When Yang Kai opened his eyes once more, the first thing he saw was Su Yan's worried and anxious gaze. He stared blankly for a moment. "Senior Sister?" He had no recollection of what had just happened.
Su Yan fussed over him with a flurry of questions and gentle concern. Only after confirming that Yang Kai was perfectly fine did she finally relax.
Yang Kai's brow was deeply furrowed, his heart still heavy. Seeing this, Su Yan asked, "Is something still hurting?"
Yang Kai shook his head slowly. "I can't explain it. I have a feeling… the Great Emperors' situation seems dire." He had no idea where the Great Emperors even were, yet he could vaguely sense their current state—as if, somewhere in the unseen fabric between them, a tenuous connection had formed, one that gave him a hazy awareness of their condition.
"You don't remember what happened just now?" Luan Feng asked from the side.
Yang Kai looked up at her and slowly shook his head.
Luan Feng's delicate brows knit together, and she recounted everything she had witnessed and heard.
"Heavenly secrets shift, the Grand Cosmos appears?" Yang Kai looked bewildered. "I said that?"
Su Yan and Luan Feng nodded in unison, confirming it.
Yang Kai was startled. He had absolutely no memory of uttering those words. Now that Luan Feng brought them up, he couldn't make heads or tails of them—he had no idea what those six characters were supposed to mean.
While he was lost in thought, the world and sky suddenly began to tremble. A tremendous hum resonated from deep within the heavens, startling Yang Kai. He hurriedly looked up but saw nothing.
The hum sounded like the moan of heaven and earth itself, persisting for a full incense stick's worth of time before finally fading.
Luan Feng was equally perplexed. "What just happened?"
Who could say?
At that moment, a ripple of spatial energy suddenly fluctuated, and a jade slip materialized out of thin air before them. Li Wuyi's aura emanated from within—clearly, it had been sent by him.
Yang Kai reached out and seized it, immersing his spiritual sense inside. After a brief examination, his expression darkened.
"What is it?" Luan Feng asked.
"The Demon Earth is expanding," Yang Kai said gravely.
Luan Feng frowned. "The Demon Earth has always been expanding." Ever since the one hundred and eight patches of Demon Earth had appeared in the Star Boundary, that corrupted land had never stopped spreading outward. It seemed to possess an extremely aggressive infectious quality, constantly encroaching on the surrounding terrain. Of the ten major Demon Caverns, the ones at their locations were the worst. The reason Star God Palace had previously fallen wasn't that the Star Boundary's armies were inferior to the Demon Race—it was that the entirety of Star God Palace had been corroded by the Demon Earth, becoming part of it.
Within that Demon Earth, the Demon Race thrived like fish in water, while the Star Boundary's cultivators found themselves constrained everywhere. With one side growing stronger and the other weaker, the Star Boundary's forces were naturally at a disadvantage. Besides, once Star God Palace had been corrupted, holding it was pointless—it would only add to the casualties.
"This time is different. The speed of expansion is much faster than before."
"How fast?" Luan Feng's expression turned grave.
"I don't know yet. We'll see for ourselves." The message had come from Li Wuyi. Apparently, the major Demon Caverns in the Eastern, Southern, and Western Domains all showed similar signs, and he wanted Yang Kai to investigate the situation at the Northern Domain's Demon Cavern. As he spoke, he activated the Space Laws, enveloping Su Yan and Luan Feng, and the three vanished from where they stood.
In a flicker, tens of thousands of miles of terrain raced beneath their feet.
Within roughly an incense stick's worth of time, the trio arrived near one of the major Demon Caverns.
From high above, looking down, Yang Kai's face was ashen. Visible to the naked eye, the Demon Cavern below was expanding outward in all directions at an uncontrollable, frenzied pace—covering dozens of miles in the blink of an eye. The sheer speed of the expansion was nothing short of horrifying.
Even Luan Feng couldn't help but cover her crimson lips with a delicate hand, her beautiful eyes wide with terror.
There was no need for comparison. In the past, the Demon Caverns had indeed been growing, but the rate had never been particularly fast. Now, however, the speed had increased by more than a hundredfold.
If this rate continued, the entire Star Boundary would likely be reduced to Demon Earth within a year or two. When that happened, this once magnificent realm would have no place left for the billions of human cultivators to stand. They would all be consumed by demonic corruption and reduced to demonic creatures.
Looking out over the land and the sky, countless birds and beasts were fleeing for their lives. They possessed an innate instinct for danger, and as the Demon Earth spread toward them, that primal awareness drove them to flee from the source of the peril.
But how could their speed possibly match the advancing Demon Earth? The pitch-black corruption surging from behind swallowed them in an instant. Under the influence of the demonic energy, these normally docile and gentle creatures immediately went mad with rage, tearing into one another without restraint.
It wasn't just the animals. Deep in the mountains and wilderness, many humans were fleeing as well.
Though the Second War Between the Realms had been raging for years and all four domains of the Star Boundary were beset by the Demon Race, and any martial artist with a shred of courage and sense of duty had enlisted to fight on the front lines, there were still those who clung to the hope of self-preservation. They hid themselves in remote mountains and wilderness, praying that the Star Boundary's armies would drive out the Demon Race and restore their homes.