The moment Boya vanished without a trace, the Demon Kings on Lan Yuan's side saw it clearly. Though they sensed something was wrong, there was no time to investigate further—because at the same instant Boya disappeared, Yang Kai had already lunged forward in a tiger's leap, charging straight toward them. In his hand, a Million Sword blazed with sword intent that pierced the heavens, raised high before it came crashing down.
A colossal arc of sword light seemed to cleave heaven and earth in two, tearing through the void as it sliced toward Lan Yuan's formation.
Feeling the might of that strike, every demon's expression turned grave. Without hesitation, they scattered left and right, scrambling to evade its edge.
A thunderous boom rang out. The earth cracked apart, and a rift over a thousand zhang long split open across the ground. Demons who failed to dodge in time were shredded by the raging sword intent, their bodies disintegrating into dust on the spot.
The group of Demon Kings watched with dark expressions. Fortunately, while the blow had been formidable and quite lethal, it had only killed some Demon Commanders and Demon Generals—all the Demon Kings had avoided it cleanly, suffering not a scratch.
But in the next instant, from several dozen li away, several streaks of light came hurtling through the air with a piercing hiss.
Yang Kai had already made his move—why would Boya stay idle? It was a rare opportunity to catch a batch of fools with their backs turned, and she simply couldn't resist the urge to pick them off with her arrows.
These arrows were nothing like the nine-shot volley she had used to kill that high-grade Demon King earlier. Clearly, Boya had not expended the enormous energy required for that secret technique. Nevertheless, they were not to be underestimated—both their speed and their killing power were enough to send chills down anyone's spine.
Along their path, the arrows burst through more than a dozen Demon Commanders and Demon Generals before zeroing in on a burly, dark-faced high-grade Demon King.
That black-faced Demon King had never expected an attack from behind. His entire attention had been fixed on Yang Kai's movements, and he only realized the danger when the arrow was within a hundred zhang. His face changed dramatically. With a furious roar, demonic energy surged across his body, and he grabbed a pair of demon maces, spinning around to swing them wide.
A rapid clatter of metal rang out as sparks flew, and he deflected the incoming arrow with pinpoint precision—though the force of the recoil sent him sliding back dozens of zhang.
He looked up to see Boya standing several dozen li away, a cold smirk on her face, one hand making a slashing gesture across her own throat.
The sight made his face darken even further, but there was no time for thought. A sharp killing intent was already bearing down on him from behind—the attack came at precisely the moment his blood was churning and his demonic energy in turmoil, leaving him utterly unable to mount a full defense.
In that moment between life and death, the black-faced Demon King's whole body trembled as violent demonic energy erupted outward in a visible shockwave, attempting to blast the incoming enemy away.
From the corner of his eye, he caught a flash of cold light. His vision spun and inverted. He saw a headless corpse floating in the void nearby, still clutching a pair of maces, blood geysering from the severed neck. Then a rain of sword energy descended like a waterfall, grinding the headless body into fine powder.
To think he would die in a place like this, having lasted only a single exchange…
His massive head tumbled down, the light in its eyes slowly fading to nothing.
Over there, Yang Kai had already struck without a backward glance after Boya created that opening. His sword swept diagonally upward, lunging toward another high-grade Demon King.
This Demon King had apparently sensed his black-faced colleague's crisis and rushed to help, but he was a step too late. He could only watch as Yang Kai beheaded and shredded the body, an expression of rage twisting his face even as his skin crawled with dread.
He suddenly realized that all of them had severely underestimated this human. The Winged Demon in the distance was troublesome indeed, but this human—whose cultivation was only comparable to a middle-grade Demon King—was likely the one who demanded the most vigilance.
The black-faced Demon King's grim fate made him doubly cautious. Facing Yang Kai's thrust, he had no intention of meeting it head-on. His feet slid across the ground as he pulled back to retreat. But in the next instant, he realized he had been fooled—that sword strike carried absolutely no force whatsoever, a complete feint.
Instead, at the same moment the sword had swung out, Yang Kai's other hand had already raised a small azure gourd. He had no idea what kind of artifact it was, but the moment it appeared, an inexplicable sense of horror gripped him.
Yang Kai aimed the mouth of the gourd toward the densest cluster of enemies. As Emperor Yuan poured in, visible wind blades poured from the gourd's opening, blanketing an enormous area in the blink of an eye.
A relentless hissing filled the air. Blood sprayed everywhere. Demon Commanders and Demon Generals fell in swathes like straw in a gale, their bodies sliced into countless pieces, each cut perfectly smooth and clean.
In a single instant, more than half of the demon army—numbering in the thousands—was dead or wounded. Not only were the Demon Commanders and Demon Generals powerless against the gourd's devastating power, but even some low-grade Demon Kings perished the moment the wind struck them. Three middle-grade Demon Kings were killed as well.
The surviving demons stared at the Wind Gourd in Yang Kai's hand with undisguised terror.
Yang Kai simply flashed a grin, highly satisfied with the artifact's might.
He had obtained the Wind Gourd from the depths of the forbidden grounds within the Wuhua Temple before coming to the Demon Realms. The extraplanar stellar wind that surrounded the entire Wuhua Temple was generated by this very gourd. In the past, the disciples of Wuhua Temple had used that stellar wind within the canyon to temper their physical bodies, but no one had ever managed to reach its deepest depths.