures darted back and forth through the air.
That was the direction of another of Lan Yuan's ambush points. Had Lao Ke and Yin arrived? They had gotten there quickly. With those two fighting together, bolstered by Cloud Shadow's current forces, they should have been able to handle whatever trouble awaited.
She instinctively activated her eye technique for a closer look — and froze.
The scene was nothing like what she had imagined. Lao Ke, Yin, and the Cloud Shadow demons were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a stone giant standing over a dozen zhang tall was wreaking havoc. The colossus blazed with raging fire from head to toe and bristled with sharp, jutting spines. She couldn't tell what technique it was employing, but under Bo Ya's Eye of Observation, the land within a ten-li radius was blanketed by an invisible, intangible domain.
The demons caught within that domain had lost all control over their own vital essence. Crimson qi continuously seeped from every pore on their bodies, streaming toward the stone giant. That strange domain possessed the ability to devour all things.
The stone giant was unquestionably a terrifyingly powerful existence. Bo Ya watched as it swatted a Mid-Order Demon King with a casual backhand, reducing the latter to dust. All of the demon's vital essence and energy were devoured by the stone giant in an instant, leaving only a handful of scraps to scatter to the ground.
A High-Order Demon King was stationed there as well, but it was clearly no match for the stone giant. After only a few breaths of exchange, the High-Order Demon King had fallen into a dire disadvantage and only survived thanks to the protection of its subordinates.
Where had this thing come from? And what were the odds it would appear at precisely this moment to strike against Lan Yuan's forces?
Bo Ya had a nagging feeling that this stone giant was Yang Kai's doing, but she still couldn't figure out how it had appeared or how it had approached the ambush point so silently. It had launched its attack at almost the exact same time as Yang Kai, effectively crippling two of Lan Yuan's ambush positions simultaneously.
What she saw next made her even more certain that the stone giant was connected to Yang Kai. The demons beneath the rank of Demon King — first the Demon Generals, then the Demon Marshals — were rapidly shriveling under the domain's devouring power. Their bodies withered and dried in moments, like husks.
It reminded her of Lie Kuang's corpse, still hanging above the estate. The resemblance was uncanny.
So that was it!
The reason Lie Kuang had been cut down so swiftly that night was because of this stone giant. It had devoured every last drop of Lie Kuang's vital essence and blood energy, reducing the man to a desiccated corpse with eyes frozen wide in shock.
Bo Ya's eyes lit up. With this kind of ally, anyone below the Half-Saint rank was as good as dead. No wonder Yang Kai had been so composed.
While Bo Ya watched the battle at the Dharma Body's location, Yang Kai was cutting a path of slaughter of his own.
The Force Demon King stationed here had already fallen. The remaining Mid- and Low-Order Demon Kings, Demon Marshals, and Demon Generals could do nothing to halt his advance. In a matter of a dozen breaths, the thousand-odd demons at the site had been thrown into complete disarray. More than half of the Demon Kings had perished, and the casualties among the Demon Marshals and Generals were incalculable.
Realizing the situation was hopeless, the surviving demons had no intention of lingering. They scattered in every direction, fleeing in panic.
Yang Kai cut down a few of the escaping demons without much effort, then gave up the chase. He gathered the corpses of the fallen, intending to feed them to the Dharma Body, and turned his gaze toward the battlefield a hundred li away.
The Dharma Body had already made its move. There was no need to even guess — that fight would be a one-sided affair. If four or five High-Order Demon Kings had banded together, they might have managed to put up some resistance, but with only a single High-Order Demon King present, there was no chance of slowing the Dharma Body down.
Yang Kai had released the Dharma Body when he stepped off the Tiger-Head Chariot, otherwise Bo Ya would never have failed to notice. Moreover, the Dharma Body belonged to the Stone Puppet Clan and possessed innate mastery of Earth Escape — it could approach through the ground without leaving a trace. Such a surprise assault had been devastatingly effective.
Yang Kai let out a quiet, cold laugh and glanced toward the World Gate. Sure enough, the demons there had descended into chaos. The commotion from these two battlefields was impossible to ignore — their reaction confirmed they had seen exactly what was happening.
As for whether Koson lived or died, Yang Kai wasn't particularly concerned. From his perspective, the more demons that died, the better. Of course, Koson was now his subordinate, so it would be best if he survived — but if he didn't, it wouldn't matter either. Yang Kai had no fear that Lan Yuan would do something desperate like execute Koson out of spite.