In an instant, Yang Kai felt a layer of flesh and blood torn from his back—the sheer ferocity of that gale was terrifying—and the violent currents swept up his body, hurling him far away.
His form spun beyond his control, tumbling helplessly through the wind, horror etched across Yang Kai's face.
His cultivation had already reached the peak Demon King realm, and after gaining opportunities in the ancient battlefield and cultivating for decades, he could hold his own even against False Emperors and half-Saints. Yet here, in this bizarre starfield, a single blast of wild wind had rendered him completely powerless.
As the gale raged on, that droning sound continued without cease—like thunderclaps that made Yang Kai's vision burst with stars.
He forced himself to steady his mind and unleashed a dragon transformation roar. His body swelled rapidly, transforming into a hundred-zhang half-dragon form.
During his decades of painstaking cultivation in the ancient battlefield, Yang Kai had absorbed not only the martial dao true essence of the Time Emperor and the Great Demon God—those two extraordinary forces had continuously tempered his physical body. Moreover, he had maintained his half-dragon form throughout his time in the battlefield, which had unknowingly tempered and strengthened it enormously, awakening much of the Golden Sacred Dragon's origin power within him.
His half-dragon body now stood over a hundred zhang tall! Such a height was enough to make every dragon on Dragon Island crane their necks upward.
Clinking and clanging rang out as the wind-blades scraped across his dragon scales, producing the din of clashing metal and sending sparks flying in every direction.
Yet even in dragon form, Yang Kai still couldn't fully stabilize himself. His body remained somewhat beyond his control—slightly better than before, but only marginally so.
What exactly was that wind?
Yang Kai gritted his teeth and looked back, trying to find the source. But one glance left him utterly dumbfounded, his eyelids twitching uncontrollably.
He could hardly believe his eyes. He blinked hard, only to confirm he hadn't been mistaken.
Lying across the void behind him was a giant of unknowable height, reclining like an undulating mountain range. Yang Kai's hundred-zhang dragon form was nothing more than the difference between an infant and a house by comparison.
The giant's features looked no different from an ordinary person's, only magnified countless times.
And that droning thunder—it was no thunder at all, but the sound of the giant snoring. The flesh-scraping, bone-gouging wind was nothing more than the air blasting from his nostrils and mouth.
One glance, and the words "overwhelming grandeur" rose involuntarily in Yang Kai's mind.
What the hell was this thing? Yang Kai's thoughts were in complete disarray, nearly convinced he was trapped in a dream.
The fierce gale had blown Yang Kai thousands of li before gradually subsiding, and the deafening snoring ceased in the same instant.
Yang Kai's expression was utterly wretched. He felt as though he'd just fought a desperate life-and-death battle, exhaustion permeating every inch of his body. Especially where the gale had scraped his back—even his dragon scales seemed to have thinned considerably.
The mere act of sleeping and snoring carried such devastating power. What would it be like if he actually fought? Yang Kai feared even the Star Realm couldn't withstand more than a few of his blows.
The giant before him had surpassed the limits of Yang Kai's imagination, leaving his mind in turmoil.
Without warning, a tremendous sense of crisis enveloped him. After a brief moment of contemplation, his expression changed drastically and he hissed, "This is bad!"
The laws of space surged as he prepared to leave at once.
A sleeping person naturally inhales after exhaling. If the giant's exhalation had been so world-destroying, what would his inhalation look like? Regardless of what it entailed, Yang Kai had no desire to find out—he was simply far too close.
But by the time Yang Kai sensed the danger and tried to teleport away, it was already too late.
The giant reclining between heaven and earth inhaled indeed. With a single breath, like a great whale drawing in water, everything within tens of thousands of li was pulled toward him.
Even space itself solidified under the force.
Yang Kai's fading silhouette solidified once more, and with horror beyond description, he was helplessly drawn toward the giant.
When the giant had exhaled, he'd been blown thousands of li away. Now, with a single inhalation, he was pulled right back. Watching helplessly as he drew ever closer to the giant's gaping maw, about to be swallowed whole—Yang Kai didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
He'd barely managed to escape from the rift in the void, hadn't even found the Star Realm yet, and now he was about to be swallowed by some incomprehensible giant. This manner of death was truly pathetic.
He didn't know what would happen if he was swallowed, but he was fairly certain it wouldn't be pleasant.
In this moment between life and death, Yang Kai opened his mouth and roared—dragon cries rolling outward, shaking the heavens. At the same time, his hundred-zhang dragon body twisted with all its might. In the narrowest of windows, he shot out of the giant's mouth, rode the wind into one of the giant's enormous nostrils, grabbed a nose hair thicker than a mountain peak, swung himself onto the fleshy wall beside it, and threw a vicious punch.
Smash!