The Star God Palace was overrun with demonic energy, saturated with malicious intent. This sacred ground of martial arts in the Southern Domain had now become a stretch of demonic land.
Inside a grand hall, a Half-Saint and over a dozen Demon Kings sat cross-legged, their faces twisted with the effort of resisting their afflictions.
These Half-Saints and Demon Kings had all sustained injuries in the battle several days ago, and without exception, every one of them had been wounded by Yang Kai. Strictly speaking, their injuries were not severe—the Half-Saint's wounds could even be considered negligible. This was the Blood Demon Half-Saint whom Yang Kai had previously slashed across the arm.
Yet after several days, the Blood Demon Half-Saint had discovered that his wound simply refused to heal. At the site of the cut, a strange and alien force was eroding his flesh. The wound, originally trivial, had not only failed to close but had grown considerably larger. What filled him with even greater despair was that the harder he tried to suppress it, the worse things became.
Xue Li stood before him, eyes lowered, one large hand resting on the Half-Saint's shoulder. The overwhelming aura of a Demon Saint radiated outward.
Suddenly, Xue Li's expression sharpened. He raised his hand, forming it into a claw, and drew inward toward the wound on the Blood Demon Half-Saint's arm. A jet of blood shot out from the gash and was drawn into his palm.
The blood arrow, once in his grasp, seemed to come alive—transforming into a blood-red serpent that writhed and burrowed toward the center of his palm.
Xue Li's face tightened in surprise, though he showed neither panic nor fear. He activated his demonic energy to envelop the blood serpent, suspending it above his hand.
Standing nearby, Fu Yu shot Xue Li a startled glance. Though his expression betrayed nothing, she knew this procedure had consumed an enormous amount of his energy. Deep within his eyes, she caught a faint trace of fatigue.
Just healing someone's wounds—could that really exhaust even Xue Li? What exactly were they dealing with? Fu Yu's expression grew solemn as she regarded him. "What's going on?"
Xue Li stared intently at the blood serpent writhing in his palm, careful never to make direct contact with it. His pupils contracted slightly as he spoke in a grave voice: "True Meaning!"
"True Meaning?" Fu Yu was stunned, as though she had heard something utterly impossible. Her voice rose involuntarily. "That boy has actually comprehended True Meaning? Are you certain you're not mistaken?"
Xue Li gave her a long, unhurried look and said nothing—but his silence was answer enough. Fu Yu knew Xue Li would never make an error on something like this. She drew in a sharp breath. "No wonder…"
She recalled the scene when Yang Kai had first appeared and clashed with the Stone Demon Half-Saint. There had been no visible display of overwhelming power, yet the Stone Demon Half-Saint had been slain on the spot. True, three young women had assisted, but their contribution had been minor—the one who truly decided the outcome of that battle was Yang Kai himself.
She had previously thought the Stone Demon Half-Saint was all bark and no bite, that he had possessed a Half-Saint's cultivation yet died at the hands of a mere Demon King. Worthless, she had concluded.
Now it seemed she had wronged the Stone Demon. It wasn't that the Stone Demon Half-Saint was incompetent—it was that Yang Kai had already comprehended True Meaning! This was a power that even Demon Saints both feared and yearned for, something even Xue Li dared not touch lightly, let alone a Half-Saint.
Corroded by True Meaning—how could one possibly survive?
"I missed my chance!" A cold gleam flashed through Xue Li's eyes, mingled with a trace of bitter regret. Had he known earlier that Yang Kai had comprehended True Meaning, he should have paid any price to kill him that day.
As he spoke, he raised his hand and flung the wriggling blood serpent outward. It vanished in the blink of an eye. Though this was only a wisp of True Meaning, it was far beyond his ability to refine. At best, he could extract this sliver of True Meaning from the wounded Blood Demon's body.
Moreover, he could sense that Yang Kai's True Meaning was still very faint. But a door had been opened. If Yang Kai were allowed to continue growing, there might come a day when he possessed the strength to kill them.
"That boy is merely at the Demon King realm—how could he possibly comprehend True Meaning?" Fu Yu's face had turned ashen. Something she herself, a Demon Saint, had failed to achieve had been accomplished by Yang Kai. Beneath her fury lay a deeper current of envy. If she could wield such power, the title of First Demon Saint would belong not to that wastrel Huang Wuji, but to her, the Feather Demon Fu Yu!
Xue Li narrowed his eyes slightly. "He vanished for three years and seems to have entered the Demon Domain. Before that, he possessed no such power. It appears he encountered some opportunity within the Demon Domain."
"The Demon Domain…" Fu Yu was taken aback. If the opportunity had presented itself in the Demon Domain, it should have been theirs for the taking. That it had instead benefited a human filled her with indignation.
"My Lord, save me!" A wailing cry from the side interrupted the two Demon Saints' conversation.
One of the Demon Kings could no longer endure the torment of the martial True Meaning ravaging his body and cried out for help. He had watched as Xue Li performed his procedure, after which the Blood Demon Half-Saint's pained expression had settled into calm. The Demon Saint clearly had the means and the power to relieve his suffering.
That strange force was running rampant at the wound site, continuously worsening the injury with no sign of improvement. No matter how high one's cultivation or how resilient one's body, nothing helped.
Xue Li walked up to the Demon King and placed a hand on his shoulder. The touch was light, seemingly meant as comfort—but the instant it landed, the Demon King dissolved into a puddle of thick blood.
A foul, putrid stench instantly filled the hall.
The remaining Demon Kings who had been waiting for treatment stared in open-mouthed horror. They never imagined that Xue Li, far from healing them, would strike to kill.
But before they could begin to process what had happened, they all simultaneously felt their expressions contort with agony. Each one felt the blood inside their bodies begin to boil.
The Demon Kings were seized with terror, crying out in unison: "My Lord!"