Not long after the two departed, several more figures arrived from different directions, clearly drawn by the commotion from the recent battle.
After surveying the devastated battlefield, all of them turned their gaze toward the Mysterious Spirit Fruit tree.
After a brief moment, the newcomers dispersed once more, vanishing without a trace.
Deep within the mountain lay a karst cavern of unknown depth. The Seventh-Order Old Man led Yang Kai inside, and upon entering, first set down numerous restrictions to isolate the interior from the outside. Only then did he cross his legs and sit down, silently circulating his profound technique to restore himself.
Yang Kai was brimming with questions and had no idea where to begin, but seeing the old man in this state, he could only wait patiently.
Their earlier exchange had been no light affair. Yang Kai had held nothing back with his Art of Striking the Bull, and the violent force had crashed directly into the old man's Small Universe. The other party surely wasn't feeling well.
It took quite some time before the old man finally exhaled a long breath of turbid air and opened his eyes.
Yang Kai sat upright beside him, wearing a look of concern. "Are you all right, Senior?"
He had been the one to injure the old man, so he felt somewhat embarrassed. But given the circumstances, he'd had no choice — the other party had been about to strike a killing blow, and he couldn't simply stand there and wait for death.
Instead of answering, the old man fired back a question of his own: "You're not a Mo Servant?"
This young man before him had been able to drive out and purify the Mo power even from within his own Small Universe. Such an ability was simply unheard of. If he possessed this power, he obviously could not have been corrupted by Mo himself — could not have become a Mo Servant.
Yang Kai shook his head. "No, I'm not!"
The old man's expression turned to one of astonishment. "If you're not a Mo Servant, then how did you end up here?"
"The details are complicated — I'll hold off on explaining for now. There are a few questions I'd like to ask you first, Senior." Yang Kai looked at him.
The old man nodded. "Go ahead."
Yang Kai asked, "This place — is it the Mo Battlefield?"
The old man furrowed his brow slightly and regarded him with a look of puzzlement, as if to say, You're already here and you don't even know where you are? But after a moment's thought, he replied, "I suppose you could say so."
I suppose? Yang Kai was thoroughly confused.
Fortunately, the old man elaborated. "This is a secret realm within the Mo Battlefield. Step outside the realm, and you'll be in the Mo Battlefield proper."
Yang Kai was deeply surprised. "A secret realm? There are secret realms inside the Mo Battlefield?"
The old man looked at him with even greater bewilderment. "The Mo Battlefield stretches vast and boundless, and there are countless secret realms within it." His expression made it perfectly clear that he found nothing unusual about this at all.
Yang Kai fell silent, pondering...
But at least he finally understood why the scenery after emerging from the Void Corridor hadn't matched his expectations — he had entered directly into a secret realm. Only by leaving this realm would he truly arrive at the Mo Battlefield.
"Is this secret realm a permanent fixture?" Yang Kai pressed. "Or was it only recently discovered by someone?"
"A few months ago, the entrance to the realm appeared, and that was how we first became aware of it," the old man replied.
A few months ago — the timing coincided exactly with the death of that Mo Prince. Though Yang Kai didn't know the specific connection between these two events, there had to be one.
That said, this actually put Yang Kai somewhat at ease.
His greatest worry had been that the entrance to the Void Corridor on this side might have been discovered by the Mo Clan. Now it seemed that the ancient powerhouse had long since taken precautions. The secret realm on this side was likely connected to that ancient being's methods — hiding the Void Corridor's entrance entirely within a secret realm was certainly a thorough and cautious safeguard.
After a brief moment of thought, Yang Kai asked another question. "From what you said, Senior, it sounds like you're not the only one who has entered this secret realm?"
The old man nodded. "Of course not. The secret realms within the Mo Battlefield contain many treasures. Those things are useless to the Mo Clan, but to Mo Servants they're all valuable. So whenever a secret realm appears, Mo Servants flock to it in droves."
Yang Kai's eyebrows rose at this, and he silently congratulated himself on having encountered a Seventh-Order whose strength was rather lackluster. Otherwise, the fight could have gone very differently. With that in mind, he ventured another question. "Senior, are you injured?"
How else could a Seventh-Order Open Heaven cultivator have been so easily dazed and disoriented by his strike?
The old man gazed at him deeply, then shook his head. "It's not that I'm injured. It's simply that my Small Universe has long been incomplete."
Yang Kai fell silent...
He understood the implication instantly.
The reason the Small Universe was incomplete was that part of it had been severed away. And there was only one situation in which an Upper-Order Open Heaven cultivator would make such a drastic, self-mutilating decision.
That was when their power had been corroded by Mo!
During the battle against that Mo Prince, many Upper-Order Open Heaven cultivators from the Cave Heavens and Blessed Lands had been infiltrated by Mo power. Yang Kai had managed to purify some of them in time with his own abilities, but others had been forced to proactively sever portions of their Small Universe in order to preserve themselves.
Only by doing so could they prevent themselves from being completely corrupted by Mo.