Faced with such a formidable enemy, the Star Boundary seemed to have no path forward but to accept its fate and await death.
But Yang Kai refused to accept it. The Great Emperors refused to accept it. Even with an overwhelming foe before them, even with every one of them bearing wounds, their fighting spirits burned undimmed. This was the world that had birthed and nurtured them—how could they abandon it? And without this world to sustain them, Great Emperors would no longer be Great Emperors!
The Great Demon God had emerged, and if they could not slay him here, the Star Boundary was doomed. There would be nothing left but death for them all!
Strictly speaking, the Great Demon God standing before them was not invincible in the eyes of the Great Emperors. Their earlier assault had inflicted some damage upon him—minor, to be sure—but it was hope nonetheless.
The reason the situation had deteriorated to this point was primarily that the seven Great Emperors who had only just broken free from their imprisonment could not unleash their full strength.
They had been trapped in that nameless space for years, and the Demon Saints had cast secret arts upon them, leaving them far from their peak. At this moment, the seven Great Emperors led by Zhan Wuhen could project no more than seventy percent of their peak power. Against the Demon Saints, whose strength had similarly plummeted, they could still hold their own—but against the Great Demon God, who had fused the powers of so many Demon Saints, they found themselves falling short.
If that was the case, then there was only one option left: gamble their lives!
Hummm…
A strange, resonant hum filled the air, and an overwhelming aura suddenly erupted. Yang Kai turned his head to look. Over where Zhan Wuhen stood, space itself was warping. His long hair whipped about in a wind that did not exist, his robes snapped and crackled, and a layer of crimson blood-light spread across the surface of his body.
Yang Kai's eyes narrowed slightly. A flicker of worry crossed his face, but it quickly gave way to understanding.
Zhan Wuhen was burning his vital blood. There was no other interpretation—burning his own vital blood to exchange for greater power. The act was no different from drinking poison to quench one's thirst. Vital blood was the quintessence of a cultivator's entire being, not to be used lightly. Once burned, regardless of the outcome, the aftermath would leave one gravely weakened. In severe cases, it could even damage one's very Cultivation. As a Great Emperor, one would never resort to such a thing unless absolutely cornered.
But right now, Zhan Wuhen could not afford such scruples. If the Star Boundary fell, none would survive. For the sake of this world, let alone burning a drop of vital blood—Zhan Wuhen would not so much as furrow his brow at the cost of his very life.
Hummm…
As though they had reached a silent agreement, once Zhan Wuhen ignited his vital blood, the other Great Emperors followed suit in rapid succession. In an instant, their auras—previously flagged somewhat—surged upward in waves, not only recovering to their peak but even surpassing it.
The vitality of a Great Emperor was staggeringly potent. When their vital blood burned, clusters of blinding radiance bloomed between heaven and earth, dense and thick as blood itself.
Yang Kai's heart surged with emotion. An irrepressible impulse welowed up within his chest. A dragon's roar rang out, and his own vital blood roared to life in flames. But his situation differed from the other Great Emperors'. Where Zhan Wuhen and the others were enveloped in a scarlet crimson glow, Yang Kai was wreathed in resplendent golden light—as though he had transformed into a blazing, radiant sun, scattering the gloom that hung over heaven and earth.
The gleaming little sun of golden light shot into the sky, hung for the briefest instant, then plunged toward the Great Demon God. From within that golden radiance, the Azure Dragon Spear conjured a sky full of spear shadows. Every thrust carried within it an immense, profound truth of martial Dao, and with every spear that pierced forward, a colossal sphere of darkness flashed into being and vanished.
The void shattered. The Great Demon God stumbled backward, roaring in fury: "Ignorant rats, you still dare to resist!"
He swept his fist outward, and a blast of savage force surged forth. Yang Kai raised his spear to block. His body shuddered violently, a surge of blood and qi roiling in his chest, which he forced back down with sheer will.
A dragon's roar shook the heavens. The Dragon Clan's two Elders charged in from either side, their hundred-zhang dragon forms radiating overwhelming majesty. With a roar, dragon breath erupted from their maws, engulfing the Great Demon God's massive frame.
The Great Demon God neither dodged nor evaded—or rather, from the very beginning, he had never intended to dodge. He allowed the dragon breath to wash over him, and when his right hand reached out, it had suddenly become gnarled and withered, exuding an aura of extreme danger.
Blood sprayed across the sky. The Grand Elder shrieked and reeled backward, a massive swathe of flesh torn from his chest and abdomen, dragon scales ripped away. If Fu Zhun had not sacrificed herself to intervene at the critical moment, others might have wondered whether the Dragon Clan's Grand Elder could have survived that blow at all.
Yang Kai, knocked back, narrowed his eyes and fixed his gaze upon the Great Demon God's right hand. He vaguely sensed that this hand was far from ordinary. Before this moment, the Great Demon God's right hand had not looked like this—but just now, it seemed to have undergone a sudden transformation.
"Watch out for that hand—it might be the remnant of his true body!" Zhan Wuhen's voice reached his ears.
No one understood the terror of that hand better than he did. When he had been trapped in that nameless space, Huang Wuji had once wielded a withered, severed palm against him. Though the palm had been decayed and withered, the destructive power it could unleash had been utterly horrifying.
Zhan Wuhen had once contemplated: if a severed palm alone possessed such might, then what level of power must its owner have wielded?
Until the day he laid eyes upon the Great Demon God.
That severed palm was unmistakably the Great Demon God's. Back when the Emperor of Time had fought him, the Emperor of Time had perished in body and soul, and the Great Demon God had been blown to pieces—yet that severed palm had survived, preserved to the present day.
The Great Demon God had possessed Huang Wuji's body, and the severed palm that Huang Wuji had been safeguarding naturally returned to his possession. Now, at last, it had revealed its fearsome true form.