That day, Yang Kai was refining the World Pillar, his mind immersed in the profound mysteries of the Space Laws, when his expression shifted slightly. He let out a soft murmur of surprise, a peculiar look crossing his face.
Something seemed off within the Small Sealed World.
Without moving his body, he dispatched a wisp of his consciousness into the Small Sealed World, pinpointed the source of the anomaly, and manifested his spiritual body there.
It was an enormous continental fragment—something that Guogun must have swallowed in. And it had only just been absorbed.
Normally, continental fragments devoured by Guogun would quickly dissolve between heaven and earth, enriching the Third Domain. But this particular fragment seemed to be something out of the ordinary. Even with Guogun's power, it could not be fully assimilated, and the fragment remained intact on the surface instead.
The fragment spanned roughly a hundred thousand li in diameter—no small piece, by any measure. Judging from its appearance, it had likely been buried deep underground somewhere, hidden from view, and after being swallowed, its outer layers had dissolved while the interior had been preserved.
This hundred-thousand-li stretch of land was saturated with a Law that filled Yang Kai with both familiarity and shock.
He didn't even need to examine it closely to recognize it—the Law of Time.
It was precisely because of the power of the Time Law suffusing and shielding it that this continental fragment had survived intact beneath the Small Sealed World's assimilation.
Yang Kai was utterly astonished.
This fragment was a piece of the Demon Domain continent. How could it be saturated with the Law of Time? And across such an enormous area, no less. What astounded him even further was that the aura of this Time Law was identical to what he had sensed inside the Temple of Time.
A thought struck him—could this Time Law have been left behind by the Emperor of Time? If so, it meant that the Emperor of Time had once come to the Demon Domain.
He couldn't help recalling what Qiongqi had once told him: that while the Emperor of Time was in seclusion within the Temple, he had suddenly perceived a profound truth beyond the bounds of the universe. He had set off to roam the cosmos, and never returned. Only his personal treasure, the Hourglass of Endless Sand, had made its way back to the Temple.
The Emperor of Time had undoubtedly encountered some powerful enemy and met with disaster.
Could it be that when the Emperor of Time had departed the Temple, he had come to the Demon Domain? Here, he had faced a formidable foe, and a titanic battle had ensued—and this place was the battlefield of that ancient war. Otherwise, how could there be such dense remnants of the Time Law?
It was only a guess, though—he couldn't be certain. After all, it had been tens of thousands of years ago. Who could say for sure? The seas had turned to fields, and the clouds had shifted like the grey of a dog's back. The Demon Domain had fractured, this battlefield had been buried deep underground, unseen by anyone, and preserved all this time.
If Yang Kai hadn't ordered Guogun to devour the Demon Domain's continental landmass, this battlefield—buried who knew how many li beneath the surface—might never have seen the light of day again.
Was it truly the Emperor of Time?
Yang Kai pondered for a moment, then stepped forward toward the ancient battlefield. He had spent time within the Temple of Time himself and was intimately familiar with the residual aura of the Emperor of Time's power. Whether or not the Time Law here had been left by the Emperor of Time—all he needed to do was step inside and sense it for himself.
Standing outside the ancient battlefield, he hadn't noticed much. But the moment Yang Kai set foot within it, he was struck by a sensation of his thoughts grinding to a halt. Not only did his thoughts freeze—even everything around him seemed to slow to a crawl.
He knew this was the influence of the Time Law. He immediately surged his divine sense outward to shield himself, barely managing to break free.
He pressed onward. The deeper he went, the denser the surrounding Time Law became. After advancing only a hundred zhang, Yang Kai found himself virtually immobilized—not because of any physical restraint, but because the signals from his mind to his body were being infinitely delayed. A thought would form, and only after a considerable pause would his body respond.
He couldn't help but be horrified by the terrifying power of this force. After so many millennia, it still retained such residual might—what must it have been like at its peak? But now Yang Kai could confirm one thing: the power of the Emperor of Time here was indeed his legacy. In other words, when the Emperor of Time had departed the Temple, he had truly entered the Demon Domain, fought a devastating battle against an unknown powerhouse, and finally left gravely wounded.
Yet before he could return to the Temple, the Emperor of Time had succumbed to his injuries. The Great Emperor perished, the Hourglass of Endless Sand returned to the Temple on its own, and the Emperor's corpse fell into the Eastern Sea. Over the countless years that followed, his remains had scattered across the waters, eventually coming into the possession of various sea-dwelling demon races.
These thoughts flashed through Yang Kai's mind in rapid succession, but there was no way to verify any of them.
Then a sudden, wild notion struck him: could the shattering of the Demon Domain into separate continental fragments be connected to this ancient battle? Perhaps. Perhaps not. Who could say for sure?
He pushed down his churning thoughts and continued advancing step by step, moving at an agonizingly slow pace. Every movement felt like that of a clumsy marionette, the Time Law washing over his soul and filling him with the uncanny sensation that a single day felt like a year.
The initial hundred zhang had taken him an entire day. The next hundred zhang consumed more than ten days. And when he reached this point, Yang Kai's expression suddenly changed.
Within this ancient battlefield, there was yet another force—one that was entangled with the residual Time Law in an inextricable struggle. He hadn't noticed it before because he had been at the perimeter, but now that he had ventured further in, he sensed it immediately.
Tens of thousands of years ago, two supreme beings had clashed here. One Great Emperor had fallen. What had become of his enemy was unknown. But the lingering auras of both combatants had been locked in confrontation ever since, even now, with neither side gaining the upper hand.
Before Yang Kai's arrival, it hadn't necessarily mattered. These two forces had been rampaging through this ancient battlefield for ages, forming a strange equilibrium of their own.