The Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array outside the Ancestral Land, the Four Gates Eight Palaces Great Pagoda Array, was still active.
Meanwhile, inside the Ancestral Land, Di Wu was recklessly releasing his strength to vent his rage.
300 years had passed. He had been waiting here for 300 years, but there were still no signs of Yang Kai. Although the Royal Lord in the No-Return Pass didn’t urge him, he knew that not taking down Yang Kai after such a long time showed his inability.
It wouldn’t be too bad if he were a Territory Lord, but now that he was a Royal Lord, though not a true Royal Lord, he still represented the peak of the Black Ink Clan.
Before, Di Wu dared not head too deep inside the Ancestral Land because he was still unfamiliar with the huge, new power inside him. Also, the extremely dense Ancestral Strength of this place had a massive suppressive effect on him.
Back then, he wasn’t confident in defeating Yang Kai even if he managed to lure him out.
So many years of waiting weren’t in vain though, because 200 years ago, the Ancestral Strength in the Ancestral Land began gradually decreasing and thinning out day by day.
Until this day, the amount of Ancestral Strength remained stagnant.
Now, although there was still Ancestral Strength in the Ancestral Land, it wasn’t nearly as dense as it was 300 years ago. It was at a level that Di Wu could tolerate.
Of course, the more important reason was that he had finally gained more control over his strength after so long.
It was impossible to fully control the strength he obtained from the Black Ink Nest and 13 sacrificed Territory Lords because if he could, he wouldn’t be a Pseudo-Royal Lord but a real Royal Lord.
In other words, by using the Source Fusion Technique, the total strength Di Wu possessed wasn’t any less than a real Royal Lord, but his ability to control that strength was inferior to one.
Now that the environment had changed and he had gained better control over his strength, Di Wu finally had the bravery to attack.
Every time Di Wu attacked with his majestic Black Ink Strength, the Ancestral Land would tremble. If this had been an ordinary Universe World, it wouldn’t have withstood the ruthless bombardment of a Pseudo-Royal Lord and might have been shattered already.
However, the Divine Spirit Ancestral Land was different. This was a continent that had existed since the Primordial Era and had nurtured numerous Divine Spirits. Whether it was the land’s robustness or the strength of its Grand Dao and Principles, all were far beyond ordinary.
While Yang Kai was looking into the past, he even witnessed the internal war between the Divine Spirits. There were countless powerful Divine Spirits involved in that battle, including many on as strong as the Dragon Emperors and Phoenix Empresses, which made it difficult to estimate how many Divine Spirits had died in that battle. That war was definitely among the most shocking the Universe had ever witnessed, with few if any matching its magnitude and intensity.
Even that great battle that involved the entire Ancestral Land didn’t destroy this World though and only damaged it somewhat, so how could a lone Pseudo-Royal Lord be capable of that?
Therefore, Di Wu couldn’t help but be dumbfounded after releasing a series of attacks. The Divine Spirit Ancestral Land was far more mysterious than he imagined, and most importantly, his actions seemed to have evoked hatred and resistance from this World.
The Humans had an old saying: The World lives. Even a relatively young Universe World like the Star Boundary had its own Will, let alone one as ancient and vast as the Ancestral Land. When the Primordial Light fell onto the Ancestral Land and turned into numerous colourful rays of light, the Ancestral Land’s consciousness appeared. As a result, this World’s Will was far stronger and purer than other Universe Worlds.
If this wasn’t the case, the Ancestral Land wouldn’t have shown such favouritism to Yang Kai. All of this was because the Ancestral Land could feel the Golden Divine Dragon Source inside Yang Kai was one of those colourful rays.
Of course, Di Wu’s efforts weren’t totally in vain, as he had almost shaken Yang Kai from his strange state.
If he had succeeded, Yang Kai would have been frustrated to the point that he spat blood.
After using so much time to witness the Ancestral Land’s history and evolution, he had reached a moment of critical importance, so failing at this point would be too much to bear.
Luckily for him, he quickly calmed down his emotions after noticing the strange sensation.
“Come out!” Di Wu’s roar spread throughout the entire Ancestral Land, especially in the direction the Ancestral Strength was moving in. He could roughly guess where Yang Kai was hiding, but since he couldn’t break the Ancestral Land apart, he didn’t have a way to get Yang Kai to come out.
He had been waiting here for long enough and wasn’t willing to continue idling; so, he decided that no matter what, he must make Yang Kai come out of hiding and kill him.
Suddenly, a resounding dragon roar came from below the surface. It sounded furious, and Di Wu could clearly feel a powerful aura rising from below.
Di Wu wasn’t surprised but happy because, to him, making Yang Kai come out was the most difficult task. As for killing Yang Kai, Di Wu thought that it wouldn’t take too much effort to kill him, so he immediately prepared.
Right after he had readied himself, that strong aura closed in. Following that, a huge Golden Dragon Head suddenly appeared from the ground.
That Dragon Head had two horns with thick Dragon Scales all over its body. Its Dragon Beard was swaying under its widely opened mouth that looked like it could bite away a mountain. The Dragon’s mouth bit down fiercely at Di Wu as though it was about to swallow him whole.
Time Principles surged, and even with his newfound strength, Di Wu couldn’t help but fall into a daze. Luckily for him, he instantly woke up and quickly retreated.
The Dragon chased after him with eyes that were filled with fiery rage, seemingly wanting to burn him to ashes.
In that moment of running and chasing, the Pseudo-Royal Lord and Dragon leapt 1,000 kilometres into the sky, and it was only then that Di Wu caught a glimpse of what this Dragon looked like.
It was a huge Dragon Form that seemed to be 100,000 metres long! Though the Dragon Head was right before him, the Dragon Tail seemed to stretch out forever, and the Dragon Pressure was so strong that it was like a furious wind that shook the world around it.
Di Wu felt his heart sink, [Is this guy… Yang Kai?]
He couldn’t help but doubt whether the intelligence had been mistaken because the being before him wasn’t an ordinary Dragon, or even a powerful Ancient Dragon, but quite possibly a Divine Dragon!
According to the information the Black Ink Clan had obtained, while Yang Kai possessed a potent Dragon Clan bloodline, he was still far from becoming a Divine Dragon. Yang Kai’s Dragon Form was supposed to be just 70,000 metres long.
But the Dragon before him… was unquestionably 100,000 metres in length.
A 100,000-metre-long Dragon was a Divine Dragon, a Master superior to ordinary Royal Lords and Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters. Not to mention Di Wu, who was a mere Pseudo-Royal Lord, even the Royal Lord back at the No-Return Pass would have to act cautiously if he encountered a Divine Dragon.
However, there was only one White Divine Dragon left among the Dragon Clan, and that Divine Dragon had flown into the depths of the Black Ink Battlefield over 1,000 years ago, disappearing without a trace. How could there be a second Divine Dragon here now?
Along with everything he saw these past 300 years, Di Wu immediately concluded that the Divine Dragon in front of him was indeed Yang Kai, and these years of cultivation allowed him to gain significant growth!
[This is bad! My Pseudo-Royal Lord strength is enough to crush an Eighth-Order Master, but if Yang Kai has become a Divine Dragon… I’m the one in danger of dying today!]
While Di Wu was panicking, Yang Kai was also shocked and half of the rage in his eyes faded.
[A Royal Lord? How could there be a Royal Lord here?]
Previously, an external force almost interrupted his hard work of many years, so Yang Kai was naturally furious. After witnessing the Primordial Light landing on the Ancestral Land and what happened shortly after, he furiously charged out from the depths of the Ancestral Land.
It seemed like he had been too lenient and determined to adhere to the agreement between the two Races. The Black Ink Clan might have forgotten what it felt like to fear him, so Yang Kai had decided to teach them a lesson about the consequences of enraging him.
Under normal circumstances, Yang Kai wouldn’t be so reckless and would instead examine the situation before devising a plan, but his strange experience made his consciousness spend millions of years in the past, so his subconscious took over and did everything instinctively under the influence of his rage.
When he felt the aura of the Black Ink Clansman in front of him though, he finally regained his senses.
The Black Ink Clan wouldn’t challenge him if they weren’t confident that they could kill him. So, the Royal Lord before him was undoubtedly the Black Ink Clan’s trump card.
[Has the one at the No-Return Pass come all the way here? Wait! This Royal Lord isn’t the one from the No-Return Pass.]
Yang Kai had encountered the Royal Lord from the No-Return Pass a few times, so he knew what he looked like. However, the Black Ink Clansman before him was someone he had never seen before.
[The Black Ink Clan actually has a second Royal Lord!] Yang Kai was shocked. If the Black Ink Clan had a second Royal Lord, wouldn’t that mean they could have a third or a fourth?
At that instant, Yang Kai suddenly had no idea how many years he had spent in the Ancestral Land. Could he have been here for a few 1,000 years? If not, how could the Black Ink Clan have a new Royal Lord?
But no matter what it was, he couldn’t remain here and fight a meaningless battle!
The escaping and pursuing pair were both lost in their own thoughts at the same time, but came to their senses just as quickly. Following that, the Dragon released a powerful Dragon Breath from its huge maw, which became a blast of raging golden fire threatening to burn the sky down.
In response, Di Wu threw a few punches that were surging with Black Ink Strength with all his might.
A loud boom sounded in the air, and the Dragon Breath was put out while the Black Ink Strength dispersed.
Yang Kai and Di Wu were both sent flying.
The huge Golden Dragon suddenly shrunk and returned to Human Form. Then, Yang Kai immediately flew away without turning back. He didn’t have any intention of fighting a Royal Lord.
With his current strength, it was still quite difficult for him to kill a Royal Lord, and he was anxious to find out what had happened in the outside world. How long had he been here, and what was the state of the Human’s side?
However, he had only flown a short distance when he heard an angry roar from above, “Get down!”
Immediately after that, the Void trembled and a huge bolt of lightning came crashing down on him.
Although the bolt wasn’t overpowering, it wasn’t weak either.
Not expecting to encounter an ambush, Yang Kai looked up and saw a Territory Lord holding an Array Banner while pointing at him from afar, looking nervous but feigning calm.
Yang Kai coldly snorted before manipulating Space Principles, preparing to flee.
But just as his Instantaneous Movement activated, it sputtered and he was ejected from the Void. That short pause caused the thunderbolt to hit him directly, making him tremble. Even a few strands of his hair were made to stand on end.
