The backlash of the Silhouette Technique was silent and impossible to guard against. At first, those closest to Yang Kai could still remember him, but gradually every trace of him in their memories began to blur, fade, and finally vanish altogether.
Gaps appeared in everyone's memory — one void after another, carved out of nothing.
After a time, the crowd even forgot why they had gathered here, until they recalled that they were waiting for someone important. As for who that person was, not a single impression remained in their minds.
The book of records that Xia Ningshang had brought proved invaluable. The entries recorded within it perfectly complemented the fragments still lingering in their minds, allowing them to learn that someone named Yang Kai had once appeared in their lives — and that this person held immense weight in their hearts.
In the void not far from where they stood, a spatial tunnel stretched out, leading directly to the Chaos Dead Zone.
At this moment, a figure emerged from the mouth of that tunnel — Zhang Ruoxi.
Ruoxi's cultivation had reached the peak of the Ninth Order. The twin wings behind her back had also disappeared, severed from her when the Solar and Lunar forces had been stripped away.
In that battle so many years ago, her Heavenly Punishment bloodline had been burned nearly to exhaustion. After the war ended, she had been unable to maintain the balance of Solar and Lunar forces within her, and could only return to the Chaos Dead Zone to separate them from her body.
Although the loss to her Heavenly Punishment bloodline had been immense, it hadn't significantly affected her baseline strength. She would simply never again be able to manifest the power she had wielded that day.
Stepping out of the spatial tunnel, Ruoxi oriented herself, then moved in a flash, arriving swiftly at the palace where Su Yan and the others had gathered.
Seeing her appear, everyone turned to look.
"It has begun," Ruoxi said softly.
Every person nodded, their expressions solemn.
On the platform before the palace, the group sat cross-legged, quieting their minds and focusing their spirits, softly chanting Yang Kai's name.
At first, nothing unusual happened. Over the course of eight thousand years, they had performed this ritual countless times, simply to remind themselves never to forget that name.
But as time passed, a sensation unlike anything before slowly took root. Each person's chest grew heavy, as though a mountain had settled upon it — and that mountain kept growing heavier. With that oppressive weight came the revival of forgotten emotions. Longing and its attendant pain swept through them, though no one knew whom they were longing for. There was no clear target in their hearts, yet the feeling persisted — that someone who had left an indelible mark on their lives had been erased from memory, and that person's name was…
…
"Yang Kai!"
In a kaleidoscopic void teeming with chaos and distortion, a burly man wielding a sword in both hands roared and brought the blade down.
The Spacetime River nearly shattered under that single strike. Behind the river, Yang Kai's figure twisted and darted as the waters churned, and he burst forward to the front of the sword-wielding giant. He extended a finger, and a single crest of water surged toward the man.
The giant's expression changed. Having clashed with Yang Kai for thousands of years, he knew full well the power concealed within that seemingly inconsequential wave — it contained the force of three thousand Daos. Even he dared not be swept into it carelessly.
The giant raised his sword and slashed. The incoming wave was shattered, water droplets spraying in every direction, yet he retreated with the urgency of one fleeing a viper.
Yang Kai did not pursue. He simply stood in place.
He sighed inwardly. After he had used the Silhouette Technique to defeat Mo and been corroded by the power of spacetime, he had expected to sink into an endless slumber or face some other unknown fate. Instead, in the blink of an eye, he had appeared in this mysterious place.
From that point on, he had begun exploring this realm — and what he found astonished him. He was not alone here. Countless other powerhouses existed in this place as well!
Each one of them possessed strength that was in no way inferior to his own, and some were even more powerful.
This shocked Yang Kai, for across all the heavens, whether in cultivation realm or comprehension of his own Dao, no one had been his equal. Even Mo, with thirty percent of his origin sealed, had been slain. Who in this world could stand against him?
Yet here, in truth, were many who were his equals — and quite a number of them at that.
What left him even more exasperated was that the people here were extraordinarily belligerent. Regardless of whether they had any grudge against one another, nine times out of ten a meeting ended in battle. Combat seemed to be the driving force behind the very existence of every being in this place.
In the beginning, Yang Kai had taken quite a beating.
But as time passed, his injuries healed, his understanding of the three thousand Daos grew ever more refined, and his situation gradually improved.
He even met a friend worth making — a man called Chong Jiu.
This fellow was a formidable individual. When Yang Kai was first hunted down upon arriving, Chong Jiu had stepped in and lent him a helping hand out of sheer sense of justice.
Through his conversations with Chong Jiu, Yang Kai came to understand that this place was a realm of exile for all powerhouses who had touched upon taboos.
In other words, every person who had appeared here had once transgressed a forbidden boundary. Yang Kai had summoned his own silhouettes from segments of spacetime that had not yet come to pass — that was a taboo. He did not know what Chong Jiu had done, but it must have been something of a similar nature.
This was a forbidden land unknown to all.