After mere moments of fierce battle, both Yang Kai and the Goat-headed King Lord felt their hearts sink, their expressions growing grave.
Yang Kai felt this way because his current strength had increased several times over compared to before, yet it was still not enough to match his opponent.
Though the gap in their realms was only a single order, that single order represented the greatest possible divide.
At the fifth-order, he had been able to kill sixth-order cultivators. At sixth-order, he could slay seventh-order. At seventh-order, he could kill Domain Lords. But now, having reached the eighth-order, he found himself utterly unable to kill even a single ninth-order.
A King Lord's strength was equivalent to that of the ninth-order.
He could even clearly sense that this Goat-headed King Lord's injuries had not fully healed—in other words, the other party was not at the peak of his strength.
Troublesome! If this continued, the situation would only grow more unfavorable for him. But if he didn't kill this Goat-headed King Lord here, how could he protect the secret of the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon?
While Yang Kai was racking his brains, the Goat-headed King Lord was feeling just as vexed.
This human's strength compared to five hundred years ago had grown far beyond a mere slight improvement. Though their exchange had not lasted long, the Goat-headed King Lord could sense that killing him would be no easy feat.
He was certainly still no match, but he already possessed the capital to contend against him.
Any other eighth-order cultivator, no matter how powerful, might be able to hold out against him for a time, but the Goat-headed King Lord would eventually be able to cut them down. Yang Kai was different—this fellow had mastered the Dao of Space, and the Goat-headed King Lord had not forgotten the humiliation of failing to chase him down five hundred years ago.
If the fight continued like this, the other party would likely flee!
He couldn't give him the chance to escape, otherwise he would never learn what trump card Cang had left behind.
The trump card that Cang had left behind was undoubtedly of great consequence.
The man and the Ink Clan member had different thoughts, but in that same instant, they had both come to the same decision—to unleash their strongest trump card and settle this once and for all.
The next moment, Yang Kai suddenly leaped out of the battle circle, widening the distance between himself and the Goat-headed King Lord. He had expected the other party to stop him, but to his surprise, the Goat-headed King Lord had no intention of doing so, instead allowing him to leave.
Though puzzled, Yang Kai didn't think too much of it. He planted his Azure Dragon Spear into the void beside him, his hands rapidly shifting through hand seals.
As the Golden Crow cried out, a great sun soared into the sky.
Behind the great sun, a serene full moon rose in quick succession, its cold lunar radiance pouring downward.
Sun and moon shone together—a wondrous spectacle of heaven and earth.
The great sun and the full moon rotated in an interlocking spiral, transforming into a top that tugged at the void, unveiling the mysteries of time as the power of the Dao of Time flowed outward.
At the same time, the Dao of Space surged and rippled, intertwining with the power of time, evolving into an entirely new and mysterious force.
Sun and Moon Divine Wheel!
Up to this point, aside from channeling the Dragon Pearl for a desperate strike, Yang Kai's most powerful killing technique was this Sun and Moon Divine Wheel.
It was a divine ability he had comprehended and created himself—not necessarily the most refined, but one that was perfectly attuned to his own power, which was why it carried tremendous force when executed by his hands.
The Dragon Pearl was not something to be used lightly. To deal with the Goat-headed King Lord, the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel was his only option.
If even this technique proved ineffective, Yang Kai would have no choice but to retreat first and scheme later to claim the Goat-headed King Lord's life.
At the moment he unleashed the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel, the Goat-headed King Lord also abruptly raised his eyes to look at him.
Those pitch-black eyes seemed to transform into a bottomless abyss, threatening to devour Yang Kai's body and mind. Yang Kai's figure was clearly reflected in those obsidian-like pupils, and within that reflection, his image was suddenly shrouded in the boundless Power of Ink, as though a mass of black flames were burning.
King-level Secret Art!
In that instant, both Yang Kai and the Goat-headed King Lord had unleashed their strongest means, each seeking to settle the matter in a single decisive blow. Their judgment regarding the timing and the state of the battle could be said to have coincided perfectly.
Yang Kai was slightly stunned.
He had long heard of the King-level Secret Art.
Among the Ink Clan, those below the King Lord who wished to inkify humans could only channel the Power of Ink to corrode the human cultivator's body, mind, and Small Universe. If the human could not withstand it, they would be transformed into Ink Slaves.
King Lord-level powerhouses could do the same, but they possessed a far more convenient and effective method.
That method was the King-level Secret Art.
Rumors among the human strongholds held that when a King Lord-level powerhouse activated a King-level Secret Art, even an eighth-order human would struggle to resist, and might be inkified into an Ink Slave in an instant.
This was also the reason why, when ninth-order humans fought against Ink Clan King Lords, eighth-order Open Heaven cultivators would rarely intervene. Ninth-order cultivators could withstand a King-level Secret Art, but eighth-order cultivators could not necessarily do the same. If the battle reached a stalemate and an eighth-order was affected by a King-level Secret Art and inkified, the consequences for their side could be devastating.
To deal with a King Lord, only a ninth-order human could act personally.
The mysteries of the King-level Secret Art had been studied by the humans for many years, but they had failed to uncover anything of substance, because almost no King Lord would casually activate a King-level Secret Art.
Without subjects to study, they naturally could not obtain much useful information.
Nevertheless, the human high command had speculated that the King-level Secret Art might be an innate divine ability of the Ink Clan—something that could only be activated once one's strength reached the King Lord level. Moreover, this innate divine ability was very likely a soul attack.
Yang Kai had naturally heard all of this before.
And now, he finally understood—the King-level Secret Art was not a purely spiritual attack.