Enraged, she spun around and unleashed a flurry of fists and kicks at Yang Kai. She didn't put any real force behind them, making the whole scene look to onlookers more like flirtatious roughhousing.
Ding Yi's face darkened. "You dare play me?" He swept his hand forward and bellowed, "Kill the man, keep the woman!"
The moment the order left his lips, the bald brute brought his blade down in a sweeping arc. Faint golden light coiled around the weapon, radiating such piercing sharpness that it seemed as though anything in its path could be cleaved clean through.
Yang Kai hadn't paid much attention before, but observing closely now, he realized the man had likely activated the metal-element force within his Dao Seal.
He reached out, pulled Yue He behind him, and thrust his palm forward. The center of his palm blazed with searing heat — he had activated his own fire-element force.
Yang Kai wanted to test this kind of combat method.
His jade-like palm sliced through the razor-edged blade light and pressed toward the bald brute's chest. The man was a savage one; seeing the strike coming, he didn't dodge or evade in the slightest. Instead, the sharp metal force on his long blade intensified, clearly intending to trade wound for wound. A grim, vicious smile hung at the corner of his mouth.
Clang!
Yang Kai's body shuddered slightly as the long blade struck his chest, slicing a gash through his robes. The brute was sent flying backward in the same instant.
Neither had gained an advantage from the exchange.
Yue He gasped and rushed over, her hands fluttering to his chest. "You… are you all right?"
Yang Kai lifted his torn clothing, revealing a white mark across his chest. The skin was barely broken — not even a drop of blood had been drawn.
Yue He stared, stunned.
That bald brute's strike hadn't been at full power, but it was still far beyond what any Emperor Realm cultivator could withstand with raw physical toughness alone. Yet Yang Kai was completely unharmed.
Was this even human?
Yang Kai let out a derisive snort and flicked his chest lightly. "A piece of trash like you thinks you can hurt me? Go train for another few hundred years first."
Yue He gazed at him in a daze, her beautiful eyes trembling. Nearby, Chen Yue wore an expression of pure admiration — she too was at the Emperor Realm, but there was no way she could have taken that kind of blade head-on.
"Interesting!" The bald brute steadied himself, a wild, savage grin spreading across his face. He pointed his long blade forward. "Kid, let's see if you can stay that tough in a moment. Don't you dare—"
Mid-sentence, the brute's face suddenly flushed scarlet. Before he could finish, his mouth opened and a mist of blood sprayed outward — and that blood mist seemed to boil, radiating waves of scorching heat.
Ding Yi cried out in alarm, "What happened to you?"
The bald brute had no breath left to answer. Boiling blood foam kept spilling from his mouth, his entire body rapidly turning crimson, like a lobster tossed into a pot.
In the span of ten breaths, the brute let out a miserable scream, toppled rigidly to the ground, and was dead — his life force completely extinguished.
He had just… died.
The entire arena fell deathly silent.
The surrounding warriors stared at Yang Kai as though he were some kind of specter. After all, from start to finish, Yang Kai had only thrown a single palm strike — yet that one strike had claimed the bald brute's life. They assessed themselves as no stronger than the man had been. If they found themselves in the same situation, wouldn't certain death follow?
Yang Kai, however, seemed like a mere bystander, gazing at the brute's corpse with a contemplative expression.
The manner of death reminded him of certain events back on the Sun Star — how the numerous low-rank Open Heaven realm cultivators had been incinerated by the Golden Crow True Fire, suffering exactly this kind of fate.
The Golden Crow True Fire was devastatingly savage. Even Open Heaven realm cultivators couldn't withstand it for long once it took hold, let alone a mere Emperor Realm practitioner. Unable to neutralize the Golden Crow True Fire that had invaded his body, the brute had only one path — death.
Fortunately, Yang Kai possessed the wood-element force refined by the Immortal Tree, which allowed him to suppress the Golden Crow True Fire within his Dao Seal. Without it, he would have been in the same helpless situation.
So this was the power of a seventh-grade fire-element force.
Yue He watched Yang Kai with complicated emotions flickering through her beautiful eyes. With a seventh-grade fire-element force like that, at the Emperor Realm, who could possibly match him in one-on-one combat?
"You're asking for death!" The death of his subordinate sent Ding Yi into a fury. He waved his hand. "Kill him for me!"
With that, he took the lead and charged straight at Yang Kai. The others were terrified by Yang Kai's methods, but there were so many of them — and with even Ding Yi, their leader, charging in, how could they hold back?
In an instant, the radiant glow of secret arts and Artifacts erupted as the onslaught thundered toward Yang Kai.
"Watch over them!" Yang Kai sent a voice transmission to Yue He, then flickered forward and plunged directly into the crowd.
His formidable physical body absorbed a significant portion of the damage, and his mastery of the Space Laws made his movements as elusive as a ghost. Without resorting to any other techniques, Yang Kai's palms danced through the air, striking out with one devastating blow after another.
Many didn't even see his figure before a palm print struck them. Then a searing force rampaged through their bodies, incinerating everything it touched — and no matter how desperately they tried, they could not expel the scorching power.
Burst after burst of steaming blood mist sprayed into the air. Warriors crumpled to the ground, one after another.
A pair of bare hands — enough to slaughter the forces of Ding Yi's faction into terror.