Yue He channeled the power of the jade token and unleashed a streak of mystic light forward. The thin mist churned and slowly parted to either side, revealing a passage leading inward.
The two exchanged a glance and, without hesitation, darted inside one after the other.
Once their figures vanished, the mist gradually closed back up, leaving no trace of disturbance.
A moment later, Yang Kai and Yue He had infiltrated the Qiaoqiao Grounds. The process had been surprisingly easy. Not daring to act rashly, they concealed their auras and presence, standing still in place and waiting for a long while.
It wasn't until half a shichen had passed with no movement whatsoever from the Qiaoqiao Grounds that Yang Kai confirmed their infiltration had gone undetected.
Come to think of it, it wasn't all that strange. More than a decade ago, Xu Huang's rampage had exposed numerous flaws in the Qiaoqiao Grounds' grand protective formation. Yue He had further refined the jade token's power, so naturally she could slip them inside without alerting anyone.
If the Qiaoqiao Celestial Lord had been on high alert, they might have been discovered. But Yang Kai figured the Celestial Lord was probably still recuperating from his injuries.
Xu Huang had said as much back then—the Qiaoqiao Celestial Lord had been gravely wounded and would need years of recovery before he could hope to heal.
Looking around, all traces of the great battle from years past had long since vanished. The Qiaoqiao Grounds were composed of seven spirit continents, covering an enormous area. It was precisely because of these seven spirit continents that the Qiaoqiao Grounds bore that name. Each continent was unique in its own way, nurturing different elemental powers—yin, yang, and the five elements were all represented. The Qiaoqiao Grounds had planted fruit trees of various elemental affinities across them, producing spirit fruits that served as the primary ingredients for forging Heaven Opening Pills. It was this source of income that had allowed the Qiaoqiao Grounds to establish their foothold in the Thirty Thousand Worlds.
Right now, numerous cultivators could be seen flying between the continents, heading toward a separate location hovering above the entire Qiaoqiao Grounds.
That place was the Qiaoqiao Grounds' menial servants' market.
"The day the market opens each month, huh?" Yang Kai murmured, watching for a while with a thoughtful expression.
That place was a remnant of a world, relocated here by some past owner of the Qiaoqiao Grounds and repurposed as a market. Three days each month, it would open to allow the menial disciples of the Qiaoqiao Grounds to trade and exchange goods among themselves.
Back in the day, Yang Kai had purchased a third-grade metallic material there—Impurity-Free Gold Dew—which he had gifted to Die You.
Thinking back to when he had first entered the Thirty Thousand Worlds, earning Heaven Opening Pills had been an incredibly arduous task. And now his net worth exceeded several hundred million. In just over a decade, such a dramatic change had taken place—it was enough to make one sigh with emotion.
Yang Kai was quite familiar with that market, having visited many times. And his destination happened to be precisely that world remnant where the market was located.
Within the Qiaoqiao Grounds lurked the Qiaoqiao Celestial Lord and several Earth-Protecting Venerables. Hiding in their midst with Yue He was far from safe. But the market was different—it was populated mostly by menial disciples, with actual Qiaoqiao Grounds disciples being exceedingly rare. Concealing himself there, he would have little to worry about being discovered.
He quietly signaled Yue He, and they flew toward the market along with the flow of people.
They soon landed on the world remnant.
The remnant wasn't particularly large, nor was it small. The market only occupied a portion of its area, leaving much of it undeveloped.
Yang Kai and Yue He found a secluded spot and quietly dug out a small underground burrow, hiding themselves inside.
Only then did Yang Kai let out a breath. This phase of their flight was temporarily over. All that remained was to wait—let Red Star's people leave, then find an opportunity to slip away.
A wave of exhaustion washed over him, but there was nothing to be done about it. Ever since the Realm of No Old had closed, he had been on the run without cease. First, he had been hunted by Sacred Spirits, teetering on the brink of death. Now Red Star was chasing him down, leaving him battered and humiliated.
He swore to himself—once he advanced to the Heaven Opening Realm in the future, the very first thing he would do was settle the score with Red Star and show that bastard Zhao Baichuan the consequences of crossing him.
He withdrew his consciousness into the peculiar space on the back of his hand, intending to ask Zhu Jiuyin about her current condition. But to his surprise, the creature had fallen into a deep slumber.
He understood. Her Origin had been damaged and she desperately needed recovery time, otherwise she wouldn't have deteriorated so badly.
For any Sacred Spirit, Origin was the very foundation of their being, much like a cultivator's Dao Seal. Damage to one's Origin was an extraordinarily grave matter, and recovery was exceedingly difficult. It required an extended period of rest before any chance of healing.
He turned to look at Yue He and couldn't help but ask in surprise, "Why are you still refining the jade token?"
Yue He sat in a lotus position, her mind fully absorbed, clutching the jade token in her palm as she devoted herself entirely to its refinement. Yang Kai had given her the jade token earlier mainly because her cultivation was higher than his, allowing her to refine it much faster. And indeed, that had proven correct—if Yang Kai had attempted it himself, there was no way he could have bypassed the grand protective formation and infiltrated the grounds within just a few days. But now that they were already inside, there was no need to continue.
Yue He opened her eyes and said, "Does the Young Master not want the Qiaoqiao Grounds?"
Yang Kai blinked in surprise, then immediately grasped what she was getting at.
He chuckled. "Even if you fully refine the jade token and gain control of the grand formation, seizing the Qiaoqiao Grounds wouldn't be easy."
Back then, Xu Huang had also been a Fifth-Order Heaven Opening cultivator, on par with Yue He. But he had been the original owner of the Qiaoqiao Grounds—he knew every inch of the place inside and out. Using the jade token to command the grand formation, he had fought the Qiaoqiao Celestial Lord and the Earth-Protecting Venerables in a life-or-death struggle, and in the end, he still hadn't succeeded. Instead, he had lost his own life.