He wandered through one great domain after another, breathing new life into every dead universe until all three thousand domains' ruined worlds had been restored. A thousand years had passed by the time he was done.
Yang Kai spent another thousand years performing the same restoration on the universes within the Battlefield of the Void.
Two full millennia later, the entire Three Thousand World—and the Battlefield of the Void along with it—bore no trace of its former desolation. Life flourished everywhere in boundless abundance. Given time, these universes would inevitably birth new cultivation resources, and the ever-growing human race would gradually become their masters.
The Void Great World—this had originally been Yang Kai's personal Small Universe, the crystallization of his life's cultivation, his very foundation.
But ever since he had broken through the shackles of the Open Heaven Realm and ascended to the Creation Realm, he had detached his Small Universe from himself, allowing it to become a true, independent world. He had placed it right in the Lingxiao Domain, nestled alongside the Star Boundary.
Such a thing was simply too inconceivable. When the human race's Ninth-Order masters learned of it, every last one of them was stunned speechless—but considering it was Yang Kai's doing, they quickly came to terms with it.
After all, he was the Creation Realm cultivator the human race had produced in its entire history. Any miraculous feat he pulled off could be accepted.
At this very moment, somewhere within the Void Great World, Yang Kai stood before a young child and said with earnest gravity, "Little Eleven is left in your care. Should anything abnormal occur, seal and suppress him immediately, and I will handle it when I return."
Though the child was young, he answered with the gravity of an old man: "Got it, Boss."
The child's features bore a faint resemblance to Fang Tianci.
In truth, he was Fang Tianci. Ever since Yang Kai had executed the Trinity Convergence to ascend to the Ninth Order, both Fang Tianci and Lei Ying had lost their physical bodies, their souls dwelling within Yang Kai's spiritual sea, accompanying him for many years.
Thanks to the unique nature of the Trinity Convergence, they were at once fragments of Yang Kai's divided soul and independent individuals.
Over the years, Yang Kai had considered how to restore Fang Tianci and Lei Ying to the mortal world while he repaired the damaged universes. They had no bodies—they couldn't remain in his spiritual sea forever.
Reincarnation was certainly a viable option, but it carried the risk that they would lose their original memories entirely, becoming unfamiliar souls altogether. This was not like the time he had cast his secret technique, when he could place numerous restrictions on his divided souls, ensuring they would awaken to their missions and memories at the proper time.
When he finally decided to detach his Small Universe, a brilliant solution occurred to him.
He would merge the Origin of the Void World into Fang Tianci and Lei Ying's souls, then have them reincarnate through rebirth. In this way, not only would they retain their original memories, but they would become the masters of the Void World itself—henceforth sharing its fate, rising and falling together with it. As long as the Void World endured, they would be immortal.
Given the extraordinary depth of Yang Kai's Small Universe, becoming its masters would also facilitate their future growth. It was easy to imagine that before long, two more supreme powerhouses would walk among the myriad heavens.
Little Eleven had also been left here, under the joint watch of Fang Tianci and Lei Ying. The journey Yang Kai was about to undertake was not one where bringing Little Eleven along would be convenient.
After the child Fang Tianci acknowledged the order, a kitten perched on his shoulder nodded vigorously and spoke in a human voice: "Meow~ Don't you worry, Boss. If this kid so much as acts the tiniest bit off, Big Brother and I will beat him to a pulp!"
Little Eleven made a bitter face. "Don't make me sound like some irredeemable scoundrel. At least show some basic respect to your seniors."
The kitten let out a dismissive snort.
"Well then, I'm off," Yang Kai said with a nod, and shot into the sky.
Three pairs of eyes watched his figure vanish into the distance.
Moments later, the child Fang Tianci and the kitten Lei Ying both turned to stare at Little Eleven. Little Eleven frowned. "What are you two looking at?!"
The kitten cried out: "Beat him up, meow!"
Even as the words left its mouth, its form blurred into a streak and it pounced straight onto Little Eleven's face, both front paws swiping in a flurry of claws.
Little Eleven yelped in alarm and tried to dodge, but the child Fang Tianci lunged in a pounce of his own, tackling him to the ground.
Moments later, all three—two humans and a cat—lay on the ground with bruised and swollen faces.
Lei Ying gasped between ragged breaths: "I've wanted to beat you up for ages… feels great!"
The child Fang Tianci was in no better shape—his nose was bleeding—but he wore a wide, happy grin.
Little Eleven's face was covered in claw marks. In terms of raw strength, he was undoubtedly far more powerful than the other two. But this was the Void World, and Fang Tianci and Lei Ying were its masters. Fighting them on their home ground was simply asking for trouble, which was how things had ended in mutual destruction.
Even so, he still talked tough: "Give me a little time to recover, and I'll sort you both out."
Outside the Void Great World, Yang Kai's figure materialized. The sight that greeted him made him pause in mild surprise—many familiar faces were already waiting.
The group of wives led by Su Yan, Yu Rumeng, and the others went without saying, but a surprising number of the human race's Ninth-Order masters had come as well.
How had word gotten out…
Yang Kai reflected silently for a moment but couldn't identify where he had slipped up. He could only conclude that his wives understood him far too well.
"You're heading out on a long journey?" Xiao Xiao asked, gazing up at him.
"Mm," Yang Kai nodded. "I made a promise to someone. I need to go save him."
In the Forbidden Land, Chong Jiu and the other supreme powers had said that Yang Kai would come to rescue him—and it wasn't idle talk. Before leaving, Yang Kai had indeed sent him a transmission saying as much.
After all, during those eight thousand years, Chong Jiu had helped him more than once. The two of them were kindred spirits of a sort, and if it was at all possible, Yang Kai intended to pull Chong Jiu out of the Forbidden Land—though he had no idea where Chong Jiu's homeland even lay.
That would likely require considerable effort and time to locate, and there was no guarantee of success. Once cast into the Forbidden Land, the world Chong Jiu belonged to would have long since forgotten him. Even if Yang Kai did manage to find that world, he might not discover any trace of Chong Jiu's existence.
One does what one can and leaves the rest to fate.
"Also, I'd like to see if there's any way to break through the shackles of the Open Heaven cultivation method."
The Open Heaven method that the human race currently practiced had been comprehended from beneath the World Tree by the ten Martial Ancestors and passed down through the ages. It had allowed humanity to gain a firm foothold across the myriad heavens and ultimately become the dominant power in this realm—but the cultivation method carried an inherent limitation.
Every warrior who achieved the Open Heaven Realm had a ceiling they could never surpass.
Such a cultivation system was clearly abnormal, and fundamentally incomplete.
Within the Forbidden Land, Yang Kai had encountered countless supreme powers from a wide variety of worlds. Each of them followed a different cultivation system, but very few carried such obvious and rigid limitations as the Open Heaven method.
A stone from another hill may serve to polish jade. On this journey to explore new worlds, Yang Kai had two objectives: first, to search for traces of Chong Jiu's existence, and second, to study the cultivation systems of other worlds, hoping to draw inspiration and perhaps improve the Open Heaven method.
With everything in the human race now flourishing—countless universes reborn from death, even the once lifeless Battlefield of the Void restored to vitality—cultivation resources would never again be a concern. Yang Kai felt the time had come to plan for a more distant future.