That aura locked onto him like a needle pressing into his back, simultaneously serving as a shackle. It made Yang Kai feel as though he were sitting on pins and needles, and more importantly, he couldn't easily activate spatial teleportation.
The moment spatial energy rippled even slightly around him, Chekong's binding aura would immediately flare, disrupting the void and preventing Yang Kai from gathering any power.
That was why, over the many years he'd lived, Yang Kai had frequently relied on the Space Laws to flee, yet whenever he encountered opponents vastly stronger than himself, he still often ended up in wretched situations.
Spatial teleportation wasn't truly invincible.
As long as someone could destabilize the void around Yang Kai's body, even he wouldn't be able to teleport away easily.
Two figures streaked around Dayan Pass at tremendous speed. Yang Kai coughed up blood as he flew, yet wore a savage grin. "Let's see how long you can keep this up!"
Circling like this was far too disadvantageous for Chekong.
The myriad defensive formations lining Dayan's four walls could unleash their full power against him without restraint, while Yang Kai, who was fleeing ahead, was completely unaffected by any of the backlash.
Round and round they went.
Before completing even three full circles, Chekong could barely hold on. His massive body shook violently from the barrage of attacks hammering him from the direction of Dayan. This kind of one-sided beating—taking hits without retaliating—was utterly infuriating.
In his rage, he hurled a punch straight at Dayan.
The strike sent the outer barrier of Dayan into a violent shimmer, but it didn't sustain so much as a scratch.
Up ahead, Yang Kai curled his lip at the sight. With five Eighth-Order masters now stationed at Dayan's core, channeling the full defensive power of the pass, expecting a lone Chekong to pose any real threat to Dayan was nothing short of a fool's dream.
Seizing the moment when Chekong's energy fluctuated from his attack, Yang Kai immediately channeled his own power, shattering the aura that had been locked onto him. In the next instant, the Space Laws surged, and he vanished from his position.
Chekong seemed to sense something and whipped his head around. One glance told him that Yang Kai had already appeared above the Royal City, standing atop a towering Ink Nest.
Five million li—that distance was simply too short. For someone unimpeded like Yang Kai, it could be crossed in the span of a single thought.
But Yang Kai didn't move to destroy the Ink Nest beneath his feet right away. Instead, he simply stared at Chekong from across the distance, his eyes brimming with mockery.
Chekong roared, "You wouldn't dare!"
Yang Kai let out a derisive laugh. "So furious, are we? Looks like this really is your Ink Nest!"
After tangling with Chekong for so long, Yang Kai hadn't been without his gains. At the very least, he had already vaguely sensed the direction from which Chekong was drawing his borrowed power.
Following that thread back to its source, finding Chekong's Ink Nest wasn't difficult at all.
The fellow had been lucky before. Yang Kai had destroyed three Ink Nests out of more than a dozen in succession, and none of them had affected him. But now that he had found this Domain Lord's personal Ink Nest, Chekong's streak of good fortune had finally come to an end.
Even as he howled in fury, Chekong lunged toward the Royal City, desperate to stop what Yang Kai was about to do.
But how could he make it in time? Five million li was a distance Yang Kai, a master of the Space Laws, could cross in the blink of an eye. Chekong, no matter how fast he was, still needed a full breath or two. There was simply no way to intervene.
All Chekong could do was watch helplessly as Yang Kai raised a massive palm, Heaven and Earth's might surging within it, and slammed it downward with devastating force.
Under the cataclysmic wave of power, the enormous Ink Nest shuddered violently before instantly disintegrating into dust. The dense Ink Power stored within it erupted skyward, transforming into a colossal ink-black cloud that blanketed a vast area surrounding the Royal City.
Given his previous experience destroying a Royal Lord-level Ink Nest, Yang Kai feared that anything less than total annihilation might fail to affect Chekong, so he had obliterated the nest completely—not a single fragment remained.
The very instant the Ink Nest was destroyed, the towering aura emanating from Chekong's body plummeted noticeably, and even his movements stuttered for a moment.
The destruction of the Ink Nest didn't merely cut off his source of borrowed power—it clearly had some subtle but direct impact on him as well.
Under normal circumstances, such an effect would vanish almost immediately, posing no real threat to him.
But in this precise moment, a pair of eyes had been lying in wait, hidden in the shadows, watching for exactly this fleeting opening.
At the instant Yang Kai's palm struck and Chekong's aura dipped, a figure burst out from within Dayan Pass like a bolt of lightning, hurling a palm strike that had been gathering power for some time.
A razor-sharp aura locked onto Chekong. The ambush from behind was like a death knell, and Chekong's soul nearly fled his body in terror.
An Eighth-Order!
At such a critical juncture, a human Eighth-Order warrior had actually made a move against him.
Was it one of the Eighth-Order masters stationed inside Dayan? Chekong couldn't understand, because earlier, when he'd chased Yang Kai all the way to Dayan twice—and the second time had even circled the pass several times—none of those Eighth-Order fighters had shown any intention of acting.
Chekong had assumed they were bound by some reason and couldn't easily intervene.
Otherwise, he never would have turned his back toward Dayan so freely.
Yet now, of all times, an Eighth-Order had struck.
The fury of having his Ink Nest destroyed was instantly replaced by boundless terror. At a moment like this, Chekong had no thought of continuing his pursuit of Yang Kai—survival was everything.
He spun around in a rush, channeling his Ink Power, and unleashed a secret technique from his palm.
The Heaven and Earth's might of an Eighth-Order warrior collided head-on with a Domain Lord's Ink Power. Both figures shuddered violently from the impact. The figure that had charged out of Dayan came fast, but retreated even faster. The instant it made contact with Chekong, it was sent flying backward like an arrow loosed from a bow, coughing up torrents of blood in midair. Chekong, though also forced into a rapid backward slide, hadn't fared nearly as badly.
In this exchange, Chekong had claimed a decisive advantage. That fierce incoming attack had crumpled like paper against his power.
At last, Chekong could see clearly who had launched the ambush.