[A Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Array!]
At the thought of that, Yang Kai’s face fell as a memory from the depths of his mind emerged. He vaguely recalled that when he was looking back in time, he saw a group of Territory Lords setting up some sort of Grand Array outside the Ancestral Land. Now it seemed like they had sealed the Ancestral Land.
[No wonder the Black Ink Clan dared to attack me. It’s because of this!]
Instantaneous Movement was indeed one of the most mysterious and unpredictable techniques among Space Techniques, and Yang Kai relied on it to escape from many Masters in the past. However, the Black Ink Clan’s arrangement prevented this Secret Technique from activating. With the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking in effect, everywhere inside this Grand Array was cut off from the outside, meaning if one wanted to leave, one had to destroy the Grand Array first.
It wouldn’t be easy to break such a Grand Array though. Not only was a Royal Lord targeting him, but Yang Kai was sure that this Grand Array had other functions besides being Heaven Sealing Earth Locking. The thunderbolt that hit him just now was obviously created by this Grand Array because Black Ink Clansmen didn’t have such an ability.
Having charged out in a fury but being met with such an awkward situation, Yang Kai couldn’t care about being angry anymore. Adding on to the fact that his consciousness had witnessed millions of years of the Ancestral Land’s history, he was still a little muddleheaded and knew this wasn’t the time to get entangled in a battle with the Black Ink Clan. At the very least, he had to figure out his current situation first.
Thinking so, Yang Kai didn’t hesitate, and his figure flickered before instantly disappearing.
He didn’t use Instantaneous Movement to leave; instead, he escaped into the depths of the Ancestral Land and concealed his aura.
The Ancestral Land was incredibly firm, and even Di Wu, a Pseudo-Royal Lord, couldn’t cause any real damage to it despite attacking with full force. However, Yang Kai didn’t feel any resistance from the land when escaping to its depths.
That was because this land had shown its pampering attitude towards Yang Kai. This was just like how he was a Star Boundary’s Great Emperor and could instantly travel to any corner of it with just a thought as long as he was within its borders. Although he wasn’t the Great Emperor chosen by the Ancestral Land’s World’s Will, he was not far from it.
Next, Yang Kai’s Divine Sense flowed out like the tide and quickly examined the Ancestral Land and its surrounding void, which was indeed enveloped by an unknown Grand Array that had sealed this place and separated it from the outside world.
Yang Kai’s face fell. It was bold of the Black Ink Clan to come after him, but judging by the arrangements they had made, they did have the capital to do so. With a Royal Lord overseeing the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array and who knows how many Innate Territory Lords hiding in the dark, the Black Ink Clan could take the risk to fight for victory.
[How many years has it been since I came to the Ancestral Land?]
Calming down, Yang Kai began estimating the days and soon felt relieved.
Thankfully, it had only been 300 years!
When he saw an unfamiliar Royal Lord, Yang Kai worried he had spent thousands or even tens of thousands of years in the Ancestral Land, but it seemed only 300 had passed.
Though 300 years wasn’t a short amount of time, it wasn’t too long either as Yang Kai had just previously spent 1,700 years in retreat.
In such a short period, the situation between the Black Ink Clan and Human Race couldn’t have changed much.
However, since that was the case, where did this unfamiliar Royal Lord come from? Logically speaking, a Territory Lord wouldn’t have grown to become a Royal Lord in such a short time frame. Could it be that this Royal Lord had been hiding in the dark all this while?
But that seemed impossible because if the Black Ink Clan had a second Royal Lord available, they wouldn’t have hidden him away. With the situation on the battlefield, if the Black Ink Clan deployed a Royal Lord, the Humans would at least have to give up a few more Great Territory Battlefields and countless more of Eighth-Order Masters would have died in battle.
Yang Kai couldn’t figure this point, and soon worried about something even more disturbing. If the Black Ink Clan had a second Royal Lord, would there be a third, or perhaps even more?
If that were the case, the Humans would be in trouble.
Temporarily discarding such worries, Yang Kai calmed down and tried to reach the World Tree, thinking of using Old Tree’s power to help him get out of this situation.
If he succeeded, he could instantly head to the Grand Ancient Ruins Boundary. He had done something similar before in Acacia Territory back then. The Black Ink Clan still couldn’t figure out how Yang Kai left Acacia Territory with more than 10,000 Human refugees when they had blockaded all the Territory Gates and never saw a trace of Yang Kai.
As Yang Kai had refined thousands of Universes Worlds back then, he and the World Tree’s connection couldn’t be broken. Even in a place like the Black Ink Battlefield that wasn’t possible.
In fact, even now, there was still a connection between them, but Yang Kai’s plan of using the World Tree’s strength to escape this situation proved impossible. Unless he could break the seal of the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array, he wouldn’t be able to head to the Grand Ancient Ruins Boundary.
Though Yang Kai had somewhat expected this, he still felt frustrated.
After figuring out his situation, and having spent time in a type of cultivation trace, Yang Kai was no longer so anxious. Now, it seemed like this wasn’t a well-thought-out conspiracy enacted over thousands of years by the Black Ink Clan, but just a plan which took advantage of fortuitous circumstances. His long stay in the Ancestral Land had simply allowed them to act against him.
If he hadn’t remained in the Ancestral Land for so long, or fallen into a near unconscious state because he was witnessing the Ancestral Land reminiscing about its past, he wouldn’t have been oblivious to the changes in his surroundings.
It wasn’t that Yang Kai wasn’t cautious enough, there were just some unexpected things in this world that could not be avoided.
Moreover, he was only trapped here, which couldn’t be compared to the benefits he received while witnessing the Ancestral Land’s evolution.
[That multi-coloured light entity…] Even when he recalled that moment, Yang Kai couldn’t hide his shock. The World couldn’t have such a magnificent light anymore.
Naturally, the Primordial Light that was born at the beginning of the Universe was the most magnificent of all lights!
Towards the end of the rewound time, Yang Kai saw the Primordial Light crash onto the Ancestral Land and explode. A myriad of colourful lights dispersed and melted into this ancient and barren World, turning it from ordinary to extraordinary. Later, this vast land gradually became a land filled with a mysterious energy that still existed today.
The places where those colourful streams of light landed had experienced the passing of countless years before gradually giving rise to the Dragon Clan, Phoenix Clan, and many other Divine Spirit Clans. In the end, this land became the Divine Spirits’ birthplace and homeland.
More importantly, this was also why the Divine Spirits’ strength could restrain Black Ink Strength to a certain degree.
The Divine Spirits were the same as the Burning Light and Serene Glimmer. They were all born from the Primordial Light, so all of them came from the same Source. The rumour that said the Burning Light and Serene Glimmer were the progenitors of the Divine Spirits was just nonsense. The more accurate description would be that the Burning Light and Serene Glimmer were the Big Brother and Big Sister of all Divine Spirits because they were the ones that were first separated from the Primordial Light.
Those two had lived since the Primordial Era until now, and their strength was pure and unchanged throughout history. On the other hand, the Divine Spirits had gone through generations after generations of inheritance, so the characteristics of their strength had diverged from the Primordial Light over the aeons and had a less obvious effect on Black Ink Strength compared to the Purifying Light.
When Yang Kai saw what finally happened to the Primordial Light, he knew that it was impossible to find it because how could he search for something that didn’t exist anymore? Unless he could really turn back time and return to the Primordial Era to stop the Primordial Light before it disappeared, but that was not something a Human could do.
Luckily, Yang Kai had long given up hope of relying on the Primordial Light. The Humans had to rely on themselves to eliminate Mo.
Since Humans had become the favourite of this era, Yang Kai naturally had to take up the responsibility of protecting it! If he couldn’t even take up such a small responsibility, he would have no right to exist.
As for the Primordial Light, Yang Kai had a general understanding of its history and end, but there was one thing he cared about.
While he was watching the Primordial Light crash onto the Ancestral Land and explode, he could vaguely make out a blurry and distorted Human figure at the place the light landed…
However, the rays of light were too intense, so he couldn’t make out what that was.
[Does the Primordial Light have a connection with Humans as well? What could it be?]
While the Monster Race were the descendants of the Divine Spirits, created to battle one another, Humans had been born from the Universe’s Energy itself. The Primordial Era and Early Ancient Era all had traces of Human activity, but the Humans were far too weak back then. So, no matter whether it was the Divine Spirits or the Monster Race, they all saw Humans as ants, unworthy of their attention.
It wasn’t until the Late Ancient Era when Cang and the other Martial Ancestors were enlightened by the World Tree and created the Open Heaven Realm Cultivation Method that true Masters began emerging from the Humans who could resist the rampant Monster Race and Divine Spirits. Later, it was the Human Race that gradually assumed the position of rulers of the Universe.
Humans were born weak and couldn’t even be compared to the average Beast in their formative years, but perhaps because of their humble beginnings, Humans had infinite possibilities for their futures.
Yang Kai soon stopped thinking about this matter because he had decided not to insist on finding the Primordial Light, and it was meaningless to think about these things at the moment. The most important thing now was to solve the problem he was currently facing.
Since a Grand Array had sealed this place and stopped him from escaping, his only option was to fight his way out.
Even if it meant fighting a Royal Lord, Yang Kai had to try. Among his current means, the Soul Rending Thorns were still the sharpest weapon he had to deal with a Royal Lord. The Soul Rending Thorns were what played the biggest role when he killed a Royal Lord outside the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon.
Back then, he had used four Soul Rending Thorns consecutively, which caused him to fall into a dazed state, but with how strong his Soul was now, Yang Kai estimated he could use five Soul Rending Thorns at once and still barely maintain lucidity.
No matter how that Royal Lord guarded himself, five Soul Rending Thorns could critically injure his Soul.
Moreover, Yang Kai’s strength had reached the peak of the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm, so he was far stronger than he was when he had just come out of the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon.
He was able to kill that Royal Lord back then mainly because he was lucky, but luck was never something one could rely on.
However, Yang Kai soon brightened up because he discovered that his Dragon Vein had grown significantly stronger after 300 years of cultivation.
Just now, though he had managed to battle the Royal Lord in his Dragon Form for a short while, he didn’t pay any attention to the changes in his Dragon Vein. After examining himself though, Yang Kai could feel that his Dragon Vein seemed to have hit a bottleneck. It was the bottleneck between the Ancient Dragon Realm and the Divine Dragon Realm!
