Those colossal creatures, their bodies bristling with eyes, were enormous beyond measure — yet Yang Kai towered over them all.
Twin jets of dragon breath erupted from his nostrils, searing brand marks into the void. Yang Kai fixed his gaze upon the giants closing in at terrifying speed and felt boundless power churning within him.
He threw back his head and roared to the heavens, but what issued from his throat was a pure, resonant dragon cry that shook the nine vaults of sky.
He reached out and grasped at the empty air, and the Azure Dragon Spear materialized in his hand.
This divine weapon had been forged from the entire body of a great dragon. Only one who carried dragon bloodline and possessed the Dragon Clan's origin could unleash its true might. Had that not been the case, the giant spirit Ah Da would never have bestowed the Azure Dragon Spear upon Yang Kai all those years ago.
With the spear in hand, the blood coursing through Yang Kai's veins surged even more violently. A strange feeling blossomed in his heart — the weapon he held did not seem like a divine spear at all, but like a companion, one who would share every hardship and walk through death alongside him.
Hummm…
The Azure Dragon Spear trembled, and a colossal phantom of an azure dragon rose from its shaft. Its majestic form radiated a boundless draconic pressure, and its dragon eyes swept once across Yang Kai — carrying three parts gratification, three parts relief, and three parts recognition.
The phantom merged back into the spear and vanished.
One of the colossal creatures had already lunged to within a hundred zhang of Yang Kai.
Yang Kai leveled the spear and thrust, his massive dragon body charging forward rather than retreating, crashing headlong into the oncoming horde.
Years of bitter cultivation — the fusion of a thousand schools of spear art into the Great Freedom Spear — finally blazed to full splendor in this moment. Before his battle with the mantis-headed creature, Yang Kai had relied purely on instinct to wield the Azure Dragon Spear and draw out its power. But now he was a different person entirely. The spear moved like an extension of his arm, blossoming into flower after flower of lethal light, trailing cloud after cloud of afterimages.
Unbound by form, unbound by appearance — when the spear finds freedom, the heart finds freedom. This was the Great Freedom Spear!
He brushed past the first colossal creature. Mid-charge, its body stiffened abruptly. In the span of a single heartbeat it had been pierced dozens of times; a moment later it disintegrated with a deafening explosion.
Then the second. Then the third…
Wherever Yang Kai passed, a storm of blood and viscera filled the air. Not one of those eye-covered behemoths could withstand a single exchange. The sound of their detonations echoed without cease.
BOOM…
Yang Kai's dragon claw clamped around the skull of the last creature and slammed it into the earth with savage force. The ground instantly cratered into a pit of staggering depth.
The dragon claw tightened. With a wet pop, the creature's skull burst apart.
Over a hundred colossal beings slaughtered clean in less time than it took to finish a cup of tea. Yang Kai slowly straightened, planting the butt of his spear against the ground, quietly savoring the staggering power coursing through him.
A wondrous sensation flowed through every inch of his flesh. This explosive surge of strength was almost intoxicating.
Pu Baixiong's trembling voice reached his ear: "Master, they're not dead!"
"Hm?" Yang Kai whipped his head around, his dragon eyes going wide.
Across the battlefield stretching dozens of li behind him, the creatures he had already blown apart were now reforming — chunks of writhing flesh crawling toward one another like rivers of mercury, merging and rejoining. Those he had killed earliest had already reconstituted the greater part of their bodies, and faint signs of resurrection flickered through them.
Yang Kai's eyes nearly bulged from their sockets. These things were that hard to kill? Even the Azure Dragon Spear couldn't finish them off. To truly destroy them, he would probably have to incinerate them to ash with the Golden Crow True Fire.
But with so many creatures, deploying the Golden Crow True Fire against all of them would be an exhausting, thankless effort.
Yang Kai clenched his teeth in frustration. He dispelled the Dragon Transformation Art, reverting to his original form, snatched up Pu Baixiong, and tossed him straight into the Small Mysterious World. His figure flickered, and he vanished on the spot.
Inside these Grand Ruins, he dared not use the teleportation technique freely. The place was riddled with strange prohibitions woven between heaven and earth — a careless teleport could drop him into some unknown danger.
Ordinary peril would be one thing, but if he blundered into a natural grand formation, he might be trapped inside forever.
That was precisely why, when those colossal creatures had been chasing him earlier, he had not resorted to teleportation to escape.
But now he had no choice. Those creatures were tenacious beyond belief; once they recovered, another relentless pursuit was inevitable.
No sooner had Yang Kai departed than the colossal creatures finished reassembling and rose once more, their bodies unmarked by so much as a scratch. With no target left, they stood in place, roaring furiously. After a time they sank to the ground, and the terrain where they had stood transformed into a waterlogged swamp pocked with pools.
Still later, a group of martial artists flew over the swamp — only to plummet uncontrollably into the pools below, where they were reduced to desiccated skeletons.
Meanwhile, Yang Kai stood with a grim expression amid a dense bank of fog, his divine sense flaring as he scanned his surroundings.
He cursed inwardly. He had known all along that using teleportation in this cursed place would end badly — and sure enough, his misgiving had proved prophetic.
The fog drifted around him like water, giving rise to an utterly uncanny sensation. Yang Kai strained his eyes to their fullest but could see only a short distance ahead.
Worse still, his divine sense had been compressed to a mere three zhang around his body.
A chill crept up his spine. His divine sense was formidable — rivaling that of an average Opening Heaven Realm expert — yet even it was suppressed so thoroughly by this fog. The strangeness of this place was beyond reckoning.
No place to linger. He was about to activate the teleportation technique once more to leave when a faint patter of footsteps reached his ears, heading his way.
Yang Kai turned and called out in a low voice: "Who goes there?"
The footsteps halted, and a timid voice spoke: "Senior Brother Yang?"
Yang Kai froze for a moment, then realization dawned. "Junior Sister Gu?"