Half a day later, the great battle subsided and the dust settled.
Yang Kai licked the blood from the corner of his mouth and looked around, only to find that nearly everyone who had participated in this battle bore injuries—even Lu Xue among them.
Indeed, Patriarch Moyu had been gravely wounded, his injuries unhealed, unable to unleash his full strength.
But he still possessed the foundation of a Fifth-Order Open Heaven cultivator, and his desperate counterattack in a hopeless situation had been truly formidable. Had it not been for fighting within the Demon Realm as the battlefield, with several Demon Saints of the Demon Realm lending their strength, Lu Xue alone would have found it no easy matter to defeat him, let alone kill him.
Patriarch Moyu perished, his Dao extinguished, the Small World within his body collapsing entirely. The Fifth-Order Open Heaven foundation he had accumulated leaked into this world, and the Dharma Body used the Demon Realm as a base to deploy the Devouring Heaven Art, ravenously absorbing it all.
Combined with the foundations of the lower-tier Open Heaven cultivators who had died before, this battle had certainly depleted the Demon Realm's reserves to some degree—but the gains had been enormous.
The shattered heaven and earth began to reassemble, the laws solidified, and the might of the world grew denser and more potent.
Everyone retreated to tend to their own injuries.
Yang Kai stored the Azure Dragon Spear, wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth, and turned his gaze in a particular direction. In a few strides, he arrived beneath a collapsed mountain.
There, beneath the ruined peak, Changtian sat cross-legged with a haggard face and a head of white hair. Though his expression was weary, he looked up at Yang Kai with a gentle smile.
Changtian had suffered the worst injuries in the recent battle. Before Yang Kai and the others had even arrived, he had already sustained devastating wounds, and the fighting that followed had only compounded them.
Compared to the last time Yang Kai had seen him before departing, Changtian now looked hundreds of years older. If he had presented himself as a robust middle-aged man back then, he was now the picture of a decrepit elder.
Yang Kai stepped forward to examine his injuries. After a moment, his brow furrowed deeply. He retrieved a spirit pill from his spatial ring and held it out. "This should be of use to you."
Changtian took it, gave it a brief look, and his expression turned to one of surprise. "Dragon Blood Pill? And a superior-grade one at that—fine treasure!"
Despite his admiration, he casually tossed the pill back. "I have no more use for it. Keep it for yourself. You carry the Dragon Clan's bloodline as well—this pill can further enhance your bloodline power."
Changtian's problem was not the severity of his wounds but the near-total depletion of his remaining lifespan!
He had not had many years left to begin with, and this battle had seen him continuously burning his vital blood, further shortening his already meager remaining time. Now his life force was withering within him, like a piece of wood slowly rotting away.
This was absolutely not something a single Dragon Blood Pill could remedy, unless they could find some extraordinary treasure capable of extending one's life.
Yang Kai pressed the Dragon Blood Pill back into his hand. "I have plenty of these. Don't be stubborn."
Changtian hesitated briefly, then relented without further argument. He nodded, popped the pill into his mouth, swallowed it, and quietly began refining it.
The medicinal efficacy of the Dragon Blood Pill soon stabilized his chaotic aura.
Just then, Guo Ziyan rushed over and said in a low voice, "My lord, there's been a discovery at the tower ship!"
Earlier, the tower ship had been cleaved in two by Lu Xue's sword strike and had crashed into the Demon Realm. After the battle subsided, Guo Ziyi and Lu Xue had gone to search through the wreckage and had found something rather interesting.
When Yang Kai returned to the tower ship, he saw a young man kneeling on the ground, trembling uncontrollably and kowtowing repeatedly in a desperate plea for mercy.
The young man had puffy bags under his sallow, waxy face—the unmistakable look of someone who had drowned himself in wine and carnal pleasures. His cultivation was modest, at only Second-Order Open Heaven, but even that Second-Order felt unremarkable to Yang Kai, seemingly weaker than even Ma Yuande.
"The Young Sect Master of the Moyu Sect?" Yang Kai surmised and spoke aloud.
When Patriarch Moyu had fled the Moyu Sect, he had taken a number of people with him. However, through successive skirmishes against the Qingtian Pavilion and the Flying Flower Barge, the sect's experts had suffered devastating casualties. By the time they had reached the Demon Realm, only eight lower-tier Open Heaven cultivators remained.
Of those eight, Yang Kai and the others had ambushed and killed four at the outset, then released Ma Yuande to lure the enemy into a trap. The remaining four had been slain on the spot as well, along with the low-level fighters aboard the tower ship who had mostly perished.
Since this young man had survived, it spoke to an identity of considerable importance. And judging by his attire, he was clearly of wealthy and privileged origin.
Apart from the Young Sect Master of the Moyu Sect, Yang Kai could think of no other explanation. As the Moyu Sect's young master, he would naturally have had access to vast quantities of resources to pile onto his own cultivation—but limited by his innate aptitude, Second-Order Open Heaven was his ceiling. Moreover, a Second-Order achieved through sheer resource accumulation would naturally be inferior to Ma Yuande in actual combat strength.
Sure enough, the young man kowtowed frantically and blurted out in terror, "Mo Ning greets my lord! Please spare my life, my lord—spare my life!"
Throughout the battle, he had been hiding inside the tower ship that had been split in half, watching helplessly as the Moyu Sect's Open Heaven cultivators fell one after another. Even Patriarch Moyu himself had not escaped his fate. His fear had been beyond measure.
But stranded within the Demon Realm, with no path to heaven above and no door to the earth below, where could he possibly flee?
When Guo Ziyan had been inspecting the tower ship, he had simply hauled the man out.
Yang Kai paid him no attention. Instead, he looked past the young man with keen interest.
What Guo Ziyan had retrieved from the wrecked tower ship was not only this Mo Ning but also a woman!