If he could achieve a breakthrough, he would be able to advance from an Ancient Dragon into a Divine Dragon!
This realization greatly enthused Yang Kai.
A Divine Dragon was an existence on the same level as a Royal Lord or Ninth-Order Master. Also, in general, a Divine Dragon would be stronger than other Masters in the equivalent Realm.
When Yang Kai met Fu Guang in the depths of the Dragon Pool, the latter was in the same state as he was currently. But Fu Guang was now a White Divine Dragon.
Even without transforming into his Dragon Form, Yang Kai knew that he had reached an astonishing 99,999 metres in length. Once he could take that last step forward, he could reach the 100,000-metre mark and regain the glory of the Third Generation Dragon Emperor whose Source he had inherited.
If so, he wouldn’t be embarrassing the Third Generation Dragon Emperor who had passed away.
Yang Kai’s Gold Divine Dragon Source came from the Third Generation Dragon Emperor, and the Third Generation Dragon Emperor didn’t only have a 100,000-metre Dragon Form. 100,000 metres was only the minimum required length to reach the Divine Dragon Realm, while only the strongest among Divine Dragons would have the right to be crowned a Dragon Emperor and command the Dragon Clan.
During the Third Generation Dragon Emperor’s Era, there wasn’t just one Divine Dragon in the Dragon Clan, so being able to stand out among all the Divine Dragons meant that the Third Generation Dragon Emperor was indeed unmatched.
But even such a strong Master had paid the ultimate price along with the Phoenix Empress of that era just to suppress and seal the Black Ink Giant Spirit God, which clearly showed how powerful a Black Ink Giant Spirit God was.
In regards to the speed of cultivation among Dragons, Yang Kai was ridiculously fast.
Looking at today’s Dragon Clan, he could be said to be the second strongest Dragon after Fu Guang.
He had expected his Dragon Vein to be refined because Ancestral Strength constantly flowed into his Dragon Form while he had been hiding deep below the Ancestral Land these 300 years. It would be stranger if his Dragon Vein had not been further refined.
At this moment, Yang Kai could clearly feel that the Ancestral Strength in the Ancestral Land had thinned out a lot because of him.
The refining of his Dragon Vein had caused his Dragon Form to grow from 70,000 metres to 99,999 metres.
As for the increased length of his Dragon Form, though it didn’t bring any benefits to his Open Heaven cultivation, his strength had undoubtedly increased. At the very least, the intrepidness of his physique and ability to withstand punishment had increased appreciably, which would be of great importance when battling the Royal Lord later.
However, the benefits didn’t stop there.
The Dragon Clan’s Bloodline Talent was the Dao of Time, so the more refined their Dragon Vein was, the higher their attainments in the Dao of Time rose. That was one of the benefits gained from inheriting a Divine Spirit Bloodline. The Dragon Clan didn’t need to have strong comprehensive skills. As long as their bloodline reached a certain purity, they would naturally comprehend things that ordinary people couldn’t.
Yang Kai could clearly feel that his attainments in the Dao of Time had greatly increased.
Since coming out of the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon, his Dao of Time could be said to have reached the Seventh Level, Standing Above All Others Within Sight.
All these years of constantly absorbing the things he gained from the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon, he had gone much further in this stage,
Now, following the growth of his Dragon Vein, Yang Kai’s attainment in the Dao of Time had entirely surpassed the Seventh Level and reached the Eighth Level, Summiting the Peak!
It was now on the same level as his Dao of Space.
All this while, Yang Kai’s attainments in the Dao of Space had always led his attainments in the Dao of Time. This wasn’t only because he had been cultivating the Dao of Space for longer, but also because he had a natural aptitude in the Dao of Space.
If he hadn’t obtained an extremely pure Dragon Clan Bloodline, there was a huge possibility that he wouldn’t have any attainments in the Dao of Time at all.
Now that his attainments in these two Grand Daos had become even, they had a huge effect on him.
The first was that time in his Small Universe now flowed even faster.
If the previous speed of time in his Small Universe was between six and seven times faster than in the outside world, it was now 10 times faster. The faster flow of time in his Small Universe meant that his heritage would increase faster as well. Of course, this didn’t hold much meaning to Yang Kai anymore because he would soon reach his innate limit in the Open Heaven Martial Dao. Once he reached that peak, his heritage and Realm wouldn’t improve no matter how much strength he accumulated.
However, if he could break through the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm’s restrictions, this change would become very meaningful. The Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm was a new start, and a 10 times flow rate of time in his Small Universe could help him save many years of bitter cultivation.
While the changes in his Small Universe’s time flow were directly affected by his advancement in mastery of the Dao of Time, there was another effect that wasn’t so direct.
That was with his strongest Secret Technique, the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel.
A long while ago, Yang Kai had noticed that because his attainments in the Dao of Time and Dao of Space had some disparity, he would always feel like there was something incomplete with the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel, limiting its power.
The Sun and Moon Divine Wheel was a Secret Technique that combined both Grand Daos to create a brand-new Space-Time Strength. Since his attainments in the two Grand Daos were different, with one slightly higher than the other, this Space-Time Strength was unstable. That was why he couldn’t perfectly combine the full strength of those two Grand Daos.
Yang Kai had previously surmised that when both these Grand Daos had reached the same level of mastery, he might be able to use the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel’s complete power.
But after so many years, even he didn’t have a way to force the two Grand Daos into a balanced state. That was, until today!
Since Yang Kai’s attainments in the Dao of Space and Dao of Time had both reached the Eighth Level, how much power would he be able to exert when he used them to activate the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel? At the thought of that, Yang Kai became excited and secretly decided to test this out as soon as possible.
With the growth of his Dragon Form, improvement of his Dragon Vein, and new attainments in the Dao of Time, Yang Kai’s overall strength had increased dramatically over the past 300 years.
So what if he had to face a Royal Lord? Since he couldn’t escape, he would just have to kill his way out!
However, he first needed to understand the Black Ink Clan’s plan. When he was fighting with that Royal Lord earlier, everything happened too quickly and he was too muddle-headed, so he didn’t have time to carefully assess the situation. The only thing he knew was that there was a Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array outside the Ancestral Land, a Royal Lord waiting for a chance to strike, and an unknown number of Innate Territory Lords lurking in the shadows, observing the situation!
At the same time, in the sky above the Ancestral Land, the arrogant expression on Di Wu’s face was gone, replaced with one of uncertainty.
After becoming a Pseudo-Royal Lord and gaining tremendous strength, he was confident that he could succeed in killing Yang Kai, but how could he have anticipated that a single clash with Yang Kai would terrify him so greatly?
Yang Kai was just a half-step away from becoming a Divine Dragon, and in his fluster earlier, Di Wu nearly turned around and ran. Luckily for him, Yang Kai ran even quicker, or else he might have humiliated himself.
Now that Di Wu carefully thought back on the previous exchange, though Yang Kai’s aura was indeed powerful, it had not yet reached the stage of a Divine Dragon. Di Wu had previously felt the aura of the White Divine Dragon back at the No-Return Pass and clearly remembered that it was far more imposing and majestic than the aura Yang Kai exuded.
[Although that guy has grown significantly while cultivating in the Ancestral Land, he has still yet to break through that final barrier, so he should still be an Ancient Dragon.]
Having realised that, Di Wu felt relieved. If Yang Kai really had become a Divine Dragon, Di Wu would have no choice but to flee.
Di Wu was a Pseudo-Royal Lord, while Yang Kai could be regarded as a Pseudo-Divine Dragon, so the two were on par, with neither side being the genuine article. In fact, being a Pseudo-Royal Lord meant that he was the stronger of the two because he possessed the raw strength of a Royal Lord. Even if he couldn’t control that strength properly, he still had it, as opposed to Yang Kai whose total strength was still lacking by comparison.
Now that Yang Kai had gone into hiding though, things had become difficult for him because, if he couldn’t damage the Ancestral Land with his strength, he wouldn’t be able to find Yang Kai. In short, although the Black Ink Clan had cut off Yang Kai’s hope of escape with the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array, as long as Yang Kai didn’t reveal himself, there was no way for them to kill him.
This was what troubled Di Wu the most. Before coming here, he didn’t expect the situation in the Ancestral Land would turn out like this.
Di Wu could sense Yang Kai’s Divine Sense probing around, checking the situation, but he couldn’t pinpoint where the latter was, so he could only sit and wait.
Just as he was thinking about how to lure Yang Kai out, he suddenly felt the latter’s aura appear somewhere inside the Ancestral Land.
[Over there!]
Di Wu turned his head and saw Yang Kai’s figure shooting up into the sky. Then, he immediately moved his body and shot towards Yang Kai while shouting, “Stop him!”
They couldn’t let Yang Kai hide within the depths of the Ancestral Land again!
As Di Wu shouted his order, a thick bolt of lightning shot down from above. The Innate Territory Lords responsible for maintaining the Grand Array had activated one of its functions, a Killing Array.
Numerous lightning bolts appeared in the sky, resembling a Thunder Dragon flying through the sky and instantly stopping before Yang Kai. Yang Kai’s figure flickered across the sky as he easily dodged the attack, but the Thunder Dragon chased him as if it had a mind of its own. At the same time, more bolts of lightning rained down from above.
Yang Kai managed to dodge many of these attacks before finally arriving at the edge of the Grand Array. With the Azure Dragon Spear in hand, he unleashed a powerful thrust.
Space shattered, and even the Grand Array shook, revealing the figure of an Innate Territory Lord in one of the Array Nodes. He was the one who first summoned lightning bolts just now.
When the two pairs of eyes met, the Innate Territory Lord shivered as he was filled with terror.
Among all the Humans, there were a few Masters that the Black Ink Clan was wary of, but there was only one that inspired fear in all.
This couldn’t be helped as too many Innate Territory Lords had died at Yang Kai’s hands. Even if three Innate Territory Lords ran into him, their deaths were almost assured if they couldn’t quickly receive assistance from more Territory Lords.
Even though they had the Grand Array as a barrier between them, the Innate Territory Lord didn’t feel the slightest bit secure. He would have long fled by now if he didn’t need to operate the Grand Array.
