If that were all, it would have been one thing. Though the force of Yang Kai's spear was formidable, it shouldn't have been enough to take Taowu's life—at worst, it would have left him severely wounded.
But at that very moment, an inexplicable force descended upon him, suppressing the vast majority of his Sacred Spirit power in an instant.
His divine sense had already been torn apart, leaving him in unbearable agony. Now his Sacred Spirit power was being suppressed as well. Faced with this berserk spear thrust from Yang Kai, how could he possibly block it?
A muffled impact rang out as the Azure Dragon Spear pierced straight through Taowu's skull. His eyes went wide, filled with terror and disbelief.
Sacred Spirit power erupted outward in a flood, and a torrent of vital blood exploded, filling the vast expanse of the void with the stench of blood.
The human race's many powerhouses stood there, jaws agape.
The other Sacred Spirits were equally stunned.
He killed him!
Taowu, a Sacred Spirit whose strength was comparable to an eighth-grade human cultivator, had actually been killed!
Before the result came, both the human and Sacred Spirit sides had believed it unlikely that Yang Kai would truly follow through. More likely, he was simply threatening Taowu—or so they had thought, anyway. After all, he hadn't shown such overt killing intent for nothing.
Taowu wasn't weak, either. With killing intent that thick exploding outward, who wouldn't be on guard?
Wei Junyang and the others had already prepared themselves to play peacemaker. When Yang Kai's momentum peaked, they would step in to smooth things over, defusing a major crisis into a minor one. That way, Yang Kai would have a way to save face, the Sacred Spirits wouldn't lose too much dignity, and everyone could still cooperate in the future.
But Yang Kai had actually gone and killed Taowu. It was almost impossible to believe.
What Wei Junyang and the others found even harder to understand was how Taowu... seemed far too weak. This wasn't like Yang Kai killing those Innate Domain Lords. When Yang Kai killed those Innate Domain Lords, though he had been equally clean and decisive, there had been an element of surprise attack thanks to the Soul-Sacrificing Thorn.
Yang Kai was already powerful in his own right, and he was willing to tear apart his own divine soul to activate the Soul-Sacrificing Thorn. Even at the Innate Domain Lord level, a single hit would leave anyone in unbearable agony—it was no surprise that he could seize the opportunity and finish them off quickly.
Correspondingly, however, Yang Kai also paid a considerable price.
Hadn't he stopped targeting Domain Lords after killing just three during the great battle earlier? It wasn't that he didn't want to—he simply didn't have the strength.
If Innate Domain Lords were truly that easy to kill, Yang Kai could have handled them all by himself, and the human race wouldn't have had so many problems.
But Taowu... what was that about?
Yang Kai had pressed the Azure Dragon Spear against his face for a full several dozen breaths, and the man had still been killed by a single thrust. Hadn't it been said that Sacred Spirits were generally stronger than human cultivators of the same rank? Could it be that the Sacred Spirits who came out of the Great Ruins Realm were somehow different?
The human powerhouses were in a daze, but their reactions were swift. Each of them quietly circulated their own power, watching the Sacred Spirits who had come as reinforcements with wary eyes.
The Sacred Spirits from the Great Ruins Realm tended to stick together tightly. Now that Yang Kai had killed Taowu, no one could guarantee these Sacred Spirits wouldn't revolt.
The Sacred Spirits had no intention of revolting. All they felt was shock.
He was killed!
Yang Kai had said he would cut down Taowu, and he had actually done it!
What startled the Sacred Spirits even more than Yang Kai's ruthless cruelty was the sudden anomaly that had appeared in that instant.
The human powerhouses had only seen Yang Kai slaughter Taowu as casually as killing a chick, assuming Taowu was simply too weak. They hadn't sensed it clearly. But the Sacred Spirits had perceived something else entirely.
In the moment Taowu was killed, an inexplicable force had emanated from Yang Kai's body, suppressing the bloodline power of every Sacred Spirit present. In that instant, the Sacred Spirits felt as though ten thousand mountains had been piled onto their backs, so heavy they could barely breathe.
What was that power?
Most of the Sacred Spirits didn't know. Only a handful of eighth-grade Sacred Spirits had caught a glimpse, and they stared fixedly at the back of Yang Kai's hand.
There, just a moment ago, it seemed, some kind of profound mark had flickered into existence—but it vanished too quickly for anyone to see clearly.
Was that the source of the suppressing force? The Sacred Spirits' hearts sank. If Yang Kai truly possessed the power to suppress Sacred Spirits, then Taowu's death was anything but unjust.
But what in this world could suppress Sacred Spirit power? Especially someone as powerful as Taowu—even he had been suppressed.
The Sacred Spirits from the Great Ruins Realm hadn't been out for long, so they naturally didn't know that Yang Kai carried both the Sun Mark and the Moon Mark. In truth, not many people knew about these two great marks—those who did were limited to the upper echelons of the human race.
Everyone knew that these two marks were the foundation Yang Kai used to activate the Purifying Light. Without them, the power of the Yellow Crystal and Blue Crystal could never have been fused into one to become the Purifying Light.
But no one knew that these two marks could do far more than simply activate the Purifying Light.
After all, they had been personally bestowed by the Blazing Sun and the Dark Moon, carrying the origin power of both.
Though Brother Yellow and Sister Blue had denied the notion of a common ancestor shared by all Sacred Spirits, they did share an undeniable connection with Sacred Spirits that stretched back beyond trace. Their power surpassed that of Sacred Spirits, and their origin carried an immense suppressive force over all Sacred Spirits.
It was like the dragon bloodline—dragons with purer bloodlines possessed an innate bloodline suppression over their kin with lesser blood.
Back then, when Yang Kai had first traveled to No-Return Pass on Patriarch Xiaoxiao's orders, it was outside that very pass that Ji the Third had appeared to provoke him.