With a casual wave of her hand, she killed a Fifth Order Open Heaven cultivator as easily as crushing an ant. Even the many mine slaves, long accustomed to this woman's ruthless cruelty, couldn't help but shudder with fear, terrified of being implicated. One by one, they lowered their heads.
Yang Kai watched with an expressionless face, feeling no particular sympathy. In the game of survival, the victor reigned supreme. Back then, if Void Land had lost that battle, the fate of its thousand-plus Open Heaven cultivators would have been no better.
"Begin," Yang Kai said coolly.
Luan Baifeng nodded and took charge of the arrangements without hesitation. The reason all the mine slaves in the Black Domain had been gathered here was to refine something of paramount importance — a task that demanded enormous manpower and resources.
Twenty years ago, when Luan Baifeng had returned to the Black Domain from Lingxiao Territory, Yang Kai had already shared with her one of his wild ideas.
If Open Heaven cultivators could traverse the void through Space Arrays, then the mining stars buried deep within the Black Domain could theoretically be relocated in the same manner.
Of course, moving an entire mining star would require a Space Array of staggering proportions.
The last time Yang Kai had relocated a mining star, he'd relied purely on brute force, pushing it all the way back manually. It had been exhausting, time-consuming, and required constant course corrections and speed adjustments — a colossal hassle. One careless collision with another mining star, and the whole effort could have been wasted.
But if he could leverage the Dao of Space to teleport the stars directly, the process would become infinitely simpler.
The upfront investment, however, would be immense. But as Yang Kai had said, when it came to moving mining stars, sharpening the axe was far more productive than hacking away with a dull blade. If their plan succeeded, the efficiency of mining Black Stone would increase ten millionfold, and the supply of Sixth Order and above Yin-Yang attribute resources would be virtually guaranteed for the future.
For the past twenty years since returning to the Black Domain, Luan Baifeng had been conceptualizing the Void Grand Array. It was only when Yang Kai arrived, bringing his profound mastery of the Dao of Space, that the design could be fully perfected.
The mining stars in the Black Domain varied greatly in size, so the Array couldn't be rigid — it needed the ability to adapt.
With this as the foundation, the two had poured every ounce of their combined expertise into creating a masterwork that fused the essence of the Dao of Space and the Dao of Arrays. It was not an exaggeration to say this was an unprecedented feat, one that had never been accomplished before and might never be again.
Over the next three years, outside the Black Domain's perimeter palace, several hundred Open Heaven cultivators worked feverishly. Among them were all manner of skilled individuals — those proficient in Artifact Refining, for instance, were given key responsibilities by Luan Baifeng. The rest, who had no particular talents and could only provide manual labor, served as assistants on the sidelines.
Yang Kai oversaw the entire operation, inspecting each stage of production and filling in any gaps.
Three years later, sixteen great artifacts were forged. They were divided into two sets of eight — one set embodying Yin, the other Yang — like the two sides of a mirror.
For this reason, Yang Kai named the two sets the Void Yin-Yang Mirror.
Each artifact was a single Array Disc, forged from an astronomical quantity of resources. Converted into Open Heaven Pills, each disc was worth three billion!
Had Yang Kai not been in control of two Star Markets and an entire new Great Domain — and had he not come prepared, bringing vast stockpiles of materials — he could never have attempted something so extravagant. He simply couldn't have afforded it.
One Array Disc alone was worth three billion. Sixteen of them totaled forty-eight billion — a figure so staggering it could buy several hundred sets of Seventh Order resources, enough to bankrupt any Second-Rate power.
The materials Yang Kai had brought along before setting out were consumed in one fell swoop, and the sting was almost unbearable.
If the plan worked, the returns would be immense. If it failed, he would lose everything — and then some.
Even with his current wealth, once all sixteen Array Discs of the Void Yin-Yang Mirror were completed, Yang Kai couldn't help but feel a flutter of anxiety, torn between hope and dread.
He left one set of eight — the Void Yin Mirror — with Luan Baifeng, and took the corresponding set, the Void Yang Mirror, for himself. Drawing a deep breath, he gazed toward the depths of the Black Domain. "Wait for my signal."
Luan Baifeng nodded, somewhat tense but filled with far more anticipation. A divine artifact forged by her own hands — of course she wanted to know whether it would perform as envisioned. Though they had run theoretical calculations and small-scale experiments beforehand, confirming that nothing should go wrong, those had been mere tests. No one could say with certainty what would happen when they attempted to move an actual mining star.
Yang Kai had ventured deep into the Black Domain before. The ever-present mysterious energy corroded one's Small Universe, and the deeper one went, the faster the Small Universe's foundation eroded.
However, with Weiwei Changqing, Yang Kai could resist the corrosion to some degree and penetrate positions no ordinary person could reach.
After more than ten days, Yang Kai sensed he was approaching his limit. Any further, and even Weiwei Changqing would struggle to hold back the mysterious energy.
He selected a mining array and immediately set to work.
He took out the eight Array Discs of the Void Yang Mirror he had carried with him and placed them around the mining star in the positions of the Eight Trigrams — Qian, Zhen, Kan, Gen, Kun, Xun, Li, and Dui.
Then Yang Kai seated himself at the Qian position. His hands shifted through a series of seals as the Dao of Space surged around him, and he let out a sharp shout: "Rise!"
The eight Array Discs of the Void Yang Mirror hummed and trembled, and beams of light shot out from each disc, linking them together.
In the blink of an eye, the eight discs were connected end to end. Viewed from above, they clearly formed a square cage — and within that cage lay the mining star Yang Kai had chosen as his target.