Since returning from the Ink Battlefield, Yang Kai had clashed with many innate Domain Lords and killed quite a few. His impression of these innate Domain Lords was that they were overwhelmingly powerful, cautious, and terrified of death.
Not a single one had ever struck him as particularly brave.
Until today.
As the old saying went, different grains fed a hundred kinds of people. It seemed even among the Ink Clan's innate Domain Lords, not all of them were cowardly wretches.
Perhaps his current predicament had something to do with it as well. The purple-haired Domain Lord had concluded he could not leave this place alive, and the pressure of desperation had ignited a fighting spirit within him.
Xiang Shan swept his blade in a horizontal slash, brilliant sword light cascading outward as the arc of the strike came crashing down upon the purple-haired Domain Lord.
But the man didn't dodge or evade in the slightest. He let the devastating power carve fresh wounds into his body, barreling toward Yang Kai with an unstoppable, all-or-nothing ferocity.
What greeted him was a spear thrust straight at his head.
The purple-haired Domain Lord tilted his head just enough to avoid a killing blow, but the spear punched clean through his neck. The wound at the back of his neck exploded open, and Ink blood geysered out like a fountain. Yet he used that very momentum to close the distance on Yang Kai.
Yang Kai pulled back on his spear — and couldn't budge it.
At some point, the Domain Lord had clamped a hand around the shaft of the Azure Dragon Spear, his overwhelming strength locking the weapon in place as immovably as a mountain.
"Come here!" The purple-haired Domain Lord's face was a mask of savage determination. He reached out with his other hand, clawing straight for Yang Kai's shoulder.
The grip carried his full power. The surrounding void shattered instantaneously.
Yang Kai had intended to activate the Space Laws and teleport away, but the man had anticipated this countermeasure. On top of that, having expended Soul Sacrifice Strikes four times in succession, his head throbbed with unbearable pain and his thoughts had grown sluggish. With the void crumbling around them, his body hesitated for just a fraction of a second.
Before he could react, the purple-haired Domain Lord's claw clamped down on his shoulder.
Ink power surged madly. Blood poured from Yang Kai's shoulder in a torrent. Those sharp fingers bored deep into flesh and muscle, and even the dragon scales hidden beneath his skin struggled to withstand the berserk force.
Having secured his grip, the purple-haired Domain Lord didn't pause for an instant. He yanked Yang Kai directly in front of him, then wrapped both arms around him in a crushing embrace.
Ink blood covered his face so thickly that his original features were almost entirely obscured. Yang Kai lifted his eyes, and all he could see was that boundless, savage triumph.
"Now let's see you run from this!" The purple-haired Domain Lord let out a savage laugh, completely ignoring Xiang Shan's relentless attacks from behind. He drew his head back slightly — then, with speed that defied description, slammed it forward with devastating force.
A headbutt.
BOOM!
With their two bodies locked tight together, a violent shockwave radiated outward in a perfect circle from the point of impact.
Even Xiang Shan staggered, and the blade strike he had been about to deliver had to be pulled back to avoid hitting Yang Kai by mistake.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
The purple-haired Domain Lord delivered headbutt after headbutt without pause. In this moment, he was no longer a mighty innate Domain Lord with heaven-defying cultivation — he was like a street brawler with no technique and no form, clutching nothing but a suicidal resolve and his own life as his wager, determined to drag his enemy down with him.
The spectacle froze the eyes of numerous Domain Lords and Eighth-Order humans alike. Not a single one could keep their eyelids from twitching.
No one had ever witnessed a Domain Lord display such savage ferocity.
Yang Kai was dazed from the relentless impacts. The excessive drain on his soul power had already left him struggling, and absorbing point-blank headbutts of this brutality on top of it — for an ordinary Eighth-Order master, several lives would not have been enough.
Since his promotion to Eighth-Order, he had never taken such a beating under a Domain Lord's hands.
Even through his swirling dizziness, Yang Kai's own ferocity was ignited.
He clamped his hand onto the purple-haired Domain Lord's arm. Golden blood streaked across his face, his expression turning equally savage. His eyes bulged wide, and seizing the moment as his opponent drew his head back once more, he pulled his own skull backward at the same time.
A flicker of surprise passed through the purple-haired Domain Lord's eyes…
He had thought Yang Kai was completely incapacitated…
The next instant, a collision even more violent than the last erupted. Xiang Shan, who had been circling nearby waiting for an opening, felt his expression change as a shockwave of terrifying force swept toward him from the front, compelling him to retreat.
He looked up and his face twitched.
This guy had to be insane.
A single headbutt from a top-tier powerhouse was already devastating beyond measure. Now both combatants were hammering each other with their skulls — the sheer force of the impacts was beyond imagination.
Xiang Shan could almost hear bones cracking.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Several more collisions rang out in succession. In the vast expanse of void where the purple-haired Domain Lord and Yang Kai stood, everything — shredded flesh, severed limbs, drifting Ink clouds and wisps of Ink power — had been blown clear by the seismic force.
Each headbutt felt like two entire worlds colliding, stirring up a spectacle of overwhelming magnitude.
After a time, both Yang Kai and the purple-haired Domain Lord saw stars, their faces smeared with blood, looking ever more monstrous and terrifying.
But Yang Kai's sharp senses detected that the purple-haired Domain Lord's grip on him had weakened. He decisively tightened his hold on the man's arm.
The purple-haired Domain Lord's eyes were trembling violently, his earlier resolve giving way to shock and disbelief.
He had only mustered this fearless bravery because he was backed into a corner with no way out. So why was this human Eighth-Order even fiercer than he was…