Twenty years passed in the blink of an eye.
Over those two decades, Yang Kai roamed through hundreds of great domains, accumulating more than two thousand Heaven and Earth Beads in his possession. Each bead was an entire Yin-Yang Five Elements, fully formed and complete Heaven-and-Earth World, refined into a miniature cosmos.
The number of humans he had saved was beyond counting.
But this was already his limit.
There were still many great domains he had never set foot in, but now, twenty years after the Ink Clan's full-scale invasion, he could no longer find any World that had not been corrupted by the Ink Force.
Every domain bore traces of the Ink Clan. Nearly every World where living beings still survived had already been claimed and occupied by Ink Nests.
Countless mortals and weak cultivators had fallen as Ink thralls, and the accumulated Heaven-and-Earth might of each World—built up over countless ages—had been transformed into nourishment for the Ink Clan's growth.
Of the tens of millions of Small Stone Clan soldiers, Yang Kai had fewer than ten million left. The rest had all been distributed.
Over these twenty years, the number of Ink Clan that had perished at his hands was equally staggering. He had even slain over a dozen Domain Lords.
Now, with the Ink Clan Royal Lord absent and the two Ink-Colored Giant Spirits tied down, the Domain Lords were essentially the Ink Clan's strongest fighting force. But even a single Innate Domain Lord would only be sending itself to its death if it encountered Yang Kai alone. Even against two or three, Yang Kai was confident he could kill them, albeit at a cost.
In twenty years, those who could be evacuated and relocated had been evacuated and relocated. Those who couldn't escape had been left behind to face the fate of being Inkified.
Yang Kai estimated that the cultivators evacuated from the various domains should, at this point, be gathering toward the Star Boundary.
He knew in his heart that this journey of saving humanity should end here. Continuing further would yield no additional results.
Gazing at the dim stars filling the sky, at those Worlds corrupted by the Ink Force and stripped of all vitality, Yang Kai let out a long sigh. Suddenly, he spoke aloud: "Old Tree, are you still going to hide? It's time we met!"
The moment his words fell, something in the depths of this great domain seemed to shift. Then, from the distant horizon, a black tide materialized out of nowhere and surged toward Yang Kai.
Upon seeing this black tide, Yang Kai knew that his long-held conjecture had been correct!
Twenty years ago, when he had first refined the entire Xuanyi Realm, a faint suspicion had taken root in his mind. But at that time, he hadn't refined enough Worlds to determine whether his suspicions were mere fancy or grounded in truth.
Over the past twenty years, he had refined more than two thousand Worlds in succession—more than enough to confirm what he had suspected back then.
Because with every additional World he refined, one more invisible thread of connection linked him to that unknown, inconceivable place.
Now, with the tight bond woven by over two thousand Worlds, even if the other party refused to respond, Yang Kai could force his way into that unknown territory.
The black tide swept in quickly. Yang Kai allowed it to envelop his body, concealing his form.
After the black tide dissipated, Yang Kai had vanished without a trace.
When he reappeared, he found himself in a mysterious place beyond ordinary reach. Within this enigmatic realm, faint suppressive forces bearing down on the laws of heaven and earth made it so that no matter what stage of Open Heaven one had attained, one could not unleash even a fraction of one's true cultivation.
The Grand Void Realm!
Back when Yang Kai had still been merely an Emperor, he was swept up by that mysterious black tide and carried into this secret realm. It was precisely within this hidden sanctuary that he obtained a sapling of the World Tree and saved the Star Boundary from the brink of collapse.
It was also from here that he brought out the Heavenly Moon Demon Spider, Zhu Jiuyin.
Cang had once said that the World Tree was one of the most ancient existences in this vast cosmos. It was with the aid of the World Tree that the ten of them had been able to comprehend the Dao of Opening Heaven and pass its teachings to the human race, giving humanity the means to survive in a world overrun by demon beasts.
Those who earned the World Tree's favor were instruments of the heavens' self-preservation—a measure woven into the fabric of fate. This measure had first chosen Cang and the other nine. They sealed Mo within the Primordial Heavens Grand Restriction and held firm for millions of years, day after day, year after year. Had they failed, the Three Thousand Worlds would not exist today. The entire cosmos would have become a paradise for the Mo Race.
After Cang and the others, there should have been additional candidates chosen one after another. The sapling now sealed within Yang Kai's small world was left behind by one such candidate upon their death.
And Yang Kai himself was likely the most recent to be chosen.
This self-preservation measure was enacted through the World Tree, so no matter what, the World Tree was an indispensable part of the equation—and perhaps the most crucial part of all.
Mo had also said that the old tree had always been hiding from it, fearing it.
Yang Kai had previously never understood what Mo truly meant by that. Both were among the most ancient existences in the world. Mo's power was undeniably beyond imagination, but was the World Tree any lesser? Why would it hide from Mo? Why would it fear Mo?
Only now did Yang Kai finally understand.
Because the World Tree was the manifestation of the entire Three Thousand Worlds. Between the World Tree and the Three Thousand Worlds existed a bond of shared fate—when one suffered, both suffered; when one prospered, both prospered.
Mo's very existence gravely threatened the survival of the Three Thousand Worlds. Should Mo come to rule them, its power would permeate everything, draining the life from every single realm. When that happened, the World Tree would perish entirely.
Within the Grand Void Realm, Yang Kai had been swept in by the black tide. He raised his head and gazed upward. Before him towered an impossibly tall, sky-reaching tree.