Annoying — the power had been out for an entire day.
…………
"To think that you and I, brothers, are to die in battle today!" The Chef and the Accountant stood back to back, drenched in their own blood, while dozens of mid-grade Open Heaven cultivators glared at them from all sides!
The disparity in numbers was overwhelming. This fight held not the slightest hope of victory — not even a sliver of a chance to survive. In short, they were dead meat!
If their desperate frenzy just now hadn't given the enemies around them some pause, that entire mob would have already surged forward.
"If we're going to die, we'd better hurry it up," the Accountant muttered, clutching his abacus. Blood streamed down his arm like a brook, spilling onto the lake surface and staining the water a deep crimson.
The Chef turned his head toward the Landlady's direction. He could see four figures weaving and clashing — the three Mountain Lords of Xuan Yang Mountain, their divine abilities and Artifacts unleashed in full, locked in fierce combat with the Landlady. He let out a soft breath and held his blade horizontally before him. "Yeah, we'd better hurry!"
The reason the Landlady refused to retreat was because the two of them were still here — she wouldn't abandon them. But if they fell in this place, perhaps she would finally pull back and bide her time for revenge!
With the Landlady's strength, even if she couldn't overcome those three Mountain Lords, fleeing with her life should still have been well within her means.
The two exchanged a glance and broke into hearty grins. On the road to the afterlife, having a brother by your side — it wouldn't be lonely at all!
When their gazes parted, their faces had already hardened into cold resolve. They activated their Small Worlds, and the might of their world power surged, their auras climbing steadily. Even if they died here today, they would drag a few unlucky bastards down with them!
Kill one and you break even. Kill two and you come out ahead. If they could take down four or five, that would be a tremendous profit!
Their bodies tensed, ready to strike — when a pair of large hands silently settled onto the Chef's shoulders, and a voice drifted into his ear: "Easy now, easy now. I'm not ready to die yet."
The Chef nearly jumped out of his skin, almost whirling around with a slash. Once he registered who it was, he erupted in curses: "You son of a bitch — you're finally awake?!"
It was Yang Kai, who had been strapped to his back the entire time.
Yang Kai patted his shoulder and hopped down, speaking softly. "I've been awake the whole time."
It was just that the refinement of the World Fruit had reached a critical juncture — interrupting it was absolutely out of the question, or everything would have been for nothing. That was why he hadn't been able to respond.
"Hurry and save the Landlady!" the Chef shouted urgently. "She's in trouble! Take her and get out of here — the Accountant and I will hold them off for a while!"
"The Landlady's in trouble, but so are the two of you." Yang Kai raised his eyes and surveyed the surroundings, his gaze slowly turning frigid. He stepped forward, one measured pace at a time, and spoke in a low, grim voice. "I'm in a bad mood today and my killing intent is a bit heavy. Anyone who doesn't want to die — get out of my way."
The Chef and the Accountant stared at him in bewilderment, wondering if the guy had gone delirious in his sleep. Wake up and start spouting nonsense?
The horde of mid-grade Open Heaven cultivators surrounding them wore equally odd expressions. As Yang Kai slowly closed the distance, one of them leveled a long sword at him and bellowed, "Kill!"
The word barely left his mouth before he thrust the blade toward Yang Kai.
Sword blossoms flickered, world power erupting in a thunderous burst — but in the next instant, Yang Kai's figure vanished from sight. The attacker's heart lurched, and a wave of intense unease flooded his chest.
Before he could react, a spear had already ballooned to fill his entire field of vision. The spear shaft trembled, transforming into what seemed like a colossal dragon, jaws agape and claws bared, lunging to devour him whole. It blotted out every scrap of light before him, so terrifying that his mind went blank.
In desperation, he channeled his world power to defend — but a far more savage force shattered through his barrier without the slightest resistance.
*Pfft.* The spear pierced clean through his skull and detonated it entirely. Bits of red and white splattered across the void, while the headless corpse continued to twitch, still frozen in the posture of a sword thrust.
Yang Kai's momentum did not slow. A dragon's roar shook the heavens as his figure flickered in and out of existence, the Azure Dragon Spear appearing and disappearing like a phantom. Between heaven and earth, only the blinding radiance of the spear's arc remained.
By the time he reappeared, he had already punched through the encirclement of Open Heaven cultivators. His pace had seemed leisurely, yet it was breathtakingly fast — he was hurtling toward the battlefield where the four Sixth Grade Open Heaven cultivators clashed.
His body had already gone, but his voice drifted back, unhurried: "If either of them loses so much as a single hair, I'll make every last one of you pay with your lives!"
The Chef and the Accountant stood frozen, having completely failed to track how Yang Kai had broken through that dense encirclement. They could only marvel — the Laws of Space really were something. Phasing in and out without a trace, impossible for anyone to pin down.
Then, abruptly, their eyes went wide, and they stared fixedly at the enemies surrounding them.
A burst of crimson light exploded, and a figure shattered into pieces. Then another burst of crimson light—
*Boom, boom, boom—*
One after another, seven or eight mid-grade Open Heaven cultivators detonated into clouds of bloody mist, not even bones remaining.
Shock and disbelief overflowed in their eyes.
The surrounding enemies erupted into chaos.
Everyone had seen Yang Kai blow a hole through one man's skull with a single spear thrust just moments ago — but that had been a mere Fourth Grade. In the heat of life-or-death combat, a moment's carelessness leading to death on the spot was entirely expected.
But among the seven or eight who had just perished, more than half had been Fifth Grades. Yang Kai had been the only one who moved, so who had killed the rest was self-evident.
In the span of a single heartbeat, snatching the lives of seven or eight mid-grade Open Heaven cultivators as easily as reaching into a bag — what manner of terrifying power was this?