A pity he hadn't been able to find Heiyuan here.
Heiyuan's Soul had been wounded. If Yang Kai could have tracked him down, he would have had some confidence in finishing him off. But now, with the void stretching vast and boundless, Yang Kai had no idea where to even begin looking for Heiyuan's trail.
What was done was done. There was no use forcing the issue.
It was time to head back beyond the pass. The Ink Clan army was besieging Yin Yang Pass, and he had no idea how things stood there.
With that decided, Yang Kai shot off in the direction of Yin Yang Pass. Manipulating the Space Laws, his figure flickered unpredictably as he traveled. The journey was remarkably smooth—perhaps the Ink Clan had been frightened out of their wits by him recently, because he didn't encounter even a single scattered patrol along the way.
Half a day later, just as Yang Kai was about to leave Heiyuan's territory and enter another Domain Lord's domain, the compass he'd been holding all this time gave a faint tremor.
He hadn't found Heiyuan's trail on his direct holdings before, but Yang Kai had still harbored a sliver of hope that he might spot something on the return journey. That was why he hadn't put away the compass Wang Sibo had refined for him—he'd kept it in hand the entire time.
And now it had actually reacted.
The vibration was exceedingly faint, but Yang Kai was a Seventh-Order Open Heaven cultivator after all, and because he'd been expecting it, he'd been half-attentively monitoring the compass's state. He noticed the change at once.
He halted abruptly and looked down. The needle inside the compass was swaying gently, pointing toward a general direction.
Yang Kai's eyes lit up. A response from the compass meant it had sensed the armband—and that armband had always been worn on Heiyuan's right arm. Where the armband was, Heiyuan was hiding.
The reason the needle kept swaying faintly was that the distance between them was still somewhat great. It was likely right at the edge of detection range, so it could only indicate an approximate bearing.
But that was enough!
Yang Kai was overjoyed. He'd thought his chance to kill Heiyuan had slipped away, yet here was an unexpected turn.
He immediately suppressed his aura and followed the direction the needle was swaying toward.
Heiyuan was surely tending to his wounds. Though his Soul had been injured, he was still a Domain Lord-level powerhouse—wouldn't be easy to take down in a fair fight. If Yang Kai could catch him off guard with a sneak attack, he might just succeed in one decisive strike.
As Yang Kai drew closer, the amplitude of the compass needle's swaying gradually decreased, until it finally settled.
Half a day later, concealed within a mass of Ink Cloud, Yang Kai crouched within and quietly surveyed a floating landmass ahead.
The landmass was fairly large—remnant debris from some shattered World that had drifted here. Such fragments were plentiful throughout the Ink Battlefield, especially across Ink Clan territory, where many Lords and Domain Lords liked to establish their domains.
Heiyuan's former direct fief had likewise been built on a floating landmass.
Under Yang Kai's observation, this particular massive landmass showed no signs of Ink Clan activity. He couldn't spot Heiyuan's figure either—couldn't even sense his aura.
Yet the compass needle pointed directly at this landmass. In other words, Heiyuan was definitely hiding inside.
He watched for a while longer but still couldn't locate Heiyuan's trail. Yang Kai frowned, then burst from the Ink Cloud and shot straight toward the landmass.
Heiyuan was hidden somewhere in there. First step was to find him.
Suppressing his aura and life force as much as possible, Yang Kai moved about the landmass like a specter. He'd been somewhat worried this might give him away—at such close range, even with his aura suppressed, Heiyuan might still detect him. But after he'd scoured the better part of the landmass, Heiyuan still showed no reaction whatsoever.
Yang Kai relaxed. It seemed Heiyuan's injuries were serious. When Ink Clan suffered heavy damage, falling into slumber was the fastest way to heal. That meant Heiyuan was very likely sleeping somewhere on this landmass.
That only made things easier for him.
A pity that despite searching most of the landmass, he still couldn't find Heiyuan's trail—until a wisp of leaking Ink Force caught his attention.
Ink Force was everywhere in the void thanks to the Ink Clan's activity. It even condensed into Ink Clouds in some places, so at first Yang Kai hadn't paid the leaked Ink Force much mind.
Only when he determined that something about it seemed off did he examine it more carefully.
After a moment, Yang Kai realized that the source of the Ink Force was inside the landmass itself. Which meant Heiyuan was hiding *within*?
No wonder he'd searched for ages without finding a trace.
Mind made up, he followed the source of the Ink Force and quickly found a cave on one part of the landmass that plunged deep underground.
Holding his breath and steadying his mind, he slipped into the cave and descended, unsure how many li he'd traveled downward. The deeper he went, the denser the Ink Force seeping from somewhere ahead became—further confirming his judgment.
Until suddenly, the narrow cave opened up.
Inside this landmass was a vast hollow space. And as Yang Kai looked up, his eyes narrowed.