At first glance, it was impossible to tell which side held the advantage.
Panting, Yang Kai's chest heaving, he reached over and grasped the Azure Dragon Spear. A look of reminiscence and longing crossed his face, his voice low and heavy: "This spear is for the splendid world that bore and raised us!"
As the words left his lips, his figure blurred, and he appeared before Can Ye in an instant. He thrust the spear forward with devastating force.
Can Ye raised his curved blades to block, but as though his strength had been sapped, the twin weapons had not even been fully lifted before his body shuddered. The Azure Dragon Spear pierced through his lower abdomen and out the other side. Violent force erupted from his back, shredding his garments to rags and leaving a massive, gaping wound of blood.
Can Ye's eyes bulged as he stared fixedly at Yang Kai standing before him, his teeth grinding together with an audible creak. A cold voice rasped from his throat: "I am the Night Emperor…."
Yang Kai paid no heed. He withdrew the spear, pulling out a spray of blood, then drove it in again. His voice was flat and detached.
"This spear is for the billions of lives lost in the Star Boundary!"
With a wet tearing sound, the Azure Dragon Spear plunged through Can Ye's heart.
Can Ye's body convulsed once more, blood foaming at the corners of his mouth, a ragged rattling escaping his throat. "I, who ruled the Star Boundary for tens of thousands of years…."
The spear rose again. Yang Kai's detached voice suddenly soared, charged with the anguish of blood and tears: "This spear is for Lord Mingyue!"
That mournful cry resonated through the entire Star Boundary. With a deafening crack, lightning flared and vanished, and a torrential downpour cascaded from the heavens without warning.
Amidst the flashing lightning and rolling thunder, the spear hammered toward Can Ye's skull. One thrust—and the head exploded, scattering red and white in every direction.
Crack… crack… crack…
The thunder grew ever more ferocious, the rain ever more relentless, washing clean this defiled world.
Between heaven and earth, a deep, heavy sigh seemed to echo faintly. Behind Yang Kai, the enormous rift—like a great eye of heaven—slowly closed.
No one announced it. No one sent word. Yet every living being within the Star Boundary felt a sudden, unmistakable clarity wash through their hearts in that instant: an Emperor had fallen.
Yang Kai stood still, the spear at his side, and drew a long, deep breath. An unprecedented surge of satisfaction welled up within him, and he could not help but throw back his head and roar to the sky. The sound rolled like thunder, merging with the crackling lightning, shaking eardrums far and wide.
It was not the slaying of an Emperor that filled him with such elation—it was that he had finally avenged Mingyue's blood debt.
Mingyue had died on the Zhoutian Continent. Though it was the combined effort of multiple Demon Saints, the true killing blow had come from Can Ye. That day, Yang Kai had watched from afar, seeing everything with perfect clarity. Had Can Ye not appeared without warning at the final moment and launched a sneak attack on Emperor Mingyue, Mingyue might still have had a sliver of hope for survival.
After all, at that time, Yang Kai had been on guard against every Demon Saint—every one except Can Ye, whom he never expected to appear on Zhoutian.
And it was precisely through that battle that Yang Kai had inherited Mingyue's legacy, earned the favor of heaven and earth, and ultimately been able to walk the furthest in the Contest of the Great Dao, seizing the Origin Heaven Fruit.
In truth, everything he had achieved today was thanks to Emperor Mingyue.
When one receives a great kindness, one must repay it with vengeance. The only pity was that his strength had been lacking before—even with the will, he had lacked the power. Now that heaven had granted him this opportunity, how could Yang Kai possibly let it slip by?
Only now did Yang Kai finally feel the weight that had pressed upon his heart truly lift.
Amid the rolling echo of his roar, the Demon Army trembled like quail caught in the dead of winter without shelter. The observing Half-Saints' expressions shifted wildly, panic written plain upon their faces.
Within Lingxiao Palace, on a mountain peak strewn with corpses, Lan Xun gazed at the headless body hanging in the sky. Tears slid down her cheeks, and she dropped to her knees with a thud, sobbing brokenly: "Father, Can Ye is dead. Rest in peace."
Not far behind her, Xiao Chen stood drenched in blood, a sword hanging loosely in his hand, his gaze vacant as he stared ahead. Bitterness flooded his heart. Had the gap between them truly grown this vast? He feared he could never catch up to that man's stride in this lifetime.
Roars echoed from within the clouds, punctuated now and then by piercing dragon cries.
Looking upward, five figures wrestled with one another high in the sky at an unfathomable height, their battle carrying them ever further into the distance.
With Can Ye dead, Xue Li and the others were stricken with a mixture of terror and shock. They had no desire to linger—the moment Yang Kai turned his attention to them, they would not be able to escape. The two Dragon Clan Grand Elders had already been their equals in combat; add Yang Kai to the equation and they would be utterly overwhelmed. Moreover, Yang Kai's suicidal fighting style moments ago had shaken them to their core.
In all their clashes with the two Dragon Clan Grand Elders, the three Demon Saints had never once dared release their own Dao Imprints in battle.
Yet this fellow Yang Kai, having just ascended to Emperor, had already committed such a brazen and reckless act. He was simply beyond all reason.
With the three Demon Saints in retreat, the Demon Army's morale across the entire battlefield collapsed in an instant. The Half-Saints fled in their wake, and the ground forces crumbled like an avalanche.
Years of being oppressed and driven about by the Demon Race, countless forced retreats and relocations—the Star Boundary's forces had long been seething with pent-up fury. And just moments ago, the demons had nearly conquered the last sanctuary of the Star Boundary. Now, having tasted this reprieve, there was no way they would let the Demon Race escape easily. The remaining Star Boundary forces surged out from Lingxiao Palace in a flood, pursuing the enemy in every direction, leaving a trail of a million corpses in their wake.
What brought the Demon Race some small measure of relief was that after killing Can Ye, Yang Kai simply stood in place without taking further action. He did not go to aid the two Dragon Clan Grand Elders, nor did he give chase to the retreating Demon Army.