Meanwhile, Yang Kai had already activated his spatial abilities. With a few flickers, he arrived silently a thousand li away. Though Boya and Tuchaluobaza's lives were entirely in his hands, and there should have been no risk of any secrets leaking, he still had to be cautious. He didn't intend to let those three learn of his plans to travel to the Zhoutian Continent—leaving them behind was nothing more than a feint.
After all this preparation, the moment of truth was finally at hand, and even Yang Kai couldn't help feeling a knot of unease. He had no way of knowing whether Emperor Mingyue was actually trapped in the Zhoutian Continent.
According to the intelligence he'd gathered, it was highly likely that Emperor Mingyue had fallen within the Zhoutian Continent. After all, a continent's World Gates didn't just vanish—three of them, no less—without some cataclysmic event. And a clash between a Great Emperor and a Demon Saint was more than enough to reshape the landscape of an entire continent.
In less than half an hour, Yang Kai had reached a plateau. Along the way, he'd carefully avoided the native Demons of this continent. Once he arrived, he immediately surged his Divine Sense outward, pushing his perception to its absolute limit.
There had been a World Gate here—one that connected directly to the Zhoutian Continent. It was one of the three gates that had disappeared, but it hadn't been gone long, so if he'd found the right spot, traces of its former presence should still be detectable.
Things were going rather smoothly. After less than the time it took to burn a stick of incense, Yang Kai had already detected the residual aura of the World Gate. He soared ten thousand zhang into the sky, let the Laws of Space ripple around him, then plunged both hands into the void. Drawing a deep breath, he tore violently outward.
Like fabric being ripped apart, a crack immediately appeared in the void—just wide enough for a person to slip through.
Yang Kai glanced left and right, then flashed forward and plunged headfirst through the rift.
Before he had even adjusted to the new scenery before him, he simultaneously activated the Void Secret Art, exiling his body into the void while suppressing every trace of his vitality, spirit, and soul. Not a shred of his aura leaked out.
But it didn't take long for him to realize he'd been overly nervous.
There was no trace of any living being here—at least none within the range of his Divine Sense. He'd originally guessed that if Emperor Mingyue was truly trapped in the Zhoutian Continent, this place would be heavily fortified. Yet here he was, staring at nothing but emptiness.
Such a state of affairs meant either his guess had been wrong, or Emperor Mingyue had fallen somewhere deeper, and the Demons here had no need to station defenses.
But regardless of which possibility it was, now that Yang Kai had made it to the Zhoutian Continent, he had to get to the bottom of it.
He glanced back at the rift he had torn open. It was healing at an astonishing rate—in no time at all, it would close completely.
He couldn't afford to wait for it to seal shut. Yang Kai briefly oriented himself, picked a direction at random, and flew low across the landscape.
He didn't dare fly too high, lest someone spot him. He didn't dare fly too fast either, and he had to actively suppress his aura the entire time. Naturally, this made his reconnaissance painfully slow.
A full hour passed, and Yang Kai still hadn't seen a single living soul. He couldn't help finding it strange—where had all the Demons of the Zhoutian Continent gone?
Yet this bizarre situation actually gave him more confidence that Mingyue was indeed here.
A Great Emperor trapped in this land, fighting with the ferocity of a cornered beast—there would be no safe place left on the entire continent. The Demons would have evacuated well in advance.
Another half hour later, Yang Kai finally made a discovery.
Not of Demons, but of the aftermath of a great battle. The earth below was a ruin—mountains toppled, rivers flowing backward. Everywhere he looked, the marks of devastating power were evident. Fissures tens of thousands of zhang deep and stretching for untold miles crisscrossed the terrain like the jagged, unhealing scars left between heaven and earth. Chaotic Law energy churned ceaselessly around these wounds, and even from a distance, the spine-chilling aura they radiated made Yang Kai's heart tremble.
In the void above, spatial rifts that could never be repaired stretched across the sky, weaving heaven and earth into a net of slaughter. Anyone who dared trespass within would certainly die without even a grave to call their own.
These spatial rifts were nothing like the clean tear Yang Kai had created. They followed no pattern whatsoever—some were long and narrow, some roughly circular, and others shaped like funnels. But every single one radiated destructive Laws of the highest order, like venom festering in an open wound, preventing the world from healing itself.
The cause of this devastation was obvious: a supremely powerful being had shattered the very void. And the kind of power capable of producing such an effect could only belong to a Great Emperor or a Demon Saint.
Emperor Mingyue was here!
Gazing upon the scene before him, Yang Kai could at last confirm that his earlier suspicions had been correct.
The Zhoutian Continent was undeniably the battlefield where a Great Emperor had clashed with the Demon Saints. Otherwise, the mountains and rivers wouldn't bear such terrifying scars. And this place—this desolate, ravaged wasteland—was very likely where Emperor Mingyue had first engaged those Demon Saints!
Yang Kai raised his head sharply, his deep gaze piercing through hundreds of millions of miles, trying to see into the very heart of the battlefield.
Without a moment's hesitation, he flashed forward and flew deeper in.