A month passed in a flash, and Yang Kai finally finished repairing the second World Gate. This one connected to the Leitian Continent—the very continent he had once torn through space to reach alongside Yin.
The reason it had taken so long was that the World Gate had long since vanished entirely. Though traces of its existence still lingered, restoring it from almost nothing had required considerable effort. This time, Yang Kai hadn't asked the Dharma Body for help and had completed the work on his own. With this experience under his belt, repairing the remaining World Gates would no longer pose much of a challenge.
That said, he had no intention of fixing the others. This one had been repaired primarily as a safeguard against Yuesang. Now that he had a fallback route, why bother restoring the rest and doing the Demon Race's work for them? As long as two World Gates remained, it was more than sufficient to ensure Yun Ying wouldn't vanish—and that meant the Dharma Body, as the continent's master, could act without worry.
After half a day of recuperation, Yang Kai set off back toward Yun Ying City.
Halfway there, he abruptly halted mid-stride and turned his head to look in a particular direction, a contemplative expression crossing his face.
After a brief moment, as though having reached a decision, he veered off and shot toward that direction.
In the wilderness, Yang Kai hovered in the void with his eyes closed, extending his spiritual sense to probe the surroundings.
This was the location where the World Gate connecting to the Xueyan Continent had once stood—the first of Yun Ying's five World Gates to disappear. The last time Yang Kai had come here with Yin to investigate the gates, this was the only place where he'd found absolutely nothing. At the other sites, traces of the gates remained—faint, but enough for him to determine their positions and tear through space to reach them.
The reason he'd come here was nothing more than a whim.
He could now repair gates that still retained even faint traces, but whether that ability extended to this particular spot was something he wanted to test. If even this World Gate could be restored, then he could find the Xueyan Continent again—and from there, potentially recover every continent the Demon Realms had lost.
He certainly wouldn't do the Demon Race such a favor out of the goodness of his heart. Even if he succeeded, he would keep it to himself. At most, he would quietly visit those lost continents to scavenge whatever benefits he could find. Besides, having this as a contingency against future exposure would give him leverage to negotiate with the Demon Race—or perhaps even use it as a bargaining chip to get Mingyue the Emperor back.
To the Demon Race, the return of countless lost continents would surely be worth far more than killing a single Star Boundary Emperor.
Yet to his disappointment, despite two successful gate restorations under his belt and his ever-deepening mastery of the Space Laws, he found nothing here. Not a single trace of the World Gate's former existence could be detected.
Left with no choice, Yang Kai reached out to the Dharma Body within the Small World and opened the boundary aperture, using its power to scan the void. The result was the same—nothing at all.
It seemed there was truly nothing to be done. Yang Kai wasn't particularly disappointed; coming here had been a spur-of-the-moment decision, and he hadn't held high expectations. Since there was nothing to be gained, he might as well head back.
Just as he was about to leave, the Dharma Body suddenly transmitted a thought to him. Yang Kai's mind stirred. He immediately turned his attention to the Small World and raised an eyebrow.
There, right beside the Dharma Body, Gui Xu was bounding up and down. Its dark little eyes were fixed on the boundary aperture, seemingly able to peer through to the outside world, glinting with an excited light. Even its long tongue hung out of its mouth, slick with drool.
When Yang Kai had originally come to the Demon Realms, he had made a detour back to Lingxiao Palace specifically to bring Gui Xu along. However, he had left it inside the Small World this entire time without paying it any attention. He hadn't expected it to suddenly show such an unusual reaction.
Gui Xu was originally a strange beast of the Demon Realms, sustained by consuming demons and demonic energy. Could its current agitation mean it had sensed something?
Yang Kai's expression shifted slightly. He promptly released it from the Small World.
The moment it appeared, Gui Xu shot forward in a burst of excitement and vanished in the blink of an eye. A few breaths later, it came racing back from far in the distance, only to bolt out again. This happened again and again, yet its excitement never waned. It looked like a wanderer who had been away from home for years, finally returning, venting all the pent-up joy through this frenzied running.
Yang Kai watched with an amused, helpless smile. He had thought Gui Xu had discovered something, but it turned out the creature had simply caught the scent of the Demon Realm's atmosphere...
He didn't stop it. Though Gui Xu possessed only a trace of the true Gui Xu's bloodline and wasn't technically the real thing, the Demon Realm was, in a sense, its homeland.
He let it carry on for a while, and eventually Gui Xu calmed down somewhat. It returned to Yang Kai's side, circling around his feet. Then, at a certain moment, it suddenly stopped. Its nostrils flared, sniffing the air, and then it opened its massive jaws and snapped down hard at the empty void.
Yang Kai distinctly heard a crisp crack, and a pitch-black hole was bitten into the space right in front of him.
In that instant, Yang Kai was struck dumb. He stared at the hole, then looked down at the little creature at his feet, unable to come back to his senses for a long time.
He had long since grasped the various strange abilities Gui Xu possessed. Though it looked small and cute, it was in truth a terrifyingly fearsome beast—especially toward the Demon Race, against which it could truly be called their nemesis. It could swallow even Demon King-level powerhouses in a single gulp. The only ones it struggled with were Emperors. That much had been proven back when Feng Ming, despite having only a second-layer Emperor cultivation, had been swallowed by it yet still managed to escape.