"Yang Kai, Yang Kai, are you still alive?" Inside the Small World, Bo Ya's voice was panicked. She had been chatting with Yang Kai just fine when the reflected image suddenly shattered—it was obvious he had been hit by some kind of attack.
She had been trying to contact him ever since, but got no response. An uneasy thought crept in—could Yang Kai be dead? If he died, she would be trapped in the Small World forever. Though the Small World wasn't bad these days, it couldn't compare to the vast splendor of the outside world.
"I'm not dead yet, stop yelling," Yang Kai replied.
Bo Ya cursed him. "You're not dead and you ignore people." After a pause, she asked uneasily, "What just happened?"
"Nothing much." Yang Kai brushed it off. "Ran into a rather interesting fellow." He'd even been called a good person and given a treasure.
Bo Ya was stunned. She had caught a fleeting glimpse of that vast starry expanse earlier—who could one possibly run into in a place like that? Unfortunately, no matter how she pressed, Yang Kai refused to say another word, nearly driving her to grit her teeth to pieces.
Yang Kai turned around, slung the Azure Dragon Spear across both shoulders, and rested his hands on either end of the shaft. His hundred-zhang dragon body rapidly shrank, reverting to human form. As his size changed, the enormous Azure Dragon Spear adjusted itself accordingly, and by the time Yang Kai's figure stabilized, the spear had shrunk to a mere twelve feet in length.
He strode forward, his figure flickering in and out of existence—each step covering a thousand li. His gaze fixed on the horizon ahead, unwavering—that direction should be where the Star Boundary lay.
Ever since escaping from the rift between the voids, Yang Kai had felt a mysterious force drawing him onward. At the time, he hadn't had a chance to investigate before A Da's breath had blown him away. Now, thinking back, that pull—that invisible guide—could only be the spiritual resonance of the Star Boundary itself.
After all, he still carried the acknowledgment of that world's Heavenly Will. To him, the Star Boundary was his homeland, his roots. No matter how far he traveled, that tenuous, almost imperceptible connection could never be severed.
…
Southern Domain, before the Star God Palace. Tens of millions of soldiers clashed—humans against demons. The once-beautiful mountains and rivers lay ravaged, the wilderness withered and barren, demonic energy running rampant.
Several years ago, the Second War of Two Realms had erupted when ten Demon Saints descended upon the Star Boundary without warning. Following their arrival, 108 rifts between the two realms opened across the Star Boundary. The areas surrounding each rift transformed into demonic territory, tearing apart countless families, leaving people destitute and homeless.
In the beginning, the Star Boundary had the upper hand, thanks to their Spatial Arrays and the World Beads Yang Kai had refined. They moved like the wind, slaying demons and sweeping through 98 of the demonic lairs, leaving only the ten largest ones—the same lairs where the Demon Saints and Great Emperors had once clashed.
The demons placed immense importance on these ten great lairs. Not only did they garrison them with heavy forces, but they also poured enormous resources and manpower into constructing an unknown type of Demon Tower within each one.
When the towers were first built, no one paid them much attention. But once they reached a certain height, the Star Boundary finally realized what these strange structures were for.
Ten great Demon Lairs, ten Demon Towers, all interconnected—they functioned exactly like a Spatial Array. The demon army could now shuttle rapidly between the ten major lairs.
From that point on, the mobility advantage the Star Boundary's forces had enjoyed vanished completely.
The Demon Towers continued to rise, day and night, without pause. At every hour, countless demons labored upon and around the towers, adding height little by little. By now, all ten towers had reached a height of a thousand zhang.
No one knew how they were constructed, but they were incredibly resilient. Back in the Northern Domain at Canglang City, Yang Xiao and Yang Xue had crashed the Temple of Time into one of the towers twice, and both times it had been for naught. On the third attempt, the Feather Demon Saint Fu Yu had teleported in and repelled the Temple of Time with a single arrow, dealing Yang Xiao and Yang Xue a severe blow.
As the Demon Towers continued to grow taller, the ten great Demon Lairs expanded more than tenfold in area. Viewed from high above, they looked like ten malignant tumors on the body of the Star Boundary—oozing pus, rotting flesh, ceaselessly corroding the healthy land around them.
One couldn't help but wonder: if the towers kept rising, would the entire Star Boundary eventually fall, transforming into demonic territory? That was likely exactly what the demons had planned.
With the ten great lairs and ten towers serving as barriers, reinforced by three demonic Half-Saints holding the fort, the demons sat back in perfect confidence. For years they had remained holed up inside the lairs. The Star Boundary's forces launched several campaigns, but all ended in failure—though they killed many demons, their own casualties were significant.
Originally, everyone had pinned their hopes on Yang Kai, expecting him to locate the missing Great Emperors within the Demon Realm. But Yang Kai had been gone for three years without a single word. Everyone realized then that something must have changed in the Demon Realm—the Great Emperors were likely no longer there, otherwise Yang Kai would have sent back some news.
The Star Boundary could now rely only on the Dragon Clan's two Elders to hold the line, but there were only two of them, while the demons had three Demon Saints.
Since both sides now possessed teleportation methods, surprise attacks were out of the question. All that could be compared was patience, resolve, and raw strength.
And today, after years of quiet, the demons finally launched their first major assault—and their target was the Star God Palace.