Having retracted his Dharma Avatar, Yang Kai turned his gaze in another direction. Two figures were hurtling toward him through the starry sky, moving at extraordinary speed. At first they were nothing but two tiny black dots, but within a few breaths they had grown to the size of broad beans, and moments later they alighted before Yang Kai.
They were none other than the two Demon Clan Half-Saints who had gone out earlier to take in the sights of the Star Domain.
Yang Kai smiled at the pair. "How were the sights?"
Bai Zhuo gave a slight nod. "Magnificent and awe-inspiring."
Bo Ya picked up right where he left off. "Grand and awe-inspiring!"
Both Demon Clan Half-Saints wore expressions of wonder, lingering reluctance plain on their faces — they looked as though they wished they could settle down right then and there in the Star Domain, never to return to that lifeless Demon World.
Yang Kai nodded and spoke frankly. "Got struck by lightning, didn't you?"
Bo Ya let out a defiant laugh. "We are Demon Clan Half-Saints — we command the sun and moon, shatter stars with our fists. What lightning would dare strike us?"
The words had barely left his mouth when a bolt of purple lightning flashed into being in the void, darting like a swimming fish straight toward Bo Ya's back. As a Demon Clan Half-Saint, Bo Ya's reaction was naturally swift despite the killing intent arriving in utter silence. He spun around and threw a punch that connected squarely with the lightning.
A deafening crack echoed out as the lightning was annihilated, and Bo Ya stumbled back several steps! It wasn't that Bo Ya was lacking — under the suppression of the world's laws, he simply could not unleash too much of his power. If he forced it, the backlash from this Star Domain would only become more frenzied.
Purple light flickered erratically in the void as the Star Lightning appeared and vanished unpredictably, ready to strike again at any moment.
Bai Zhuo twitched his nose and let out a rueful laugh. "Brother Yang, the Small World is far more comfortable. We don't seem suited to showing our faces in this realm."
Yang Kai burst out laughing and hurriedly tucking both Demon Clan Half-Saints back into the Small World. He recalled how, when he had first returned to the Star Domain from the Star Boundary, his own run of bad luck had been legendary — tripping over his own feet was the least of it, and getting struck by lightning had become routine. Seeing others suffer the same misfortune, Yang Kai couldn't help but feel a twinge of schadenfreude.
The lightning of the Star Boundary probably wouldn't do anything truly devastating to a Demon Clan Half-Saint, but the sheer nuisance of it was undeniable. There was no way they could focus on appreciating the scenery of the Star Domain with that hanging over their heads, so they naturally chose to retreat and hide away for some peace and quiet.
Having stowed the two Half-Saints, Yang Kai settled his mind once more and immersed himself in his grand project of refinement.
Days turned into one another. The meteorite sea pressed ceaselessly forward, as if sliding toward the very edge of the stars. Yet as time flowed on, the colossal meteorites within the sea grew fewer and fewer, while the number of stone beads in Yang Kai's possession steadily increased.
Not every attempt was a success. Once a refinement failed, no matter how massive the meteorite, it would instantly shatter into fine powder — the crushing force of the spatial laws was simply more than these celestial bodies could withstand.
In the blink of an eye, three years had passed. Over those three years, Yang Kai's mastery of the spatial laws had deepened considerably. Three years of creating worlds and refining heavens had yielded greater gains than years of ordinary Cultivation, for this endeavor was itself a direct pursuit of the essence of spatial law — a process of self-transcendence through Cultivation.
Refining meteorites no longer required the same backbreaking effort as before. With a mere flicker of thought, a small world could take initial shape.
No meteorite was large enough to satisfy his needs any longer. He left the meteorite sea and traveled through the Star Domain, descending upon any suitable dead planet he encountered. He would burrow into the planet's core, fall into slumber, and when he woke, the dead star had been reduced to a single stone bead.
His progress in the spatial laws advanced by leaps and bounds. He could feel a great door swinging open along his Grand Dao, within it a blinding radiance of golden light and untold treasures awaiting excavation.
His periods of slumber varied in length — sometimes a year or more, sometimes only three to five months, depending on the size of the dead star. Larger stars meant greater difficulty and longer refinement times; smaller ones were easier.
Contact with the Star Boundary had not been severed. Though he resided in a lower-plane Star Domain, Yang Kai was its master, and that came with advantages no one else possessed. Combined with something like the Void Spirit Pearl, he could establish contact with the Celestial Shadow Palace or the Seven Mist Sea at any time and from any place.
The situation in the Star Boundary was overwhelmingly favorable. The demons had no power to resist.
It could be said that ever since Yang Kai had returned from the Demon World and sealed the passage between the two realms, the outcome of this war had been predetermined. The demons who had invaded the Star Boundary were either slain on the battlefield or conscripted into the Demon Suppression Army led by Changtian, Yu Rumeng, and Bei Limo. Their strength had plummeted, and under the siege of fifty-four legions, a single grand battle had already tipped the scales of victory beyond doubt.
The Star Boundary had suffered its share of casualties as well, but in war, such things were unavoidable. The legion commanders understood this well, and the numbers lost remained within an acceptable range.
It wasn't only the demons who had taken heavy losses — the Demon Heaven Dao had paid a steep price as well. Feng Jun had been handed over to Yang Yan by Yang Kai the day before, and falling into her hands was no different from falling into a Great Emperor's custody.
There had been no need for interrogation. Emperor Youhun had simply subjected Feng Jun to a soul-searching technique and extracted a wealth of intelligence on the Demon Heaven Dao's hidden operations. Armed with that intelligence, the Seven Mist Sea had dismantled hundreds of Demon Heaven Dao strongholds, large and small. They had also claimed the life of yet another Demon Heaven Dao general — following in Feng Jun's footsteps, Huo Jun had walked into an ambush laid by the Seven Mist Sea in an unremarkable small town in the Star Boundary's northern territories. Li Wuyi had personally led the operation, backed by over a dozen Pseudo-Emperors under his command. Huo Jun was no weakling, but even with wings, he could not have escaped.
The unfortunate part was that they had failed to capture him alive. In the desperate fight that followed, Huo Jun had detonated himself, leaving the Seven Mist Sea's forces covered in dust and debris. Fortunately, no serious casualties had resulted.
The situation was overwhelmingly positive, but the war between the two realms was far from over. The day the demons broke through the seal, a fiercer wave of warfare would erupt — and when that time came, it would engulf every corner of both realms.