However, he was a crucial part of this Grand Array, so he couldn’t escape. The only thing he could do was to fiercely gather his strength while channelling it into the Array Banner, trying to strengthen the barrier in front of him.
Fortunately, Yang Kai only attacked once before he immediately flew away with no intention of striking again.
It wasn’t because he didn’t want to strike again, but because he couldn’t. The Royal Lord was about to arrive, and lightning bolts were closing in on him from all sides. Any delay could land him in a critical situation.
However, that one spear attack gave Yang Kai some insight into this Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array and he realized it wasn’t nearly as sturdy as he originally thought. With his strength, he could easily break through this Grand Array given half a cup of tea’s time without any distractions.
Of course, Black Ink Clan wasn’t going to give him a chance to do that.
With the continuous strikes condensed by the Territory Lords operating the Grand Array, Yang Kai soon noticed that the bolts of lightning were increasing in number so rapidly that there was almost no place for him to run anymore.
Therefore, he could only use Space Principles to exile his body to the Void.
The moment his figure turned illusory, the many lightning bolts hit their mark. Since Yang Kai had phased his body though, he managed to avoid most of the attack while the remnants didn’t have enough power to harm him.
This was the biggest advantage of having an extremely pure Dragon Vein. The Dragon Clan was unparalleled when it came to physical resilience and even had a high degree of resistance when it came to most Secret Techniques and Divine Abilities. So, it wouldn’t matter if he was hit by some of the attacks.
But before Yang Kai had the time to recover, four figures suddenly jumped out at him, each charging at him with their auras blazing.
They were four Innate Territory Lords that had been hiding nearby. These four Innate Territory Lords had linked their auras in a Battle Formation which Yang Kai was very familiar with!
Frowning, Yang Kai muttered, “Four Symbols Formation!”
The Three Fortunes, Four Symbols, Five Elements, Six Paths, Seven Stars, Eight Desolations, and Nine Palaces were the most standard Battle Formations of the Human Race which were used by its soldiers on the Black Ink Battlefield in particularly dangerous or dire circumstances; for example, when their Warships were destroyed.
A Warship was the largest reliance a Human Squad had when fighting against the Black Ink Clan. Whether it was back at the Black Ink Battlefield or on the current Great Territory Battlefields, when both Races fought, the Humans were outnumbered.
The only reason the Humans could persevere was that the average strength of their soldiers was greater than that of the Black Ink Clan’s, and they had Warships.
Each Warship was essentially a mobile fortress with numerous artifacts that could greatly enhance the offensive and defensive capabilities of its crew. If the Humans didn’t have Warships, they would have been wiped out long ago. Without mentioning anything else, it was difficult for Humans to resist the corruption of Black Ink Strength when they were either too weak or injured; however, a Warship could offer such Humans safety and protection.
After so many years, the Humans had used countless resources to build and maintain their Warships. It could be said that the number of resources used on Warships was larger than the amount cultivators used to cultivate.
Every time there was a large-scale battle, Warships were damaged and destroyed. Once a Warship was destroyed though, the Human soldiers would have to face the Black Ink Clan’s attack and the corruption of Black Ink Strength without this additional layer of protection. When that happened, the survivors would often use Battle Formations to greatly increase their chances of surviving.
Three Humans could create a Formation called the Three Fortunes Formation. Add one more person, and it would be the Four Symbols Formation. Five people would form the Five Elements Formation, and so on and so forth until one reached the Nine Palaces Formation.
Under normal circumstances, the more Humans in a Battle Formation, the stronger it would be.
When Yang Kai was on the Black Ink Battlefield, he led the many Seventh-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters of Dawn Squad to form the Eight Desolations Formation several times to kill their enemies, producing outstanding results.
However, such Battle Formations could not be formed on a whim as they needed a long period of joint practice. Additionally, the people forming a Battle Formation had to be familiar with and trust each other because once it was formed, not just their auras, but their very lives would become linked. If one suffered, all suffered, and if one prospered, all prospered. If there wasn’t enough trust between partners, it would be impossible to even form a Battle Formation, much less bring out its full strength.
On the Great Territory Battlefields, there were significantly fewer Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters than Territory Lords, but the reason the Humans could stubbornly resist the Black Ink Clan’s continuous onslaught was that they made good use of Battle Formations.
The Black Ink Clan generally wouldn’t use such Formations because they didn’t trust each other like how the Human cultivators would. Rather than wasting their time and effort in forming Battle Formations, they preferred fighting alone because they could more freely use their strengths.
Yang Kai had never encountered a situation where the Black Ink Clan used a Battle Formation, and never expected to see it happen today.
More importantly, it was four Innate Territory Lords that formed this Formation, which illustrated the Black Ink Clan’s determination to kill him. In the face of the huge pressure of confronting Yang Kai, these four Territory Lords had set aside all their reservations and banded together to defeat this formidable enemy.
These four Territory Lords with linked auras charged forward, and though Yang Kai could see at a glance that their Battle Formation wasn’t tightly bonded, he didn’t want to be entangled with them for too long.
With a sweep of his spear, Yang Kai thrust out more than a dozen times in the direction of those Territory Lords to slow down their approach. Then, he quickly flew downwards before immediately shooting away.
Those four Territory Lords immediately changed directions and chased after him.
The Royal Lord also quickly changed directions, trying to cut Yang Kai off. Despite there not being much difference in their speed, Yang Kai was proficient in Space Techniques, so it wasn’t easy for the Royal Lord to block him.
After flying around the Ancestral Land several times, the Black Ink Clansmen sadly found that although they had taken advantage of the time Yang Kai was cultivating to seal him here, there was nothing they could do about him if he didn’t fight them head-on. On the contrary, Yang Kai had managed to discover the Black Ink Clan’s strength with his constant probing.
This made Di Wu furious.
At that moment, a voice entered Di Wu’s ear. It was from the Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciple responsible for setting up the Grand Array. Once Di Wu heard what was said, he revealed a happy expression and nodded subtly.
While Yang Kai was moving around the Ancestral Land, the Killing Array linked to the Grand Array surrounding the Ancestral Land didn’t stop and was constantly sending lightning bolts towards him. It was a pity that this Grand Array’s primary function was to act as a Heaven Sealing Earth Locking barrier. Though it had a Killing Array embedded inside, it wasn’t very powerful, so Yang Kai could easily dodge its attacks.
With Yang Kai’s current strength, only a Grand Array set by a Great Grandmaster in the Dao of Spirit Arrays could completely incapacitate him. A Spirit Array set up by a few Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciples with mediocre achievements in the Dao of Spirit Arrays naturally wasn’t as profound.
As the chase continued, the Ancestral Land suddenly became covered in mist. This mist wasn’t that dense in the beginning, but as time passed, it became denser and denser until visibility became essentially zero. Even Divine Sense was restricted to only being able to extend 100 metres from an individual.
All of that was because the Grand Array had changed. Since the Killing Array was useless, they had switched it for a Trapping Array.
Yang Kai couldn’t help but slow down and carefully probe his surroundings. There were sounds of wind blowing, birds chirping, and a vague sound of a cry and howl. Knowing that all these were disturbances generated by the Spirit Array, he couldn’t help but snicker.
Everyone, including the Black Ink Clan, knew that Yang Kai was proficient in the Daos Time and Space, but very few knew he had dabbled in the Dao of Spirit Arrays.
Of course, his attainments in the Dao of Spirit Arrays weren’t particularly high and were all gained from his experiences in the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon. Back then, there were Grand Dao Rivers of all kinds flowing inside the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon, and Yang Kai had absorbed and refined many of them. Yang Kai had taken so many Dao Rivers with different Great Daos filled with Dao Essence into his Small Universe that talents in all kinds of different Grand Daos were now born in the Void Continent.
If Yang Kai only relied on these shallow attainments, he wouldn’t be able to see through this Trapping Array, but that wasn’t all he had to rely on.
He closed both eyes, and when he opened them next, a golden cross flashed across his left pupil.
The Demon Eye of Annihilation was an Eye Secret Technique he inherited from Myriad Demons Cave Heaven. It could see through all illusions and was rumoured to be able to see the past and tell the future once cultivated to its extreme.
Yang Kai didn’t have any intentions of seeing the past and looking into the future, but the Demon Eye of Annihilation’s ability to see through illusions was the perfect thing to unravel Spirit Arrays.
With this Secret Technique active, Yang Kai was able to see through the mist and get a clear view of his surroundings. Even though he hadn’t reached the point where he wasn’t affected by the mist at all, it was enough to help him in this situation.
If the Black Ink Clan had placed their hopes on this Trapping Array to restrict his movements, they had made the wrong choice.
Yang Kai wasn’t in a hurry to reveal his secrets though, so he wore a gloomy look on his face and slowed down his actions so that he could test the Black Ink Clan and learn more about their situation.
Soon, he saw the Royal Lord had stopped near the border of the Grand Array, seemingly ordering some kind of attack while looking in his direction with murderous intent filling his face.
But Yang Kai noticed the Royal Lord didn’t intend to charge right at him, which surprised him as he didn’t know what the other party was worried about.
Di Wu was indeed worried.
Despite knowing that Yang Kai wasn’t a true Divine Dragon, when they exchanged moves earlier, he had fully experienced how strong Yang Kai was. Adding on to the invisible suppression from the Ancestral Land, Di Wu wasn’t confident he could kill Yang Kai without being injured.
To a Black Ink Clansman, being injured was a troublesome thing. They could endure minor injuries, but they would have to hibernate inside a Black Ink Nest if they got seriously wounded.
Di Wu couldn’t accept the idea of having to hibernate and recuperate after his first battle as a Pseudo-Royal Lord.
Moreover, Yang Kai had a strange method to attack one’s Soul, and he had yet to use it, so Di Wu thought that he had to wear down Yang Kai’s strength and means before he could deal the finishing blow. Otherwise, if he were attacked with that technique, he couldn’t be sure whether he could make it out of this conflict alive.
In the meantime, Yang Kai saw four figures quickly arrive beside Di Wu. They were the four that formed the Four Symbols Formation.
Soon after that, another four Innate Territory Lords appeared.
This scene shocked Yang Kai. He didn’t notice the other four Territory Lords before and couldn’t help but secretly exclaim at how determined the Black Ink Clan was!
