Turning his head to look toward A Da and A Er, Yang Kai was mildly startled. In such a short time, that entire World had already been devoured clean by the two Giant Spirit Gods. The colossal pair were clearly still hungry — sensing Yang Kai's gaze, they immediately looked back at him with eager, expectant eyes.
"Wait here," Yang Kai said at once. "I'll go find something for you to eat. Keep watch over this side — same as before. Anyone who dares poke their head through that gate gets smashed to death!"
The two Giant Spirit Gods nodded in unison.
Yang Kai had already proven through action that he was a man who kept his word, and compared to the promises he'd made before leaving last time, this round naturally had A Da and A Er even more excited.
Once he was satisfied the two Giant Spirit Gods understood, Yang Kai activated the Space Laws, took a single step forward, and set off toward the Domain Gate connected to the Shattered Heaven.
He arrived at the Domain Gate in no time and plunged straight through.
The battle a month ago had left him with injuries that were not light but not exactly severe either. After a month of slumber, his physical body had recovered just about fully. The turbulence in his Dao Foundation was not so easily mended, but that was something only time could gradually smooth out — there was little he could do about it himself. As long as Yang Kai didn't push his Dao power too aggressively, it wouldn't pose much of a problem.
The Human Race, at this point, had committed virtually every fighting asset it possessed. Setting aside the many Great Domains already reduced to empty shells, even the two great safe havens — Lingxiao Domain and Wanyao Domain — had only the old, the weak, the sick, and the injured left to hold the fort. The remainder were up-and-coming juniors who simply hadn't had enough time to mature. No matter how exceptional their aptitude, they were still far from reaching the Open Heaven Realm. Without Open Heaven cultivation, they didn't even qualify to join the supply teams extracting resources.
Under these circumstances, when Yang Kai returned from the Shattered Heaven to the Three Thousand Worlds, Lingxiao Domain and Wanyao Domain were obviously not his destination.
He had somewhere else entirely in mind.
Transiting through numerous Great Domains along the way, Yang Kai traveled at an unhurried pace. It was not until nearly three months later that he finally arrived at his destination.
The Chaotic Death Domain!
In truth, ever since the Human Race leadership had decided to march on Returnless Pass, Yang Kai had been thinking about making a trip to the Chaotic Death Domain. Back then, he had brought Zhang Ruoxi here and entrusted her to Brother Huang and Sister Lan for training. After so many years, he had no idea how much progress she'd made.
Because she carried the Heavenly Punishment Bloodline, Zhang Ruoxi herself was not bound by the limitations of the Open Heaven method. Even though she had only advanced to Fifth Stage Open Heaven all those years ago, she still had hope of reaching the Ninth Stage in her lifetime — and indeed, she had already advanced to the Eighth Stage.
Of course, the time that had passed was not nearly enough for her to grow all the way to Ninth Stage Open Heaven. But what Yang Kai valued was not her personal strength — it was her supernatural ability to command the Little Stone Clan.
Ordinary Little Stone Clansmen, Zhang Ruoxi could not control. That race possessed intelligence even more rudimentary than the Giant Spirit Gods — extremely low, acting entirely on instinct. No one could fully command them.
But the Little Stone Clansmen that Brother Huang and Sister Lan had cultivated were an entirely different species.
These Little Stone Clansmen fell into two types: Solar Little Stone Clansmen and Lunar Little Stone Clansmen. Because they had grown by devouring Solar Force and Lunar Force, they could essentially be considered living, mobile pieces of Yellow Crystal and Blue Crystal.
All Sacred Spirits who bore the Sun Mark or the Moon Mark could command these specially cultivated Little Stone Clansmen. At critical moments, they could even extract the Solar Force and Lunar Force stored within them, merging the two into a Purification Light. Yang Kai had employed this method multiple times to devastating effect against powerful Ink Race foes.
Comparing Yang Kai with the other Sacred Spirits who bore the Sun Mark and Moon Mark, Zhang Ruoxi relied entirely on the suppressive power of her own bloodline — she could manipulate the Little Stone Clansmen with the ease of moving her own limbs, without needing to invoke either the Sun Mark or the Moon Mark.
She could arrange individual Little Stone Clansmen into a perfect Nine Palaces Formation, and even grander two-tier, three-tier, four-tier, or even higher-tier Nine Palaces arrays.
For the Human Race, forming a Nine Palaces Formation was no easy feat even among those of the Eighth Stage and above — no one above the Eighth Stage could form one. No one knew what kind of power an array assembled by Eighth-Stage cultivators might wield.
However, in a battle that was already well known, eight Eighth-Stage cultivators had successfully formed an Eight Trigrams Formation in a moment of dire crisis and used it to slay a Pseudo Lord-Rank of the Ink Race. Although several of the formation members had perished on the spot from the backlash, and the survivors had suffered grievous harm to their Yuan Qi, it remained an extraordinary feat.
If they had the ability, every Eighth-Stage cultivator of the Human Race would not begrudge their own lives — so long as they could slay a powerful Ink Race foe, even if they burned as brightly and briefly as a single night's bloom, their deaths would not be in vain.
If Eighth-Stage cultivators forming an Eight Trigrams Formation could easily kill a Pseudo Lord-Rank, then what of a Nine Palaces Formation? That would surely be a formation capable of killing a true Lord-Rank.
The pity was that no one could manage it.
By that measure, Zhang Ruoxi's ability was nothing short of astonishing. It could be said that even at the Eighth Stage alone, the role she could play would be no less significant than any Ninth-Stage cultivator!