Chapter 1241, Retreating

Translator: Silavin & PewPewLaserGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain

Seeing that Yang Kai had been easily trapped, the Firebird once again showed a proud and disdainful expression, opening its mouth to spit out a sharp flame blade that pierced straight towards Yang Kai with unstoppable might.

Evidently it wanted to use this opportunity to take Yang Kai’s life.

*Kacha…*

The hundred-plus Grand Heavenly Shields in front of Yang Kai shattered and the purple shield was only able to block this attacks momentum for a moment before its light faded, its spirituality severely damaged, and it was knocked aside.

In the blink of an eye, the blade of flame arrived in front of Yang Kai and was on the verge of reaping his life.

Just then, a dark blade-like attack flew out of from Yang Kai, one that seemed to be silently tearing space apart without emitting the slightest energy fluctuation, making it all but impossible to detect.

Space Blade!

Yang Kai understood that with just Spiritual Energy and Saint Qi methods, he wouldn’t be able to compete with this Artefact Spirit that actually understood how to use its own Artefact Refining Furnace, something that came as a great shock to him.

The Artefact Spirit by itself was extremely difficult to deal with, but now that it was using the furnace that gave birth to it, it became even fiercer. Fighting with it like this was tantamount to courting death!

So Yang Kai had used his trump card without hesitation.

Yang Kai was quite confident in his Space Blade. Although the Artefact Spirit’s methods were extraordinary, and it was inherently proficient in the use of Fire Attribute principles, Space Force was also a powerful and rarely seen method. Regarding the Dao of Space, Yang Kai knew he had not yet achieved a grand accomplishment in his comprehension, but using it to deal with this Artefact Spirit shouldn’t be an issue.

Sure enough, when the Space Blade met the flame blade, it began to warp and twist as it destabilized under the powerful Fire Attribute aura and it soon disappeared, but before it did, it swallowed the flame blade and exiled it to The Void.

Yang Kai had managed to avert this crisis.

Without waiting for the Artefact Spirit to attack again, Yang Kai sent out several more Space Blades, half of them flying towards the Artefact Spirit while the other half circled around his body. The suppression holding down Yang Kai was instantly cut by this Space Blades and he regained his freedom of movement.

The moment he was able to use his Saint Qi again, Yang Kai leapt back and waved his hands, releasing a long Space Blade towards the red light curtain that was blocking the stone chamber’s entrance, opening a crack in it large enough for him to safely pass through.

The next moment, Yang Kai’s figure flickered and rushed into the several-thousand-metre long tunnel as the angry cries of the Artefact Spirit came from behind him.

His opponent had obviously been forced back by the Space Blade for a moment and had no time to care about the retreating Yang Kai.

Yang Kai didn’t expect his Space Blades to be able to kill the Artefact Spirit. The Fire Attribute energy his opponent was able to control was both pure and dense, not something that could be completely consumed by Yang Kai’s current Space Blade. Being able to take the Firebird by surprise and create an opportunity to escape was enough to satisfy Yang Kai for now.

Yang Kai’s current plan was to leave this Earth Lung Fire Pond as quickly as possible and find another place to refine the Profound Yin Sunflower Water. Then, after his strength had improved, he could come to settle this score, if there was still time.

Unsurprisingly, Yang Kai had only run less than a thousand metres away before the Firebird overcame all of his Space Blades and a blisteringly hot aura appeared behind him.

Yang Kai increased his pace but when he looked back, his face couldn’t help paling.

At the end of the tunnel, the Artefact Spirit had transformed into a ball of red light and was chasing after him, obviously reluctant to let him escape.

The entire passage filled with extreme heat. The Firebird had yet to even reach Yang Kai yet the walls around him were already beginning to warp under the rich fire aura.

Yang Kai pushed his speed even higher, but compared with this naturally born Artefact Spirit, he still fell a bit short. The exit of this tunnel back into the Earth Lung Fire Pond was getting closer, but the distance between himself and the Artefact Spirit was shrinking too quickly. Yang Kai’s eyes flashed a savage light, but just as he was about to turn around and hit the Artefact Spirit again, a strange cry rang out behind him.

This cry clearly contained unwillingness and anger, and at the same time, the Fire Attribute aura which had permeated the entire passage quickly receded like an ocean wave.

Yang Kai was surprised and quickly turned back, a look of shock soon filling his face. Stopping in place, he stared at the scene behind him with interest.

At a position just over a hundred metres behind him, Yang Kai saw the Firebird struggling in place as a number of energy chains appeared on its body. The engraved runes on these chains were clearly a type of restriction that were tightly wrapped around the Firebird, binding it in place.

The Firebird only let out a few more cries before the chains suddenly shrank around its body.

The unwillingness in the Firebird’s eyes grew more intense but in the next instant, its body exploded and the red glow filling the tunnel disappeared.

[Was it destroyed?] Yang Kai frowned, but thinking about it for a moment, he quickly denied such a possibility before releasing his Divine Sense to investigate the stone room.

Sure enough, inside the stone room, the originally hovering Artefact Refining Furnace had fallen to the ground again and returned to the quiet state Yang Kai had first seen it in. The strange bird pattern on this Artefact Refining Furnace’s surface still existed, but unlike before, it now seemed to have become irritable and was constantly swimming about, seemingly trying to escape the Artefact Refining Furnace again but unable to do so.