When he was circling the Ancestral Land earlier, trying to investigate the Grand Array, he saw at least 10 Innate Territory Lords maintaining its operation from the outside.
Adding on the eight Territory Lords before him, and perhaps a few that were still hiding, didn’t that mean the Black Ink Clan had sent a Royal Lord and more than 20 Territory Lords to deal with him?
When faced with such a line-up, even a Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master would find it difficult to handle, let alone an Eighth-Order Master like himself.
Yang Kai soon learned that wasn’t all though, for the Black Ink Clan had also apparently deployed a massive Black Ink Clan Army as well.
Moments later, the Black Ink Clan Army mustered their courage to charge into the mist under the Black Ink Clan Masters’ orders. It was obvious that they were planning to exhaust Yang Kai using these cannon fodder. What’s more, there might still be other arrangements on the Black Ink Clan’s side that Yang Kai was unaware of as of yet.
Inside the mist, Yang Kai pretended to be disoriented as he walked around in circles, acting like a headless fly.
When he tried to escape the mist by flying into the sky, he couldn’t. Also, he failed when he tried to dive down and hide inside the Ancestral Land.
This Spirit Array was actually quite good, which showed that those few Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciples did have some talent in the Dao of Spirit Arrays, or else the Royal Lord wouldn’t have looked so highly upon them.
Just as Yang Kai was looking dazed and dizzy, the Black Ink Clan Army that had charged into the mist surrounded him. Immediately afterwards, the Feudal Lords followed the instructions of the Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciple operating the Spirit Array and swarmed towards Yang Kai.
A battle immediately broke out.
A long spear swept back and forward, sending out spear strikes like a dense rain. Immediately after, black blood spurted everywhere as bodies exploded into pieces.
With Yang Kai’s current strength, how could that army of Black Ink Clan cannon fodder defeat him when the strongest among them were just Feudal Lords? To put it bluntly, with sufficient time, Yang Kai alone could wipe out these 10 million Black Ink Clan troops.
Group after group of Black Ink Clansmen were killed, and the speed at which lives were lost was unimaginably fast. On the ground, the fresh black blood had gathered into a pool, which then became a river, and soon began to look like an ocean, one filled with the broken corpses of Black Ink Clansmen.
Yang Kai killed methodically, without feeling any kind of joy or frustration.
Since the Royal Lord was willing to sacrifice these Black Ink Clansmen, Yang Kai was more than willing to oblige. The more Black Ink Clansmen he killed here, the fewer the Humans had to face on the battlefields.
10,000, 20,000, 50,000, 100,000…
Yang Kai’s spear never stopped. In the beginning, Yang Kai moved around to more efficiently slaughter his enemies, but as time wore on, he could no longer be bothered exerting himself like that and simply stood in place while allowing the Black Ink Clan Army to come to him. The scene resembled water splashing onto a rock that was blocking a river, which was an astonishing sight to see.
So many had died so quickly that the Black Ink Clan Army would have broken and routed if not for the Territory Lords and Royal Lord overseeing them, forcing them to continue.
No one could maintain their calm when facing a hopeless battle. The Humans couldn’t, and neither could the Black Ink Clan.
The Black Ink Clan soldiers attacking from all directions couldn’t even get within 1,000 metres of Yang Kai. No matter whether it was a Feudal Lord, a High-Rank Black Ink Clansman, or Low-Rank Back Ink Clan member, they perished with a single swing of the spear.
Under such desperation, the Black Ink Clan Army’s morale soon crumbled.
However, the Royal Lord and many Territory Lords were watching them from the outside, so they dared not retreat and could only force themselves to continue charging forward.
A day later, Yang Kai’s kill count had grown from 100,000 to 200,000. The breath Yang Kai let out was so intensely hot that it seemed like it was about to burn a hole through the void. The hand he held his spear with was still as firm as ever.
A few days later, 200,000 became 500,000.
Half of the million Black Ink Clansmen that came to the Ancestral Land had died, causing the battlefield to reek of blood. Under Di Wu and the other Territory Lords’ gazes, Yang Kai’s speed finally began slowing down. He was sweating profusely, and his complexion seemed a little pale.
Di Wu was satisfied with what he saw. If he could exchange a million Black Ink Clan soldiers for Yang Kai’s life, he would do it without a frown. Moreover, if he succeeded and returned to the No-Return Pass, rather than punish him, the Royal Lord would certainly reward him.
A million lower Black Ink Clansmen was nothing because as long as they had Black Ink Nests and resources, they could easily produce more such soldiers. On the other hand, how many Innate Territory Lords had died at the hands of Yang Kai over the years?
Innate Territory Lords came from the Primordial Heavens Source Grand Restriction, so each one killed meant there was one permanently lost.
Therefore, a million Black Ink Clansmen couldn’t compare to even one Innate Territory Lord.
Since Di Wu had great understanding of the Human’s Open Heaven Realm, he knew that a Human’s strength came from his or her Small Universe. The stronger the heritage of the Small Universe, the stronger the Human was. But the strength inside a Human’s Small Universe wasn’t inexhaustible.
Yang Kai had been fighting alone, non-stop for days and had killed over 500,000 Black Ink Clansmen, so he must have consumed a lot of energy.
[It’s time!]
As Di Wu thought so, he didn’t hesitate and flew straight into the mist. Then, he followed a Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciple’s directions and silently advanced towards his target.
Meanwhile, the eight Territory Lords noticed the situation and mustered their courage to follow behind Di Wu.
Although Yang Kai was killing the Black Ink Clan soldiers, he still noticed these external movements and couldn’t help but frown. It seemed like things weren’t moving according to his plan.
He was feigning lethargy right now. To him, the best outcome here would be to lure a few Territory Lords over so that he could kill them first and weaken the Black Ink Clan’s overall strength.
But the Royal Lord didn’t act as Yang Kai expected and instead led eight Territory Lords against him all at once. At that moment, Yang Kai felt a huge sense of danger as he quickly revised his plans.
This Trapping Array couldn’t hold him, as he could see through it quite easily, but there was no use in simply overcoming the Trapping Array because the Ancestral Land was still sealed by the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array. Since he couldn’t escape, would he have to play the game of cat and mouse with the Black Ink Clan Masters again?
Of course, he wasn’t willing to waste his time doing so.
What’s more, he understood that it was better to kill a single Territory Lord than a million Black Ink Clan soldiers.
In an instant, Yang Kai calmed down. Since the Territory Lords dared to come over, he had to let them know the consequences of their actions. If he missed this opportunity, he might not get another one.
Having determined his next course of action, Yang Kai pretended to be even weaker.
The eight Territory Lords had split into two teams and hid within the Black Ink Clan Army, concealing their auras while nearing Yang Kai.
Four of them were mixed within the Army while four remained on the outskirts.
Meanwhile, the Royal Lord was hiding even further away, silently watching Yang Kai’s every move as if he were a predator hiding in the dark, waiting to pounce.
As the distance between them decreased, the four Territory Lords nearest to Yang Kai began secretly linking their auras.
Yang Kai knew it was time for him to act, because once those four Territory Lords linked together, they could easily form a Battle Formation. By then, it would be much harder for Yang Kai to kill them.
As the thought came to his mind, Yang Kai’s murderous intent flared up.
Instantly, whether it was Di Wu or the eight Territory Lords, all of them could clearly sense the sudden change in Yang Kai. He was radiating a dangerous aura and the paleness on his face had vanished.
That sudden change caught them off-guard.
Di Wu immediately stared in the direction Yang Kai was standing, and although there was a dense layer of fog between them, he could see a pair of black eyes looking right at him. In the next instant, an endless darkness enveloped him.
Almost instantly, Di Wu felt like he had fallen into an abyss that contained not even the tiniest bit of light. He seemed to be alone in the Universe and even his senses failed to detect anything around him.
It was one of the two core Eye Secret Techniques of the Myriad Demons Heaven, the Black Purgatory Eye.
If Yang Kai had enough proficiency in this Secret Technique, he could engulf Di Wu in such deep darkness that he could never escape and could be easily killed.
Of course, Yang Kai’s proficiency in this Secret Technique wasn’t nearly high enough for him to do that; moreover, there was a huge gap between their raw strengths, so it only took a moment before the darkness around Di Wu to quickly disappear and the latter to regain his senses.
The moment light returned however, Di Wu trembled and let out a pained roar. His voice sounded so agonizing that it frightened all who heard it. Also, his Black Ink Strength was being released uncontrollably and all the Black Ink Clan soldiers struck by it perished, wiping out the Black Ink Clan Army within a 10-kilometre radius around him.
Di Wu felt like a needle had pierced into his head, making him feel immense pain as his body and mind shivered. It was as though that invisible needle was constantly tearing into his Soul.
At that moment, he felt like his thoughts froze and he became unable to think clearly.
He finally understood how the other Black Ink Clansmen felt when Yang Kai attacked them with his mysterious Soul Secret Technique, and also why those Innate Territory Lords would get killed right after encountering Yang Kai.
When he first heard about these stories, he thought those dead Territory Lords were too weak and careless, but now that he had experienced it himself, he realized that those Territory Lords were neither of those things; it was simply because no one could endure such sudden and excruciating pain.
Di Wu shouldn’t have suffered such intense pain because since the Black Ink Clan found out about Yang Kai’s strange Soul Secret Technique, all Territory Lords who encountered Yang Kai would quickly use their strength to protect their Soul.
Only by doing that could they best weaken the effects of this insidious Secret Technique.
Di Wu naturally did so as well, but the Black Purgatory Eye caused him to lose all his senses and disrupted his focus. Although he recovered quickly, he had lowered the defences of his Soul for a brief moment.
Without protection against the Soul Rending Thorn, the consequences were extremely painful. Even a Pseudo-Royal Lord like Di Wu found it hard to endure.
At the same time Di Wu screamed in pain, four other screams rang out as well.
Those screams came from the four Territory Lords nearest to Yang Kai, who were about to form a Battle Formation.
Yang Kai used the element of surprise and sent out five Soul Rending Thorns in quick succession, one at Di Wu and the other four at the closest Territory Lords.
That was his limit! Using any more Soul Rending Thorn would cause him to lose consciousness.
Even at this moment, Yang Kai felt dizzy and was seeing stars.
Fortunately, he had experienced this many times and had long grown used to it. Now, the intense pain in his head even had the effect of keeping him awake.
