Blood stained the earth crimson. Yang Kai looked wretched, while his opponent fought with ever-increasing ferocity, seizing every opening.
The burly man fought to a fever pitch, launching a punch that sent Yang Kai hurtling into the sky. As Yang Kai fell, the man hammered another fist into his back, driving him straight into the dirt.
Dust billowed up, obscuring everyone's view of the battlefield. The barriers and restrictions surrounding the death arena prevented even those in the Saint Realm from probing much with their Divine Sense. They could only vaguely sense that this battle had come to an end.
How boring! Many people thought to themselves.
Before that thought even finished forming, a surge of savage, murderous aura suddenly erupted from within the dust cloud. A violent gale swept across the ground, and in an instant, the dust was blown away.
When everyone finally saw what had happened, a collective gasp rose from the crowd.
Yang Kai — who should have been lying on the ground, if not already battered to death — was now pinning his opponent face-down against the earth with his one intact hand.
That hand covered the big man's face. It wasn't particularly large, yet it pressed down like a falling sky. No matter how the man struggled, he couldn't get back on his feet.
In that brief instant, nobody had seen what happened inside the dust cloud. When it cleared and revealed this scene, the shock was palpable.
They had witnessed comebacks before — fights where the underdog snatched victory from the jaws of defeat — but never had one been so bewildering as this.
In that moment, the mask on Yang Kai's face seemed to grow icily cruel.
Wind and Thunder forces surged, channeling from Yang Kai's palm into the burly man's body, weaving a killing field inside his organs.
Boom…
The burly man's massive frame exploded into a mist of blood. Not a single bone remained.
In the stands, Xueli's beautiful eyes lit up. She stared at Yang Kai with secret astonishment, never having expected such an extraordinary display from him. Her thin, delicate red lips curled upward into a smile.
"What exactly is his real strength?" Xueli suddenly asked An Ling'er in a soft voice.
"I'm not telling you!" An Ling'er shook her head repeatedly.
"Not telling me?" This time Xueli showed no anger. Instead, a contemplative expression appeared on her face as she smiled with pursed lips. "Then I'll figure it out on my own."
Looking down at the death arena, where Yang Kai limped toward the corridor with one arm hanging limp and his body covered in wounds, Xueli suddenly had the feeling that this human youth possessed something out of the ordinary.
After a long silence, the stands erupted into a clamor. Most people seemed unable to accept the outcome and were discussing it heatedly.
Yang Kai had already returned to the corridor. Yu Mo's eyes gleamed with cold light as he fixed his gaze tightly on him.
The man with the greenish-yellow face stood with his jaw dropped, frozen in place, his eyes nearly bulging out of their sockets.
It hadn't even taken the time it takes to burn a stick of incense. This loudmouthed human brat had actually killed his opponent.
"This one looked tough enough, didn't it?" Yang Kai removed the mask from his face and looked at Yu Mo.
Yu Mo's mouth twitched, and he gave a slight nod.
Not only was it tough — it was remarkably convincing. There hadn't been a single flaw. Even Yu Mo had been convinced Yang Kai was finished, only to be caught completely off guard at the last moment.
This kid had real nerve. Wasn't he afraid that after enduring such savage attacks he wouldn't be able to get back up?
Yang Kai then shook his arm, and a crisp crackling sound rang out as the broken limb reset itself instantly.
"Next time, set me up against a Transcendent Stage Two opponent. That way you can rake in more profit, I get a bigger cut, and once I've scraped together the ransom, I can leave sooner!" Yang Kai grinned.
Yu Mo couldn't help but stare blankly for a moment.
Back in the palace, Yang Kai rested and recovered.
Perhaps because of this victory, his treatment had improved noticeably. The meals sent to him now included quite a few restorative delicacies. Even An Ling'er was granted permission by Xueli to visit him once.
The two talked at length before An Ling'er finally departed.
Three days later, Yang Kai was scheduled for his second fight.
Possibly because of his strange showing last time, when he appeared wearing the mask again, he attracted quite a bit of attention.
And this time, his opponent was indeed a Transcendent Stage Two fighter.
After a brutal struggle, Yang Kai narrowly escaped death once more and claimed another victory, leaving the demon race spectators marveling and exclaiming that they could hardly believe it.
Cross-realm combat was a feat very few could achieve. In the Transcendent Realm and beyond, even a single minor level difference in cultivation meant a vast gap in true combat power. A Transcendent Stage Two warrior could kill a Transcendent Stage One with a casual gesture — yet this common knowledge had been shattered by Yang Kai.
This time, Yang Kai still bore the restriction laid on him by Yu Mo and couldn't unleash his peak strength. Unlike the last fight where he'd been putting on an act, this time he had fought with his life on the line.
In the throes of that life-and-death struggle, he felt he had grasped quite a few things, and his spirits rose. He realized that such desperate battles were immensely beneficial for his growth.
His resistance to this style of fighting waned. In fact, he was beginning to look forward to it.
This was an opportunity — a chance to temper himself.
A warrior's growth didn't come solely from secluding himself in bitter cultivation. Life-and-death battles often yielded far greater gains than closed-door training — provided, of course, that one survived them.