Martial Peak

Translator: Silavin & Tia

Translation Checker: PewPewLazerGun

Editor and Proofreader: Leo of Zion Mountain & Dhael Ligerkeys

Yang Kai was a High-Rank Demon King. Although his cultivation had not reached a Realm where every word he spoke became law, the weight of his words varied depending on who he was facing. The power of his Divine Sense was concealed within his words just now, so how could the Demon in front of him, who was barely in the True Element Boundary, resist?

Having fallen to a sitting position on the ground, the Demon's complexion was ashen with fear. The person in front of him had not even moved a single finger. Just a single word from that person was enough to leave him incapable of fighting back; therefore, he understood that he was no match for his opponent. Despair washed over his heart, and he sighed, "In the end, I still couldn't escape."

Yang Kai chuckled, "What were you trying to escape from?"

The Demon, however, just lifted his neck slightly and prepared himself, "Do it."

After saying that, he closed his eyes, as if resigned to his fate. He had no choice but to accept. Trying to confront the person in front of him was equivalent to an ant trying to fight a Dragon, there was zero chance of resistance whatsoever.

"Did you think I was going to kill you?" Yang Kai studied the Demon with interest. Judging by the faint burning aura coming from the Demon's body, he was probably a Flame Demon.

"Are you not?" The Flame Demon opened his eyes and frowned deeply.

Yang Kai couldn't be bothered to explain himself, so he bluntly stated, "I have some questions for you. I'll let you live if you answer my questions. If you don't cooperate, I'll make you wish you were dead!"

The Flame Demon's brow twitched slightly at those words. A sliver of hope had appeared in a situation where he originally thought his life was forfeited, so he didn't try to negotiate with Yang Kai for any conditions and simply answered readily, "Please ask."

"What happened on this continent? How did everyone on this continent die?"

"You don't know?" He was stunned. [What happened on this continent was such a major incident that almost all of the Demon Race knows about it. How is this guy unaware of it?]

"Would I still need to ask you if I knew?" Yang Kai's expression turned cold.

Seeing the change in Yang Kai's expression, the Flame Demon felt his heart clench in fear. He did not dare to show disrespect and hurriedly told Yang Kai everything he knew.

The changes on this continent began ten years ago.

Ten years ago, the Half-Saint in charge of this continent recruited all of the Demons in the Demon Spirit Realm and above. The Demon Spirit Realm corresponded to the Human Race's Origin Returning Realm. An army of three million was formed from the recruitment.

Afterwards, the army of three million was split into ten equal parts and went around slaughtering all the remaining Demons living on the continent under the command of that Half-Saint. All the Demons that were in the Demon Spirit Realm or above had been recruited and taken away, leaving only the weak ones behind, so what could they do against such powerful enemies even if their numbers were greater?

For eight whole years, there was a reign of terror on this continent. Hundreds of millions of the creatures that used to live here had been slaughtered, and all of those slaughtered were buried into the ground.

Another two years passed and a tremor ran through the world as the Two Worlds' Passage opened and things gradually became the situation today.

The Flame Demon's cultivation was low, but even so, he managed to escape unscathed as he had been cultivating underground in a stream of magma. By the time he came out of retreat, he slowly realized that the situation on this continent had changed greatly; hence, he immediately returned to the place he had been cultivating and hid away again.

When Yang Kai arrived and Gun-Gun appeared to devour the world, he couldn't continue hiding anymore and had no choice but to flee. In the end, he was captured by Yang Kai instead.

Yang Kai looked surprised after hearing the story, "Are you saying that everyone on this continent was killed by their own kind? They committed fratricide?"

The Flame Demon frowned. [What do you mean by 'their own kind' and 'they'? Aren't you part of the Demon Race too?]

He had automatically assumed that Yang Kai was part of the Demon Race after seeing the Demon Qi overflowing from Yang Kai's body. It was just that his cultivation was too low for him to discern Yang Kai's origins.