A Royal Lord couldn’t bear such pain, but Yang Kai was used to it. No one’s success was without reason as only by withstanding constant tempering could a person achieve great things.
Yang Kai’s figure still floated atop the mountain of corpses, but that was only an after-image as his true body had already reached the Territory Lord nearest to him. Then, he smashed apart that Territory Lord’s head with one spear thrust.
Following that, a second Territory Lord fell!
Yang Kai struck out at the third Territory Lord, but he failed to kill him in one stroke.
Territory Lords weren’t so easily killed. When the four Territory Lords approached Yang Kai, they had paid attention to protecting their Souls, so although the Soul Rending Thorns were powerful, the Territory Lords could greatly decrease the damage they took by taking precautions.
They would still feel pain and have a blurry conscience, but they wouldn’t completely freeze up and become easy targets.
Still, this scenario was a testament to Yang Kai’s cunning and ruthlessness.
Before the four Territory Lords could form a Battle Formation, Yang Kai launched a preemptive strike. With most of their focus on linking their auras to successfully form the Battle Formation, they never expected Yang Kai to launch a sneak attack.
They had thought that Yang Kai was completely trapped in the Spirit Array and hadn’t noticed them silently approaching. How could they have known that Yang Kai had been carefully monitoring their every move?
What happened was the outcome when someone schemed against the unexpected.
This was a desperate gambit within a hopeless battle. The entire Ancestral Land had been sealed with no way to escape, and there were many Black Ink Clan Masters here, leaving Yang Kai with no chance of escape or victory on his own; however, the original predicament changed because of the enemy’s Trapping Array. A real Master needed the ability to turn even the enemy’s advantage into their own.
If one only had brawn but no brain, they would forever be a reckless fool. That was why Yang Kai was the Army Commander of Profound Nether Territory while Ou Yang Lie could only be a Division Commander who had to obey Yang Kai’s orders.
It was this quality that was valued by the Supreme Headquarters and why they entrusted Yang Kai with such an important role.
In an instant, two powerful Innate Territory Lords had died and their Four Symbols Formation couldn’t be linked. The third Territory Lord regained his senses when being attacked, which was why he barely managed to block Yang Kai’s strike.
However, he was still run through by the Azure Dragon Spear, and when a burst of World Force followed up, his body was still split in two, killing him.
Like a fierce tiger, Yang Kai lunged at the fourth Territory Lord.
It was only then that the other four Territory Lords outside finally reacted, but after recovering from their initial shock, they seemed hesitant.
The situation before them was different from what they imagined. Having heard of Yang Kai’s fierce reputation, those four Territory Lords didn’t immediately know how to react.
Luckily for them, Di Wu had finally gathered his wits, and when he noticed the obvious signs of Territory Lords dying, he was shocked and furious while roaring, “Kill him!”
After Di Wu gave the order, the four Territory Lords forced themselves to charge towards Yang Kai, but before they reached him, they were forced back by a storm of Secret Techniques. At that moment, those four Territory Lords quickly joined their auras, wanting to form a Battle Formation.
In the meantime, Yang Kai was exchanging a third attack with the fourth Territory Lord whom he hit with a Soul Rending Thorn.
His assault grew fiercer with every swing of the Azure Dragon Spear. It was purely a release of raging power without any form of technique.
The pain coming from Yang Kai’s Soul made his expression fiercer and more horrifying by the moment, and his behaviour also grew more vicious and ruthless.
It had only been three breaths of time since he began his counterattack. He first used the Black Purgatory Eye to disrupt Di Wu’s senses, then sent out five Soul Rending Thorns before killing three Territory Lords.
The change in situation was so fast that it was difficult to comprehend.
Only by acting faster than the enemy could Yang Kai maximise the advantages of his plan.
The fourth Territory Lord barely managed to resist Yang Kai’s third spear attack, but the same could not be said for the fourth. With a great thrust, the Black Ink Cloud before him dispersed, revealing his unprotected body.
This Territory Lord didn’t last long because he was stronger than his three companions, but rather because he was the last to be targeted by Yang Kai. The first Territory Lord to get killed wasn’t expecting the attack and didn’t protect himself, but the fourth Territory Lord was prepared, which was why he could resist three spear attacks before succumbing.
When Yang Kai arrived at the Ancestral Land 300 years ago, he killed a Territory Lord in his prime with three attacks. There were some elements of opportunistic trickery and verbal incitement, but it still showed how strong Yang Kai was.
Now, even though his Order hadn’t changed after these three centuries, the heritage in his Small Universe had become a bit stronger.
What really changed, however, was the increase of power in his Dragon Vein and his attainment in the Dao of Time, allowing Yang Kai to confidently say he was twice as powerful as he was 300 years ago.
Furthermore, those Territory Lords had been hit by Soul Rending Thorns, so they couldn’t exert their full strength while their minds were in a blurred state.
That was why the fourth Territory Lord couldn’t avoid the fourth spear attack. All he felt was a deadly aura enveloping him and a huge sense of fear filling his entire body, replacing most of the pain in his Soul.
Never had he felt so close to death.
“Save…” When he opened his mouth to speak the first word, the Azure Dragon Spear had already pierced the protective layer of Black Ink Strength he created and stabbed through his wide-open mouth. The Territory Lord’s last word was stuck in his throat as Space Principles wrapped around him, destroying his last hope of escape.
The long spear shot out from the back of the Territory Lord’s head, leaving a huge hole in its wake. That Territory Lord’s aura flared up before instantly melting like snow under the burning Sun.
Before Yang Kai could pull back his spear however, four very powerful Secret Techniques were fired at him from the other four Territory Lords.
At such close range, Yang Kai might not have been able to dodge these attacks in his prime, let alone in his current state.
At the same time, he felt like his head was about to explode, and his consciousness began turning blurry as his thoughts slowed down. Meanwhile on his face, except for the fierce expression he had because of the pain, his eyes turned dull, making him look a little dazed.
Those were the symptoms of his Soul being heavily injured. Many cultivators lost all sentience and sense of self after suffering heavy injuries to their Soul.
Luckily, Yang Kai’s instincts were still intact, so when those four Secret Techniques were about to reach him, he channelled his Dragon Vein’s power and a patch of small, dense Dragon Scales appeared on his skin. The Dragon Scales made his exposed skin suddenly turn shiny, as if he were wearing a gold robe.
The next moment, Yang Kai was enveloped by those four Secret Techniques.
As Black Ink Strength burst out, a large boom sounded, and the world around Yang Kai shook as he released a muffled grunt.
Before the effects of the Territory Lords’ Secret Techniques had faded, the angry Di Wu arrived from behind and lunged at Yang Kai.
Di Wu knew that since Yang Kai had used his strange Soul Secret Technique, this would be the best chance to kill him. Before this, he was wary of Yang Kai’s means, but now, Yang Kai was like a toothless tiger to him, so he naturally wouldn’t let go of such an opportunity.
At the same time, the four Territory Lords that had formed the Battle Formation exchanged a glance before quickly moving back while maintaining their Formation. Since Di Wu had made a move, they didn’t have to do anything else besides keeping up the Four Symbols Formation and preventing Yang Kai from escaping.
The truth was that they were happy to see this situation as well because they were still afraid of dealing with Yang Kai. They were scared of getting killed by this Human killing-star, so they had no qualms about letting Di Wu take the lead.
Sounds of explosions kept ringing in everyone’s ears while there seemed to be figures flying about within the dense Black Ink Strength.
Soon, a figure flew out like an arrow leaving its bow. The figure spat out a mouthful of Golden Blood in midair. It was Yang Kai, and he clearly couldn’t control his body.
At this moment, he seemed extremely haggard. Not only was his hair in a mess, but the layer of Dragon Scales covering his body was also like a broken net, shattered and peeling off in many places.
With the help of an artifact like the Soul Rending Thorn, he could easily kill Innate Territory Lords, but that didn’t mean Innate Territory Lords were pushovers. Every one of their attacks was incredibly strong, so Yang Kai didn’t feel good after forcefully taking four such attacks. Then, Di Wu came right after that and attacked Yang Kai, rendering him dizzy and looking dishevelled.
The advantage of having a stronger Dragon Vein was evident at this moment. If Yang Kai’s Dragon Form was still 70,000 metres long, he might not have been able to withstand such a heavy beating, but now, though he was injured, he didn’t lose all combat ability.
This was the specialty of a powerful Dragon Vein. It granted the physical body incredible resilience!
All the attacks were first weakened by the Dragon Scales before reaching the body, so the impact was naturally weakened. It was especially so for the four Secret Techniques used by those four Territory Lords. First, they were obviously weakened by the Dragon Scales before they hit Yang Kai. However, the effect of the Dragon Scale’s protection was greatly weakened when facing physical attacks like the ones Di Wu used.
Following Yang Kai’s haggard figure was Di Wu. He also flew out from the area covered by Black Ink Strength while staring coldly at the pale figure before him, roaring loudly, “Yang Kai, suffer death!”
Yang Kai’s expression became even more angered as veins throbbed on his forehead, his fury obvious to all.
His original plan was to use the Soul Rending Thorn to kill those four Innate Territory Lords and then quickly escape from the Trapping Array before hiding back inside the depths of the Ancestral Land to recuperate.
Once he had another few years to heal his Soul, he would come back out and ambush the others.
He couldn’t kill the Royal Lord, but he could kill the other Four Territory Lords. Also, if he was decisive and found a good opportunity, he could kill every Territory Lord that came, just like how he had on the Profound Nether Territory Battlefield. Back then, he killed so many Territory Lords that they all trembled in fear whenever they heard his name.
When fighting the enemy, it was best to leave nothing to chance, and it was natural to make full use of all of one’s strength and advantages. The Soul Rending Thorn was now Yang Kai’s trump card when facing Territory Lords and Royal Lords.
It could be said that this move worked every time.
All Yang Kai needed was patience, because someday, the Black Ink Clan forces here wouldn’t be able to withstand the losses and would take the initiative to retreat, or deploy even more Territory Lords.
Either way, it wouldn’t be much of a loss for Yang Kai.
That was his original plan…
But even the best-laid plans often fail to withstand the first clash of battle. No one could predict what would happen next in the heat of combat.
In the end, Yang Kai still overestimated how much his Soul could tolerate.
