With no opponents left, the purple gem was of no further use.
Yang Kai stood still where he was, recalling everything he had encountered upon entering this sword world, and couldn't help but feel a measure of quiet emotion.
This world had been far more dangerous than the previous bubble world. Here, the threat of being annihilated lurked at every turn. He privately congratulated himself for exploiting the Small World's loophole to gain entry. Had Lang Qingshan come in alone, he might well have been trapped here forever.
Many of their perilous battles had been won only through the combined efforts of the two of them. Setting aside everything else, even their final clash — defeating that last Golden Sword would have been virtually impossible for a single person acting alone.
This train of thought inevitably turned his concern toward Meng Hong, who had also entered a world within a fruit. He had no idea what that fellow was facing at this moment.
And he had spent a full two years in this sword world. Several days must have passed in the outside world by now.
Yang Kai waited in place for a long while. His brow, resting on the surface of his blade, slowly furrowed deeper as he turned to Lang Qingshan and asked, "Qingshan, do you feel anything?"
Lang Qingshan replied, "Nothing. Do you sense something, Commander?"
Yang Kai's expression darkened. Feeling nothing was the biggest problem of all. He had assumed that after the final battle, he would be able to leave this world and claim a World Fruit, but there had been no sign of anything to that effect even now.
He and Lang Qingshan had both raised their strength to the absolute limit of this world and had painstakingly slain the last remaining enemy. Without question, there were no more opponents here.
So why couldn't he leave? What was the trigger to depart?
He recalled the previous world he had experienced. It had been his cataclysmic battle against that man surnamed Gou that had forced him to unleash power beyond the Open Heaven realm, shattering all the bubbles and leaving behind a single critical one — only then had he found the trigger to leave.
A spark of insight flashed through Yang Kai's mind. He spoke up: "Where is the army?"
"Follow me, Commander." Lang Qingshan answered at once and hurried forward to lead the way.
He had previously withdrawn the army of seven hundred thousand from the battlefield, stationing them on a broad plain to deny the Golden Sword any reinforcements. The location was roughly a thousand li from where they stood.
The two of them flew ahead and behind each other, arriving at the site in short order.
Yang Kai descended slowly. Hundreds of thousands of swords turned their gaze upon him, every one brimming with adoration. These hundreds of thousands of swords had fought and campaigned alongside Yang Kai from one end of the world to the other, battle-hardened survivors sifted by relentless tides of conflict. Though the Golden Sword was gone, Silver Swords numbered among them in droves.
Without a word, Yang Kai channeled the power of the purple gem embedded in his sword hilt.
A faint purple radiance shimmered outward, expanding in a ring of ripples. As the ripples spread, sword after sword shattered, the ceaseless crackling of breaking steel filling the air. Countless streams of light surged toward Yang Kai, causing the purple gem on his hilt to glow ever brighter.
Before long, the gem's radiance reached a critical threshold. At the tip of Yang Kai's blade, purple light pulsed and flickered erratically — the purple thunder was on the verge of manifesting once more.
That terrifying aura forced Lang Qingshan to retreat a considerable distance.
The blinding purple glow was more than sufficient to unleash the purple thunder. After all, the Golden Sword had needed only the energy of several tens of thousands of swords to fire that very attack.
And the number of swords being shattered now far exceeded several tens of thousands.
But Yang Kai was not satisfied. He fought to suppress the eruption of the purple thunder, pushing the gem's power even further.
Crack, crack, crack — the count of shattered swords quickly surpassed a hundred thousand! The aura emanating from Yang Kai's blade had already far surpassed what the Golden Sword had displayed, leaving Lang Qingshan's heart pounding in terror.
The purple light continued to surge. More swords shattered — one hundred fifty thousand, two hundred thousand — and the count was racing toward three hundred thousand in no time.
Of the seven hundred thousand strong army, half were obliterated in an instant.
Yang Kai's blade trembled ceaselessly. Fine cracks began appearing across his sword body, clearly indicating he was bearing an immense load of pressure. Should he fail to endure, his annihilation would be immediate.
Lang Qingshan wanted to cry out a warning but dared not disturb Yang Kai, fearing it might trigger some unforeseen disaster.
Four hundred thousand swords shattered, and the fissures across Yang Kai's blade multiplied, making it look as though it might shatter at any moment.
When the count reached five hundred thousand, accompanied by a sharp crack, the purple gem on the hilt itself split a seam.
That was the limit. Yang Kai could no longer suppress the torrential power within his blade. He angled his sword and swung skyward at an oblique arc!
A slash!
Purple thunder erupted from the blade's tip, converging into a beam of purple radiance that pierced straight into the heavens, causing the firmament to tremble and the void to splinter apart.
A gaping hole was torn open in the sky.
Yang Kai's figure tilted, and he plummeted from midair. His entire sword body was fractured and dim, stripped of all luster. That single strike had exhausted every last shred of his strength.