"That's right!" The Flame Demon nodded in response.

Yang Kai frowned. [I thought some sort of natural disaster befell the continent and caused all the Demons to go extinct as a result. Who could have known that the truth was something like this?]

He was not worried that the Flame Demon might try to deceive him. The gap between their cultivation was so large that he would be able to tell if the other party was lying at a glance, but… what exactly was the reason for the Demon Race to do something like this? Why would they do something so insane as to kill their own clansmen? Not to mention that the numbers were on such a large scale too…

Recruiting Demons above the Demon Spirit Realm was clearly a means to form an army to pass through the Two Worlds' Passage and invade the Star Boundary, but even if the remaining Demons were unable to contribute to the war, they were still the foundation of the Demon Race as a whole. Just what was the reason that made the Demon Race do something so drastic as to cut off their roots? Weren't they afraid that their entire Race might go extinct?

"During the collapse of the world several days ago, I stepped out to check on the situation and saw a large amount of Demon Qi appearing all over the continent. It gathered in that direction." The Flame Demon pointed in a certain direction. It was the direction from whence Yang Kai came. It was also the location of the Two Worlds' Passage.

"Where did the Demon Qi come from?" For some reason, Yang Kai suddenly thought about the Demons who were killed in the Star Boundary. After their death, the Demon Qi in their bodies leaked out, travelled towards the Two Worlds' Passage, and enriched the Demon Essence within the Demon Land.

The Flame Demon sighed, "Probably came from the clansmen who were killed. The Demon Qi came up from the ground."

Yang Kai had a moment of epiphany. The explanation was reasonable indeed. He had just been wondering why the skeletons he retrieved from the Small Sealed World had contained no Demon Essence at all. It turned out that the Demon Qi and Demon Essence inside those bodies had already been drawn out.

"Sir, why did the Holy Venerables do this?" The Flame Demon regarded Yang Kai as part of the Demon Race and secretly believed that Yang Kai was a Demon Half-Saint; therefore, he couldn't stop himself from asking Yang Kai about the reason behind such a major incident.

"You'll have to ask them yourself," Although Yang Kai had given an oblique answer, he could already guess the reason for the Demon Race's massacre. The Demon Saints had broken into the Star Boundary by using themselves as the bridge to connect the two Great Worlds; even so, a bridge was just a bridge, they still needed another kind of force to break through the World Barriers completely.

The Blood Sacrifice of tens of millions of Demons on the battlefield located in the Western Territory had been in preparation for this. Those Demon Race armies had been sent to die on that battlefield because the Demon Saints needed their Demon Qi. That was why the Demons went insane and killed themselves at the last moment, causing the annihilation of the entire army.

Meanwhile, the preparations had already been made in the Demon Realm continents a long time ago. The bones of billions of Demons who died were buried deep underground. Their Demon Qi had condensed together without dispersing. It was so that it could break out of the ground when the time was right, and the moment the Demon Saints made their move was the time for the Demon Qi to erupt.

With the power from both sides, the World Barriers had been broken and the Two Worlds' Passages appeared. It was also due to the abundance of Demon Qi that one hundred and eight Demon Lands had emerged in the Star Boundary.

[The Demon Race has completely burned all their bridges. They fully intend to fight to the end by cutting off all their escape routes. How are they so confident that they can take over the Star Boundary? Even if they escape back into the Demon Realm after suffering utter defeat, it will be very difficult for them to recover from the losses without their vast population as a foundation.]

Yang Kai's expression was extremely solemn. He had the vague feeling that the Demon Race was planning something very big, but the current situation was so complicated and confusing that the goals on the board were unclear.

The Flame Demon looked like he wanted to ask something else; however, Yang Kai reached out to grab him and tossed him into the third region of the Small Sealed World before he could speak. Thinking that Yang Kai was going to go back on the promise and attack him, a look of despair swept across the Flame Demon's face, but to his surprise, he soon found himself completely unscathed and stunned by the sight in front of him.