Yang Kai quickly calmed down and wore a grin.

It turned out that this thing couldn’t get too far from the Artefact Refining Furnace, and once it tried to, it would forcefully be taken back. This wasn’t too surprising though, after all, the Firebird was the Artefact Spirit of this Artefact Refining Furnace, so the two were strongly connected.

After confirming that the Artefact Spirit had no way to pursue him further, Yang Kai breathed a sigh of relief and wiped the cold sweat from his forehead.

The battle just now had been one of the most dangerous Yang Kai had fought. Even when facing the Origin Returning Realm master brought by Xie Hong Wen last time, he was able to handle the situation with ease without worry about his life; after all, he had Yang Yan’s Spirit Array to fall back on at the time.

However, this time, forced by that Artefact Spirit to fight in that stone room, Yang Kai had used all of his methods with the exception of his Demon Eye of Annihilation yet was still forced to flee in distress.

(Silavin: Do note that his Demonic Qi has merged with his Yang Qi so, he is sort of actively in his Bankai form.)

Yang Kai had barely been able to escape with his life from this Artefact Spirit, so if it had been another Saint King, they probably would have died on the spot.

Standing in the passage for a while, Yang Kai silently pondered. Since the Artefact Spirit couldn’t chase him outside the stone room, there was no need for him to leave the Earth Lung Fire Pond. This was a rare treasure land. The environment outside in the fifth layer was quite good, but compared to this place, it was completely incomparable.

But there was no way Yang Kai would be able to use this stone room, so he could only try his luck with the other chamber next door.

Yang Kai didn’t believe that there was an Artefact Spirit there too. It was a stroke of Heavenly fortune for such a thing to be born, so it should be absolutely impossible for there to be a second one here.

If by some chance there was a second Artefact Spirit though, Yang Kai would only be able to give up on this bottom level and use one of the stone chambers up above.

Thinking so, Yang Kai turned around and walked back out to the Earth Lung Fire Pond, a moment later diving into the right stone cave.

Just like the previous passageway, this one was a few thousand metres long, and at its end was a magnificent stone chamber.

Although Yang Kai didn’t think there would be a second Artefact Spirit, he also didn’t dare act carelessly. Standing at the entrance to this stone chamber, Yang Kai investigated the inside carefully, only relaxing after he discovered that the Origin King Grade Artefact Refining Furnace located at the centre of the chamber was scrapped.

If even the Artefact Refining Furnace had been ruined, there would naturally be no Artefact Spirit.

When Yang Kai’s gaze swept across some Artefact Refining materials rich in aura stacked to the side of the chamber, his eyes brightened and he rushed inside to carefully check them.

Sure enough, there were blessings after a disaster. Yang Kai hadn’t expected that in this last stone room there would be so many stored Artefact Refining materials.

And the grades of these materials was very high, all of them at least Origin Grade while the majority were actually Origin King Grade. All kinds of rare ores and materials from each of the five elements were present along with numerous Monster Beast materials arranged in a dazzling display.

Of course, although there were many materials here, some of them could no longer be used because they had been stored here for too long.

Yang Kai picked out the materials which were still useful while discarding the ones that couldn’t be used. Smiling with satisfaction, he then continued to examine this stone room.

The layout here was almost identical to the stone room on the left. At the centre of the chamber was an Artefact Refining Furnace that was several metres tall along with a number of white orbs which were exuding the soft soothing light.

However, there were less of these light orbs in this room, only four rather than the eight. It seems that the owner of this stone room wasn’t as highly ranked as the owner of the stone room on the left.

Yang Kai didn’t dwell on this though and quickly walked over to the four stone tables, pouring his Saint Qi into them to close the stone room’s Spirit Array.

After waiting for a long time, the ruined Artefact Refining Furnace finally cooled enough for Yang Kai to stuff it into his Space Ring.

Although this Artefact Refining Furnace was greatly damaged, it was originally Origin King Grade, so if he took it back and let Yang Yan take a look at it, perhaps it could be repaired. Even if it couldn’t, taking it with him wasn’t any extra effort.

Yang Kai had also collected several other damaged Origin King Grade Artefact Refining Furnaces before.

After receiving the Artefact Refining Furnace, an empty space appeared in the centre of the stone room. This empty space was engraved with an independent Spirit Array that, although small, was extremely complex. Yang Kai wasn’t proficient in Spirit Arrays, but after entering and exiting several hundred of these stone chambers and deactivating so many normal arrays, he had gained a basic understanding of how these Spirit Arrays drew in and converted the pure Fire Attribute energy from the Earth Lung Fire Pond and channelled it into the Artefact Refining Furnaces.

Moreover, the four stone tables nearby had an added control effect. Depending on the number of stone tables activated, the rate and intensity of the power being extracted from the Earth Lung Fire Pond would change proportionally.

In other words, activating four of the stone tables at once would have a completely different effect from only activating a single one.

This design made Yang Kai very satisfied and he felt that the master who had arranged these Spirit Arrays really possessed extraordinary methods.

After having delayed things so long, Yang Kai wasn’t going to waste any more time, quickly arriving at the spot originally occupied by the Artefact Refining Furnace and sitting down cross-legged.