After speaking, Yang Kai once again carried Qu Huashang on his back and walked forward step by step, calling over his shoulder without looking back: "Sorry to intrude—you two can keep fighting."
Boom, boom, boom... Earth-shattering sounds erupted from behind as the baboon and the demon wolf locked horns once more. What made Yin Xinzhao cough up three liters of blood was that the battlefield between these two was actually drifting toward them as they fought.
"Move!" Yin Xinzhao barked, hastily retreating with his two junior brothers. They fled a hundred li before finally circling around in a different direction to resume the pursuit. But he knew that with this delay, finding Yang Kai's trail again would be next to impossible.
Right now, Yang Kai was sprinting with Qu Huashang on his back. Though he had used those two powerful sixth-grade demon beasts to temporarily shake off Yin Xinzhao and the others, they would not let the matter rest. He still had to keep running.
As he ran, the terrain suddenly struck Yang Kai as familiar—as if he had seen it somewhere before.
After a moment of thought, realization hit him. He halted immediately and pulled a beast-hide map from his spatial ring. He studied the map carefully, then compared it to the places he had passed through. He couldn't help but be surprised—wasn't this the route marked on the map?
This beast-hide map was something he had obtained after killing an ambushers in the swamp when he first entered the Blood Demon Heavenly Cave. At the time, he had studied it briefly and gathered that it showed part of the routes within the Blood Demon Heavenly Cave, though where the final destination lay, he had no idea.
He had originally intended to check the place out. After all, the map looked quite old—it might even be a treasure map of some sort.
But he had run into Bu Lianzhong and his group along the way, and later encountered people connected to the Blood Demon Divine Lord's blood-path inheritance, which had delayed him.
Who would have thought that all his frantic fleeing these past days would lead him, by sheer coincidence, to the very route marked on the map?
He looked more carefully. The endpoint on the map was not far from his current position—it would take no more than four hours to reach.
A glint flashed in Yang Kai's eyes. He put the map away and raced toward the endpoint.
He wasn't necessarily looking for treasure. It was just that given his and Qu Huashang's current condition, they both desperately needed to recuperate. Since the map marked such an endpoint, whether it was a treasure vault or something else entirely, it was bound to be extremely secluded—perfect for hiding.
Four hours later, Yang Kai arrived before a massive lake. He took out the map to compare and confirmed that the endpoint was indeed here.
He stared at the lake with a speechless expression. If the endpoint was here, then what was the point? He had gone through all that exhausting travel with the sole intention of finding a place to rest and heal. The terrain around this lake was completely exposed—forget about Yin Xinzhao potentially catching up, even running into demon beasts would be a hassle.
He irritably put the map away. For now, his only option was to retreat into the Mysterious World Bead and then hide the bead somewhere concealed.
He had considered hiding inside the Mysterious World Bead before, but the Blood Demon Heavenly Cave was fraught with danger. If the bead were discovered by someone or some demon beast, that would be extremely perilous.
However, this lake before him was actually a decent spot. He could sink the Mysterious World Bead to the bottom of the lake—provided there were no ferocious demon beasts lurking inside.
At the thought, Yang Kai felt slightly comforted. His exhausting journey had not been entirely without reward.
He walked to the lakeside and extended his divine sense, probing carefully.
The next instant, Yang Kai's expression turned grave. Something was wrong with this lake! To the naked eye, it appeared utterly real—the surface shimmered with ripples, the water crystal clear enough to see through. But under his divine sense's perception, Yang Kai realized that this lake was not quite right!
There was an array here! This lake was actually an extremely sophisticated illusion array—it didn't truly exist at all.
The moment he figured this out, a mass of black shadow suddenly swooped down from the lake surface, blotting out the sky and earth, hurtling straight toward Yang Kai's head.
Yang Kai was startled and was about to drift backward. But at the same instant, a wave of cold air surged at him from behind.
Caught off guard, Yang Kai spun around abruptly and unleashed a thunderous palm strike forward.
Boom! The palm seemed to hit something. A muffled grunt sounded, and a ghostly figure materialized within Yang Kai's field of vision, sent tumbling away by his strike. It was a short, squat man wearing an expression of sheer disbelief—as if he hadn't expected Yang Kai's strength to be this ferocious. The kid clearly looked severely injured, yet he had been no match.
Still, his objective had been achieved. The recoil from his own strike sent Yang Kai stumbling backward involuntarily, plunging him straight into the black shadow that had descended from the lake.
The next moment, Yang Kai felt an overwhelming binding force closing in from every direction, tying him and Qu Huashang together in his arms.
What had swept down from the lake was none other than an enormous net, and he and Qu Huashang had fallen right into it.
This was clearly some kind of trapping artifact. The net constricted rapidly, and Yang Kai immediately felt his entire body go stiff.
"This kid's got teeth—use the Spirit-Locking Pins!" barked the squat man whom Yang Kai had blasted away.