There were many other Demons living in the third region of the Small Sealed World, most of them residents who used to live in the territories under Yu Ru Meng and Bei Li Mo. As there were no disputes within the Small Sealed World, these Demons had established many cities in the third region and settled down peacefully.

The Flame Demon had appeared in the centre of a city, and seeing so many of his clansmen living peacefully around him, he suddenly had the sense of being reborn and couldn't help bursting into tears.

Meanwhile, Yang Kat sat on Gun-Gun's enormous head while forming seals with one hand. His eyes were tightly shut, and his Divine Sense surged. Combined with all the information he obtained today, he was trying to figure out the Demon Race's intentions. It was a pity that he failed to make sense of their plans even after puzzling over it until his head hurt.

He was certain that the Demons were planning something huge, and it was definitely something that would be detrimental to the Star Boundary. Unfortunately, the information he had was limited so it was extremely difficult for him to grasp the entire situation.

Gun-Gun's devouring movements had stopped, and its huge body seemed slightly swollen. Yang Kai looked around only to chaos and nothingness in his surroundings. The continent they had arrived on had been cleanly devoured. Standing up, he stomped his foot and Gun-Gun's body immediately began to shrink and transform back into the Sealed World Bead, which he then put away.

Several days had passed by the time Yang Kai arrived on the next continent where he released Gun-Gun and continued the process of devouring. Similar to the first continent, all the Demons on this continent had been wiped out. Although it was an outcome he had expected, he still couldn't help frowning when his suspicions were confirmed.

The two Races were at war. They were each other's enemies. Logically speaking, as part of the Human Race, Yang Kai shouldn't feel anything regardless of how many Demons died. Rather, he should be wishing for even more of them to die.

However, dying in battle was one thing while this was another. Nobody would falter and hesitate to kill an enemy who stood on the battlefield, they would only wish that they could kill even more of their enemies. Be that as it may, the Demon Race did not hesitate to destroy their foundation and slaughter their own people in order to break through the barrier between the two Great Worlds. That was quite a difficult truth to swallow.

However, thinking about it again, Yang Kai realized that the Demon Race had always been brutal. Back then, they arranged the Blood Sea Grand Array and even offered up all Demon Race living on Eternal Sky Continent as sacrifices just to subdue Bright Moon Great Emperor.

[Once the Two Worlds Great War settles down in the future, I need to carefully explain this to Yu Ru Meng and the others. At the very least, they have to restrain their subordinates to prevent such a thing from happening again.]

While Gun-Gun was devouring the continent, Yang Kai was not idle. War had broken out all over the Star Boundary and the demand for mobility for the Star Boundary's armies was very high. Therefore, he wanted to take advantage of the rare free time he had to refine some more World Beads. With enough World Beads, the Star Boundary's armies would be able to come and go as they pleased. At some point, they might even be able to take the Demon Race army by surprise.

Yang Kai initially worked with the Dead Stars and large asteroids found in the Lower Star Field to refine them into World Beads. The size of the Dead Stars and the asteroids corresponded to the size of the interior space of the World Bead he refined.

Unable to leave his current position, however, he had no way of travelling to the Lower Star Field. As a result, he could only look for a solution from the Sealed World Bead itself. Fortunately, the stripping of the second region had given him sufficient experience. Once he calmed down and considered it, he believed that it should not be too difficult.

The first region was off-limits. Except for the area around the medicine garden, everywhere else in the first region was overcrowded with Star Boundary refugees. There was already not enough space for him to use, so how could he strip away land for other purposes?

In that case, he could only target the third region. The third region was formed by devoured Demon Realm continents so they naturally contained the World Principles of the Demon Realm, allowing Demons to survive comfortably on it. On the contrary, non-Demons would inevitably be corrupted by the omnipresent Demon Essence and experience demonification if they remained there for too long. Those with insufficient Soul cultivation were even more likely to become confused and degenerate into Demons unable to recognize their family and friends.