He thought that he could still manage to keep a clear mind after using five Soul Rending Thorns, and he had built the rest of his plan around that idea.
However, after he threw those five Soul Rending Thorns out, his consciousness became blurry while he barely managed to maintain some clarity.
To put it simply, though he could still think at the moment, his instincts were taking over and he was now showing some signs of falling into a daze.
If a cognitively impaired person was attacked, they would either try to escape or retaliate fiercely…
Yang Kai obviously gravitated towards the latter response, which was already illustrated by his behaviour back at the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon. Otherwise, he would have escaped when he lost consciousness back then.
That was why despite having taken on four Secret Techniques from the Territory Lords and being beaten up by Di Wu, Yang Kai still glared fiercely at Di Wu in his battered state. Veins were protruding from his forehead as he widened his eyes and said through gritted teeth, “You dare hit me?”
Hearing this, Di Wu was filled with murderous intent and turned gloomy after. [What nonsense is he talking about? This is a life-or-death battle, who else would I hit if not you?]
“You actually dared to hit me!?” Yang Kai growled through gritted teeth. He was like a bullied child questioning why he was being targeted while suppressing the vexation he felt inside.
“Enough nonsense, die!” Di Wu roared before immediately charging at Yang Kai. After the previous attack, he was sure that Yang Kai was no longer his opponent. Although he still needed some effort to kill Yang Kai, today was going to be the day of Yang Kai’s death. From today onwards, the Black Ink Clan wouldn’t have to be worried about this Human anymore, which was a great contribution on his part.
While the thought flashed across his mind, Di Wu’s expression suddenly fell because at that moment, Yang Kai’s supposedly weakened aura exploded out.
“Since you hit me, I’ll hit you back!” The aggrieved child was finally retaliating.
“Heavens and Earth, lend me your strength!”
The injury to Yang Kai’s Soul made his mind become a little unstable, and the endless rage had influenced his thoughts into forgetting his original plan.
However, he still had his natural abilities, so he instinctually knew he had to go all out when dealing with a Royal Lord.
If his own strength wasn’t enough to deal with a Royal Lord, he would just borrow strength from others!
He was going to borrow strength from the Ancestral Land.
What he did 300 years ago won him the favour of this land; then, he fused with it for 300 years, which allowed him to look back in time and see the evolution of this World. Also, the huge amounts of Ancestral Strength entering his body had helped his Dragon Vein grow stronger and allowed his Dragon Form to grow from 70,000 metres to 99,999 metres. Even cultivating inside the Dragon Pool for 300 years wouldn’t have been so beneficial.
The entire Ancestral Land had opened its arms for Yang Kai, letting him have whatever he wanted.
Under such conditions, it wouldn’t be hard for Yang Kai to borrow some strength from the Ancestral Land.
When Yang Kai was only a Sixth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master, he had used his identity as Void Great Emperor to borrow the Star Boundary’s World Strength. It was only through that method that he could deal with Zuo Quan Hui, a Seventh-Order Open Heaven Realm Master from Thousand Cranes Paradise.
During that battle where he used the Star Boundary’s World Strength, Yang Kai’s strength advanced from Sixth-Order Open Heaven Realm to Seventh-Order Open Heaven Realm, which helped him solve the crisis he was facing.
This time, though it wouldn’t increase his Order, he might be able to take advantage of the favourable conditions and advantageous position here to overcome his enemy!
Moreover, this was what Yang Kai had secretly planned for long ago. If he were forced to face the Royal Lord, he knew he had to borrow the Ancestral Land’s strength. It was just that his anger got to him, and he exposed this secret method far earlier than he wanted to.
A loud humming sounded all across the Ancestral Land. The Ancestral Strength, which had been gradually thinning out throughout the past 300 years suddenly became dense again. It was as though the Ancestral Strength hiding deep inside the land had surfaced and surged in response to that one sentence from Yang Kai.
Not only that, the Ancestral Strength from the entire Ancestral Land was gathering towards Yang Kai’s body from all directions. Then, the Ancestral Strength formed a layer of brilliant protection around Yang Kai’s figure in the blink of an eye.
While watching the scene, Di Wu felt his face twitch. It didn’t matter if this change only affected Yang Kai, but following the increase in density of Ancestral Strength, Di Wu realised that the suppression this land had on his strength also increased.
The most important sign was that he felt his Black Ink Strength circulation become sluggish when he tried to use it.
He only attacked after waiting 300 years because of the Ancestral Land’s restriction on his strength. Before, that suppression was very obvious, and he wasn’t confident in dealing with Yang Kai if he managed to lure the latter out.
He only acted after the Ancestral Strength had thinned out significantly and the restriction on his strength was almost nonexistent, so he never expected everything would change again with just a few words from Yang Kai.
The original confidence Di Wu possessed was replaced with a sense of danger.
Before he could think more about it though, a bright light suddenly appeared before him. It was Yang Kai, and he was actively attacking Di Wu. The pain in his Soul and rage from being beaten had made Yang Kai lose his rationality. He didn’t even use the Azure Dragon Spear and instead raised his bare fist and threw it out at Di Wu.
At the same time, the dense Ancestral Strength had formed a dense protective light barrier around his skin and even fit to his fist.
This punch was powerful and heavy as Yang Kai had used all his strength. If that fist landed on a Universe World, it would undoubtedly be destroyed.
Even a Master as strong as Di Wu couldn’t react in time as Yang Kai was too fast. Along with the use of Space Principles, Yang Kai literally instantly appeared before Di Wu.
In his rush to protect himself, Di Wu could only cross his arms in front of him.
The punch landed on the spot where Di Wu’s arms crossed, and when it struck, Di Wu sank back and the Black Ink Strength around him was scattered. Even standing mid-air, there were obvious signs that his knees were buckling and almost made him kneel.
Realizing this, Di Wu was enraged and gathered all his might to throw a punch at Yang Kai’s face as Yang Kai was throwing his second punch.
Right after throwing that punch, Di Wu gained an understanding of how much the Ancestral Land had affected his strength.
The Ancestral Strength didn’t restrict his strength too much, only shaving about 10% off his peak, which was still within an acceptable range. It seemed like the surging of Ancestral Strength was just an illusion and wasn’t as bad as he had imagined. This wasn’t surprising as Yang Kai had kept devouring Ancestral Strength these 300 years, so the Ancestral Land had been severely depleted. Even though there were some left behind, it didn’t amount to much. Therefore, Di Wu only had to persevere, and Yang Kai’s state after borrowing the land’s power would soon fade on its own.
If Di Wu’s strength had been suppressed by over 30%, he would have to think about whether he should retreat now.
With two loud booms, both fists hit their respective targets.
Di Wu was sent tumbling backwards quite a distance while Yang Kai was sent flying away. Neither of them had gotten the upper hand in this round.
In regards to absolute strength, Di Wu was definitely stronger than Yang Kai, so when both of them punched each other, the force Yang Kai received was much greater.
However, the Ancestral Land had dampened Di Wu’s strength somewhat while adding a protective layer that had weakened his attack further; as such, Yang Kai wasn’t at much of a disadvantage.
Yang Kai managed to stop his figure in midair and didn’t pause for a moment before charging at Di Wu like a madman.
He arrived before Di Wu in an instant and threw another punch.
Meanwhile, Di Wu was dumbfounded.
He had previously fought with Eighth-Order Humans, but never had he encountered such a situation. More importantly, his opponent seemed like he had lost his rationale and thus became hard to predict.
When faced with an unreasonable Yang Kai’s intense close-quarters attack, Di Wu could only give it his all to resist.
At that moment, the two figures flickered about the Ancestral Land, constantly entangled in a brutal brawl. The scene was extremely lively, with neither side acting like a powerful Master would.
This scene was captured by the eyes of the four Territory Lords at the outskirts of the Trapping Array and even the other Territory Lords who were powering the Four Gates Eight Palaces Great Pagoda Array, and all of them were shocked.
Despite the scene looking a little childish, the Territory Lords could clearly feel the horrifying power being delivered by those attacks. Every punch and kick unleashed in this battle caused the Territory Lords to shudder.
[Has the killing star grown to such an extent?]
The fear the Black Ink Clan had for Yang Kai basically flowed from the fact that he had a strange Soul Secret Technique. Even strong Innate Territory Lords could be crippled by that technique, resulting in their swift execution. That was why they would all quickly protect their Soul whenever encountering Yang Kai.
On the other hand, the Black Ink Clan wasn’t too concerned with Yang Kai’s raw strength.
Yang Kai was acknowledged to be stronger than any other Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master, but there was still a limit to that strength. If they didn’t count the strange Soul Secret Technique, they estimated that two or three Innate Territory Lords would be enough to resist Yang Kai.
That was the objective and impartial analysis given by all the Territory Lords that had encountered Yang Kai, which also formed the general impression the Black Ink Clan had of him.
That was why Di Wu felt like Yang Kai was a toothless tiger that would be easy to deal with after he used up his Soul Rending Thorns. Not only did Di Wu have such thoughts, but the other Territory Lords did as well. They all believed this was the best opportunity to kill Yang Kai because if the latter managed to recover and regain the use of that strange Soul Technique, they would be in trouble.
But when Di Wu and Yang Kai seriously began fighting each other, the Black Ink Clan Masters finally discovered the horrible truth that reality was far different from how they had imagined.
Though Yang Kai was indeed at a disadvantage in this clash, the fact that he could still fight with a Pseudo-Royal Lord to this extent and not get killed immediately was a shocking revelation.
Of course, the Ancestral Land’s restriction and assistance played a part in this, but that did not diminish the astonishing strength Yang Kai possessed.
It seemed like the past 2,000 years of cultivation had allowed this killing star’s strength to grow to a truly unprecedented height for his Eighth-Order cultivation.
The Territory Lords were shocked and couldn’t help but secretly feel lucky. It was fortunate that this Human couldn’t reach the Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm in this lifetime, for if he could, even the Royal Lord would have had endless sleepless nights.
At the same time, the battle raged on, and Di Wu found a chance to escape from Yang Kai’s entanglement before opening up some distance between them. Then, Di Wu repeatedly used Secret Techniques from afar to target his opponent.
Di Wu had also noticed that Yang Kai’s actions seemed a little strange. It was obvious that his mysterious Soul attack had drawbacks, which caused Yang Kai to lose rationality and recklessly charge at him. This, to Di Wu, was quite an opportunity.
