Time trickled by. The Law Body had sunk into the earth for several hours now, yet there was still no sign of activity. This furrowed Yang Kai's brow and filled him with quiet worry.
The Law Body's condition had clearly been on the verge of a breakthrough before, so why had there been not a single stir all this time? The blurring of his spiritual perception prevented him from precisely gauging the Law Body's current state, which only made him more anxious.
Without warning, the heavens and earth shuddered. A faint, almost imperceptible wave of vibration rippled through the void, radiating outward toward the four cardinal directions.
Yang Kai's expression sharpened. He turned his head, scanning his surroundings, and keenly sensed that the ambient energy between heaven and earth had undergone a subtle shift. Moments ago the entire world had felt frozen in place, but now that stillness was slowly beginning to flow, as though an invisible hand were gradually stirring the wind and clouds.
Dong...
A deep, heavy sound echoed up from the depths of the earth—like a powerful heartbeat, or as though someone far below, ten thousand zhang down, were beating a war drum of charge.
With each peal, the coursing energy surged faster, and in the blink of an eye the world's wind and clouds transformed violently.
Howling gales roared in his ears as a torrent of energy converged from every direction, pouring toward a single point deep underground.
Dong, dong, dong...
Successive muffled booms rang out one after another. The heartbeat-like anomaly gave the impression that the entire world was coming alive—even the distant mountain ranges undulating like dragons seemed to rise and fall, as if the earth itself were drawing breath.
The gathering heaven-and-earth energy grew ever more abundant, ever more dense, all of it plunging underground and vanishing without a trace. Below the surface lay something like a black hole that devoured all things; no matter how much energy poured in, it was swallowed clean.
Amid the raging wind, Zhui Feng—the speed horse—neighed and stamped, restless and agitated. Yang Kai stood still as a mountain, his gaze piercing through the void, seeing straight through the earth.
Deep below, a mighty aura was slowly growing stronger, like a great dragon stirring from slumber.
Such an astonishing celestial phenomenon naturally alarmed the nearby members of the Demon Race. They rushed over to investigate, but an invisible force barred them all, preventing anyone from approaching within a thousand li. The Law Body was the master of the Cloud Shadow Continent, and leveraging that status to accomplish something like this was no difficult feat.
The Law Body's aura grew ever more powerful. Even without actively focusing his senses, Yang Kai could perceive it clearly. Then, at a certain moment, the escalation abruptly stopped—as though it had hit some kind of limit. Not only did the aura fail to grow stronger, it actually dipped slightly.
Yang Kai, who had been monitoring the Law Body's every movement, felt his face darken.
He knew the Law Body had run into trouble. Breaking through to the Half-Saint realm was no simple matter. Even in the Demon Domain, where things like the Myriad Demon Pills existed, Half-Saint-level powerhouses remained few and far between. It was not a lack of accumulated strength that held them back, but the bottleneck of personal comprehension. Without surmounting that barrier, one could never reach the next tier.
Fortunately, before long, the flagging aura surged once more, climbing back toward its former peak. But the situation was almost identical to before—once the aura reached its apex, it could push no further, and it plummeted back down.
Yang Kai's expression grew even grimmer.
There was an old saying: first the spirit rises, then it wanes, then it is exhausted. Power could be accumulated through the patience of dripping water wearing through stone, grains of sand piling into a dune, but when a breakthrough dragged on too long, the chances of success only diminished.
Moreover... there was something strange about this particular attempt. He had not witnessed the familiar baptism of heaven-and-earth energy. He was unsure whether this was because they were in the Demon Domain, where the natural laws differed from those of the Star Boundary, or whether some other factor was responsible.
What he could confirm was that the Law Body was indeed in a state of breakthrough.
This left Yang Kai somewhat worried. He had been stuck at the Second-Order Emperor realm for a long time now, and it could be only a matter of time before he attempted the Third-Order breakthrough. If the differing laws of two great worlds caused problems at that juncture, what then? And if there was no baptism of heaven-and-earth energy to accompany it, what would happen?
Worrying about it now was admittedly premature—perhaps the Law Body's advancement would offer him some insight.
Over the next several days, the Law Body maintained its previous pattern. The aura rising from underground oscillated endlessly between swelling and receding. This peculiar cycle left Yang Kai utterly unable to determine what was going on. Logically, if a breakthrough had not been completed after such a long period, the Law Body should have already failed. And the cost of failure would be either a regression in cultivation or the utter annihilation of body and Dao—there was no other possibility.
Yet in Yang Kai's perception, the Law Body was not in any kind of danger. On the contrary, it gave him the sensation of having fused with the entire Cloud Shadow Continent, as if it were peacefully slumbering. The fluctuations in its aura were nothing more than the rhythm of its breathing.
Such a prolonged anomaly naturally drew the attention of the many Demon Lords across Cloud Shadow. Yin, Lao Ke, Ke Sen, and the others all arrived to investigate, only to be halted a thousand li out. Fortunately, Yang Kai sensed their approach and reached out to them proactively, which set their minds considerably at ease.