In the void, Yang Kai gazed silently at Fan Xiuqi for a good while before finally speaking. "Any last words?"
Fan Xiuqi's face was pale with terror. He shook his head frantically, his eyes pleading as he looked at Yang Kai. "Save me, my lord!"
The power of Mo within his body had already been completely purged by Yang Kai. He had regained his faculties, but his cultivation had fallen into utter disarray. The world's power within his Small Universe was leaking out uncontrollably, clearly on the verge of collapse.
That was the danger of the power of Mo.
When Fan Xiuqi had advanced to the Open Heaven Realm, he had been Third-Order, with a natural limit of Fifth-Order at most. Yet under the influence of the power of Mo, he had broken through to the Sixth-Order — a minor miracle by any reckoning.
But such miracles came at a price.
As a Mo Servant, Fan Xiuqi had still been able to wield Sixth-Order power. However, once the power of Mo was cleansed and his foundation restored, his Small Universe could no longer sustain a Sixth-Order realm. That level exceeded the limits of what his body could bear.
The result was an unstable Small Universe, teetering on the edge of collapse.
The Sixth-Order was not a realm he could control.
Yang Kai shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry. There's nothing I can do."
Despair flooded Fan Xiuqi's eyes. The fluctuations of world power around his body grew even more erratic. He knew in his heart that there was no escaping his fate today, and he let out a grief-stricken roar toward the heavens.
Amid that roar, his Small Universe collapsed. The world's power surged outward, and the backlash tore through his body. As blood blossomed like a rose, Fan Xiuqi exploded into a mist of crimson.
Yang Kai let out a quiet sigh and flashed back to the flying ship.
Luan Baifeng had likely guessed what had happened. When she saw Yang Kai return, she immediately cast him an inquiring look.
Yang Kai shook his head. "He's dead."
Luan Baifeng fell silent for a moment.
"How many are there?" Yang Kai asked.
She understood what he was referring to. After a brief thought, she answered, "Not many. Just over twenty."
"Find them all," Yang Kai ordered.
Luan Baifeng acknowledged the command and turned to gather the twenty-odd subordinates who had broken through the bottleneck of the Open Heaven Realm under the influence of the power of Mo, setting them aside in a separate area.
In the days that followed, Yang Kai was given no rest. One by one, the Mo Servants had the power of Mo within them purified through his hands. After cleansing each person, Yang Kai meticulously inspected their Small Universe to ensure there were no problems.
When he finally reached the last twenty-something, Yang Kai hesitated.
With Fan Xiuqi's fate as a precedent, he didn't even need to act to imagine what would happen to these people once the power of Mo was stripped away. But he couldn't leave them be either — they had been tainted by the power of Mo and become Mo Servants. If left unchecked, they would inevitably become a threat to this vast world.
After much deliberation, Yang Kai decided to seek out Brother Huang and Sister Lan for help.
Perhaps the two of them would have some solution.
Each of them now commanded sixteen Seventh and Eighth-Order Open Heaven subordinates, and they spent their days waging battle against each other with great enthusiasm. Yang Kai easily found Brother Huang stationed behind the lines, overseeing the army.
The fighting at the front was fierce, but Brother Huang was entirely unconcerned. In the past, commanding the Small Stone Tribe had required him to manage every detail personally. Now, with the experts from the Grotto-heavens and Blessed Lands lending their strength, things were far more relaxed.
When he spotted Yang Kai approaching, Brother Huang merely glanced sideways at him before turning his attention back to a Seventh-Order Open Heaven cultivator who was reporting on the state of the battle ahead, nodding thoughtfully and issuing orders with the bearing of a true commander.
Once the report was finished, Yang Kai opened his mouth to speak, but Brother Huang cut him off immediately. "Can't save them. Just kill them all. Saves trouble."
All of Yang Kai's words lodged in his throat, leaving him thoroughly stifled.
He paid Sister Lan a visit next and received the same answer.
Their responses weren't brush-offs. If these two had any means of solving the problem, they surely wouldn't have hidden it. If even they were helpless, then there truly was nothing to be done.
Still, Yang Kai refused to give up. He returned to the flying ship and purged the remaining twenty-something of the power of Mo one by one.
But the outcome was just as grim.
Just like Fan Xiuqi, every single one of them perished when their Small Universe collapsed after the power of Mo was removed. Not one survived.
Luan Baifeng and the others felt a chill in their hearts, quietly relieved that when they themselves had been tainted, none of them had been foolish enough to push past their limits. Otherwise, they would have shared the same fate.
Thousands of Mo Servants had been restored to sanity, and every one of them had been personally saved by Yang Kai. Their gratitude toward him was boundless.
Yang Kai had spent a considerable amount of Yellow Crystals and Blue Crystals on the process, but compared to what he had originally harvested here, it was a pittance. The cultivation levels of these Mo Servants hadn't been particularly high.
Purging a Third-Order Mo Servant required only a single Third-Order Yellow Crystal and a Third-Order Blue Crystal.
Yang Kai's expenditure was negligible.
Having spent several months delayed in the Chaos Dead Zone, Yang Kai was growing anxious about the situation back at the Black Domain. There was no telling how the Mo Clan there would be dealt with, so he promptly went to bid farewell to Brother Huang and Sister Lan.
"You're leaving already?" Sister Lan looked at him in surprise.