When Yue He saw the bewildered look on Yang Kai's face, she didn't bother keeping him in suspense. Smiling, she said, "Nearly all the mineral stars in the Black Domain have been fully mined. Every resource we extracted has been taken into our possession."
Yang Kai started, then quickly grasped her meaning. "For breaking that Super Grand Array?"
Yue He nodded. "Exactly."
Yang Kai couldn't help but be curious. "The Blessed Realms were willing to go along with that?"
One had to consider that the Black Domain contained no small number of mineral stars, each one brimming with abundant resources. The sum total was hardly insignificant — even the Blessed Realms would have coveted it. Yet who would have thought that all those extracted resources would end up in Lingxiao Palace's coffers?
In just a few sentences, he could already picture what had transpired during the hundred years he'd been trapped inside the prison cage.
The Blessed Realms must have dispatched large numbers of personnel, spent an entire century mining the Black Domain's mineral stars clean. That was how the Super Grand Array had finally been broken, allowing the Blessed Realms' powerhouses to escape its binding influence and face the Mo Royal Clan in open battle without restraint.
"It was Sister who argued fiercely on your behalf," Yue He continued. "She told them that the Young Master had risked his own life for the sake of the Three Thousand Worlds, and that the Black Domain had always been Lingxiao Palace's territory — so naturally everything obtained here belonged to Lingxiao Palace. With the Mo Clan pressing close as a common enemy, even they couldn't bring themselves to do anything too shameless."
"Mm." Yang Kai gave a slight nod. "That's good news."
With the vast resources from the Black Domain now flowing in, the disciples of Lingxiao Palace and Void Earth would have far more abundant supplies for their cultivation. He had previously possessed enormous reserves of Yin-Yang elemental resources and had been worried that his Five Element supplies might run dry in the future. Now that concern was gone too.
It truly was good news, and everyone in the great hall wore cheerful expressions.
"But Young Master, you really can't go running off on dangerous escapades like this anymore." Yue He shifted tone, her voice carrying a note of reproach. "So many people in Lingxiao Palace and Void Earth are counting on you. If anything were to happen to you, what would we all do?"
Everyone nodded in agreement.
Lingxiao Palace and Void Earth had risen only recently. Nearly all of their cohesion was held together by Yang Kai alone. Should anything befall him, the sect would inevitably scatter and fall apart.
Yang Xue also spoke up with a stern face. "Exactly. Big Brother, you're not some lone wanderer anymore. Think about your sisters-in-law for once. They've been living in fear all these years."
Yang Kai's smile stiffened somewhat.
Yang Xue watched him and a sudden uneasy feeling stirred in her chest. She frowned. "Big Brother… you're not about to go do something dangerous again, are you?"
They were siblings after all. Though they hadn't spent much time together — in fact, Yang Kai had not been by her side during most of her growing years — the blood bond between them let her sense things others couldn't.
Yang Kai let out a heavy sigh. It was enough to silence every trace of laughter in the great hall. The expressions of Yu Rumeng and the others grew solemn.
"There is a threshold in this world," Yang Kai said abruptly, "called the Gate of No Return!"
"Ordinary people have never even heard of this threshold. Even the common disciples within the Blessed Realms don't know it exists. Those who are worthy of knowing about it are all elite disciples and high-ranking members of the Blessed Realms. I myself only recently learned of it."
"Once you step past the Gate of No Return, you never look back. Within this threshold lies everything we can see of the Three Thousand Worlds — the vast expanse of heaven and earth. Beyond this threshold lies a battlefield that stretches on without end!"
Everyone's faces changed with alarm. Mao Zhe asked in astonishment, "A battlefield? What kind of battlefield?"
"The Mo Battlefield!" Yang Kai answered in a deep voice.
Every mouth in the hall fell open. Though this was the first time any of them had heard of a place called the Mo Battlefield, the name alone was enough to tell them it was no pleasant place.
"As you might imagine, the Mo Battlefield is home to countless members of the Mo Clan. Since time immemorial, they have sought to invade the Three Thousand Worlds, to enslave every living being in this world and reduce them to cattle. The Blessed Realms bear the responsibility of protecting the Three Thousand Worlds. Their powerhouses, year after year for uncounted ages, have fought the Mo Clan on that battlefield, holding back their invasion."
The Great Emperors' faces turned grim. Mao Zhe and Hui Gu stared with slack jaws.
It was understandable that the Great Emperors hadn't heard of the Mo Battlefield — they had not been long departed from the Star Boundary, and their ascension to the Open Heaven Realm was only a few centuries old at most.
But Mao Zhe and Hui Gu were veteran Open Heaven Realm cultivators. That even they had never heard of the Mo Battlefield or the Gate of No Return — that was truly staggering.
All eyes turned toward Qu Huashang and Tao Lingwan. Among everyone present, they held the highest backgrounds — both were Core Disciples of Yin-Yang Heaven, having ascended directly to the Sixth Order. The secrets they knew naturally surpassed what others could access.
Qu Huashang gave a slight nod. "My Master, over three hundred years ago, led Senior Brother and Senior Sister beyond the Gate of No Return and into the Mo Battlefield. And from what I know, every few years each of the Blessed Realms must send a new batch of personnel into the Mo Battlefield to replenish the losses sustained in the great war."
No one could imagine just how brutal and fierce the fighting on the Mo Battlefield must be — to force even the Blessed Realms to keep sending reinforcements in a steady stream.