One moment the surroundings had been pleasant and scenic; the next, they had plunged headlong into a dense fog. Not even a hand's length was visible before one's face, the transformation so abrupt it left them completely caught off guard.
Yang Kai startled and immediately halted, twisting his head toward the direction Bing Yun had been. "Senior?"
Though he couldn't see a single silhouette, Bing Yun's voice came through clearly: "I'm here!"
Yang Kai quietly exhaled in relief. Judging from the direction of her voice, Bing Yun stood no more than three chi away, yet beneath the thick fog he couldn't even make out her outline. What was worse, the mist seemed to possess the effect of blocking spiritual sense. Yang Kai's spiritual perception—far surpassing that of a half-sage pseudo-emperor—surged outward but was suppressed close to his body by the fog, unable to advance even an inch.
If it was like that for him, it was even worse for Bing Yun.
With physical sight useless and spiritual sense sealed, they were effectively blind in this eerie place.
"Was it like this here before?" Yang Kai asked, his voice tight with concentration.
Bing Yun replied, "No. There was nothing unusual here previously. Perhaps Yang Yan triggered something while working to break the formation."
Yang Kai nodded. That explanation was perfectly reasonable. The two of them had come here to rendezvous with Yang Yan and check on her progress in dismantling the natural grand formation. But it seemed the situation wasn't looking too optimistic. They had arrived, found no sign of Yang Yan, found nothing of the wooden pool from before—only this strange, oppressive fog.
In this bizarre environment, Yang Kai was on extreme alert. "Senior, be careful. If you discover anything at all, call out to me immediately."
"I know. You watch yourself too!" Bing Yun's voice came back.
The two kept talking as they pressed deeper. Though neither physical sight nor spiritual sense worked here, by tracking each other's voices they at least didn't need to worry about getting separated.
But as they ventured further in, Yang Kai's brow gradually furrowed. According to what Bing Yun had said earlier, the clearing around the wooden pool that likely contained the Heaven and Earth Source Liquid had been roughly a hundred zhang across. Yet after walking for the time it took to burn a stick of incense, they still hadn't found anything.
In that time, they had covered far more than a hundred zhang—ten times that, at least.
"Listen…" Bing Yun suddenly spoke up.
"What?" Yang Kai turned his head, but saw only fog.
"Don't you hear a sound?"
"What sound did you hear, Senior?" In this strange place, Bing Yun's unexpected discovery didn't bring Yang Kai any excitement—instead it made his skin crawl, goosebumps rising along his arms.
But Bing Yun made no further response.
A sudden sense of wrongness surged through Yang Kai. "Senior?"
He called several times in succession, but received not the faintest reply. He reached out toward where Bing Yun had been standing and grasped at empty air. He lunged forward a stretch but found no trace of her whatsoever.
Yang Kai's expression turned grim.
In one instant she had been right beside him; in the next she had vanished without a trace. Was someone working against them in the shadows, or was this the power of the formation?
The latter was more likely. After all, Bing Yun had mentioned a natural grand formation protecting this area—Yang Yan had stayed behind specifically to break it. And among the numerous half-sages of the Demon Domain, none should possess the ability to abduct Bing Yun right under Yang Kai's nose without him sensing a thing.
If that was the case, was this a labyrinth formation? Though natural grand formations were generally extraordinary, and the effect likely went beyond mere disorientation, what Yang Kai cared about most was what Bing Yun had said right before disappearing.
She had clearly heard something—yet he had detected nothing. And now, even straining to listen, not a single sound reached his ears.
It was said that any formation in the world could be shattered with brute force. But with Bing Yun trapped inside and Yang Yan's situation likely no better, Yang Kai didn't dare act rashly. If he accidentally hurt either of them, the cost would be far too great.
Standing in place, Yang Kai took a deep breath and closed his eyes. A moment later, he snapped them open. In that instant, a golden light seemed to flash and fade in his left eye, revealing a solemn vertical pupil.
The World-Destroying Demon Eye he had inherited from the Great Demon God inherently possessed the ability to see through illusion. Against a labyrinth formation or an illusion array of this sort, it held remarkable efficacy. Under the gaze of the World-Destroying Demon Eye, the dense fog shrouding the surroundings seemed to thin out dramatically in an instant.
Yang Kai's mind steadied somewhat. It seemed the Great Demon God was truly extraordinary. All this time, he had apparently underestimated the power of the World-Destroying Demon Eye and had never fully unlocked its potential. The natural grand formation within this Heaven and Earth secret realm was profoundly mysterious, yet under the Demon Eye's gaze, he could actually glimpse a thread of its workings.
"Hm?" Yang Kai's expression shifted. He focused his gaze on his immediate surroundings. Where he had seen nothing before, the World-Destroying Demon Eye now revealed countless thin filaments gathered in a dense web around his body. They were so fine and numerous that physical sight could never have detected them, drifting through the air like tendrils. From time to time, these threads reached toward him as if seeking to make contact, only to withdraw almost immediately, as though wary of something.
Yang Kai frowned and extended his hand toward one of the threads before him. But the filament moved like a living thing, darting away from his touch.