Powerful Secret Techniques were released from the Pseudo-Royal Lord hands one by one, and that dense Black Ink Strength continued to pummel Yang Kai, causing him even more discomfort and damage. Even the layer of Ancestral Strength protection was constantly breaking apart and restoring.
Fortunately, the Ancestral Strength was still continuously gathering over, creating a strong protective layer around Yang Kai.
Without entirely destroying that layer of protection, it would be impossible for Di Wu to give Yang Kai a fatal blow.
Occasionally, Yang Kai would also take advantage of an opening and appear before Di Wu and give him a few punches. Whenever that happened, Di Wu would feel extremely distressed.
It wasn’t easy to escape from an opponent proficient in the Dao of Space and Di Wu was just lucky that Yang Kai was basically moving completely on instinct. Otherwise, if Yang Kai had used his Space Principles consciously, Di Wu would have had to engage Yang Kai in close quarters even if didn’t want to.
The firm body of a Pseudo-Divine Dragon wasn’t something a Pseudo-Royal Lord like him could compare to.
A while later, Di Wu saw that the protective layer around Yang Kai’s body had been completely restored again and finally gave up on the idea of fighting Yang Kai alone.
He insisted on fighting Yang Kai alone until now because this was his first battle as a Pseudo-Royal Lord, and his opponent was Yang Kai. Therefore, he wanted the credit all to himself so that he could enjoy all the glory before the Royal Lord back at the No-Return Pass.
But since that no longer seemed possible, there was no need to force the issue.
When he escaped Yang Kai’s range again and threw another Secret Technique at him, Di Wu roared, “What are you waiting for!?”
The four Territory Lords standing outside the battlefield secretly complained but didn’t hesitate to attack Yang Kai with their Secret Techniques.
Yang Kai had just steadied himself when he was enveloped by the Secret Techniques coming from afar. The Ancestral Strength gathered around his body instantly broke, and his figure flew out and tumbled like a sack.
Right after landing on the ground and spitting out a mouthful of Golden Blood, Yang Kai became aware of the cool feeling in his mind, causing his consciousness to wake up a little.
The Soul Warming Lotus had kept working to mend his injured Soul this whole time, but since his Soul was injured quite seriously, it took a while to have any noticeable effect.
Yang Kai was confused by his current situation and the danger around him, but he didn’t have time to think about it as several Secret Techniques were already flying his way again.
Instinctively, Yang Kai wanted to use his strength to protect himself, but before he could, the Ancestral Strength, once again, gathered around him and formed a thick barrier. Unfortunately, even this protection didn’t last a single breath before breaking apart again.
Feeling those Secret Techniques landing on his body, Yang Kai felt his five viscera and six organs churning and an immense pain coming from his bones, a number of which were now broken.
Yang Kai’s heart sank as his blurry consciousness became clear again. Everything that happened quickly flashed across his mind and he realised that he had unconsciously made a huge mistake and inexplicably caused this to happen.
Yang Kai felt frustrated. He didn’t mind getting beaten up a bit because his injuries would slowly restore on their own. The key was that he had exposed his ability to borrow strength from the Ancestral Land, which was one of his hidden trump cards.
That was also what he was counting on to battle the Royal Lord.
On the other hand, he felt lucky that he instinctively borrowed the Ancestral Land’s strength after sensing danger; otherwise, this situation would have ended badly.
However, there was still doubt in his mind.
Even though he had borrowed strength from the Ancestral Land, obtaining both favourable conditions and an advantageous position, his opponent was a Royal Lord, so he should have lost long ago.
After all, a Royal Lord was equivalent to a Ninth-Order Old Ancestor. Also, Yang Kai had previously fought a Royal Lord, so he clearly knew how strong they were.
Despite the fact that he could kill Innate Territory Lords like he was slaughtering chickens and butchering dogs, he knew he was no match for a Royal Lord. Otherwise, he would have gone straight to the No-Return Pass and destroyed their Black Ink Nests without bothering to try to maintain some random insincere peace treaty.
The environment in the Ancestral Land had a certain degree of restriction on the Royal Lord, but Yang Kai knew he had devoured too much Ancestral Strength these past years and greatly decreased the Ancestral Land’s heritage, which meant that the suppression wouldn’t be too significant. In other words, the Ancestral Land’s restriction on the Royal Lord wouldn’t affect him too much.
After carefully recalling his battle with the Royal Lord, Yang Kai suddenly realised something.
Without question, the strength exerted by this Royal Lord was indeed at the level of a Royal Lord, but he seemed quite bad at controlling it.
He had 100% of the strength of a Royal Lord, but could only exert 70% to 80% of it, making every attack feel like he was holding back.
On top of that, there was also the suppression from the Ancestral Land’s environment and the protection the Ancestral Strength granted Yang Kai. It was the combination of all these factors that allowed Yang Kai to stay alive until now.
[This guy must be a newly advanced Royal Lord, which is why he can’t perfectly control his strength and why the Humans had never heard of any news about him.]
Yang Kai thought he had guessed the truth, unaware that the real situation was completely different. If he hadn’t been immersed in his cultivation inside the Ancestral Land, the Black Ink Clan wouldn’t have sacrificed 13 Innate Territory Lords and a High-Rank Black Ink Next to create a Pseudo-Royal Lord like Di Wu. The Black Ink Clan could create such a Master from the start but hadn’t done so until now.
To the current Black Ink Clan, every Innate Territory Lord and High-Rank Black Ink Nest was indispensable, so considering the overall situation, it just wasn’t cost-effective to create a Pseudo-Royal Lord.
But if they could use Di Wu’s strength as a Pseudo-Royal Lord to kill Yang Kai, that would definitely be worth it.
Without mentioning the Black Ink Clan’s plan, Yang Kai was now having a headache about his predicament.
The Trapping Array had been completely destroyed, so the Royal Lord and four Territory Lords by themselves might not be able to stop him if he wanted to disengage. Of course, it was still impossible to leave the Ancestral Land because this World would still be sealed before the Four Gates Eight Palaces Great Pagoda Array was broken.
However, Yang Kai didn’t need to leave the Ancestral Land, he only needed to dive deep into it to heal his injuries. If he did so, the Black Ink Clan wouldn’t be able to do anything to him.
Unfortunately, the idea of retreating now made Yang Kai feel quite reluctant. His trump cards had been exposed one after another, so he would lose the element of surprise in the next battle. Since that was the case, he figured it would be better to just go with the flow and end this debacle once and for all.
He made the plan to hide deep inside the Ancestral Land after killing the four Territory Lords because he thought he wasn’t the Royal Lord’s opponent, but now that he knew he was up against a Royal Lord who couldn’t exert his full strength… Yang Kai thought that there might be a chance he could kill his enemy here today.
Yang Kai was secretly even hoping for the Royal Lord to lose his patience and use his Royal Lord Secret Technique…
Back outside the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon, Yang Kai had killed a Royal Lord shortly after breaking through to the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm not because he was strong, but because many coincidences came together.
His biggest opportunity was when the Royal Lord used the Royal Lord Secret Technique on him, wanting to corrupt him with Black Ink Strength!
The Royal Lord Secret Technique was something only a Royal Lord could use. When performed, it was silent but had an incredible impact. Even Eighth-Order Masters couldn’t resist and would immediately become corrupted. On the Barren Territory Battlefield, a single Royal Lord had corrupted three Eighth-Order Masters, converting them into Black Ink Disciples. It was those three Black Ink Disciples who resurrected the Black Ink Giant Spirit Got in the Divine Spirit Ancestral Land, triggering the collapse of the entire Human battlefront.
It could be said that the Royal Lord had made a huge contribution to today’s situation where the Black Ink Clan could fully suppress the Humans.
Without the Royal Lord who corrupted those three Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples, it would have been impossible to resurrect the Black Ink Giant Spirit God, and the Human Race Army would still have been able to bottle up the Black Ink Clan on the Barren Territory Battlefield.
Although it didn’t end well for that Royal Lord, the Black Ink Clan had achieved their goal.
A Royal Lord wouldn’t easily use the Royal Lord Secret Technique though because they would have to pay a high price. Not only would their strength suffer an immediate and substantial drop, they would also have to endure a long period of weakness. On the battlefield, such a situation would give the enemy a great chance to kill them.
Outside the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon, that Royal Lord had used the Royal Lord Secret Technique on Yang Kai, causing himself to become weak and lose a huge portion of his strength. Then, he suffered a direct hit from Yang Kai’s Sun and Moon Divine Wheel while having his Soul torn apart by four Soul Rending Thorns. Under such circumstances, his chances of surviving decreased greatly.
Even so, Yang Kai also lost consciousness and started a mad killing spree before winning.
Back then, he was only a newly advanced Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master.
Now, he was almost at the peak of the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm and had help from the Ancestral Land, so his strength was several times higher than back then. If this Royal Lord couldn’t hold back and used the Royal Lord Secret Technique, Yang Kai could easily kill him with his spear. By then, the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array would become useless.
However, Yang Kai’s anticipations were in vain because a Royal Lord wouldn’t use the Royal Lord Secret Technique unless they were certain of success or it was their last resort.
According to what the Black Ink Clan had learned over the years, Yang Kai was fully resistant to Black Ink Strength’s corruption, so Di Wu wouldn’t be so stupid as to use the Royal Lord Secret Technique to deal with him.
Moreover, a Pseudo-Royal Lord like Di Wu couldn’t use the Royal Lord Secret Technique.
But Yang Kai didn’t know that.
Realizing that hoping his enemy would make a fatal mistake wasn’t plausible, Yang Kai figured he could only create his own opportunity; after all, the Ancestral Land wasn’t his only trump card!
Yang Kai’s consciousness had recovered quite a bit now, but he still pretended to be muddled. Faced with attacks coming at him from all directions, he roared in an aggrieved manner at Di Wu, “You called for help? I can call for help too! Come out, my servants!”
The way he was acting was like a kid kicking up a fuss after getting beaten up.
However, in the next breath, the Black Ink Clan Masters suddenly became gloomy.
That was because Small Stone Race Soldiers suddenly appeared one by one beside Yang Kai, transforming into a huge army in the blink of an eye. They were densely packed, making it impossible to count how many of them there were.
The Black Ink Clan naturally recognised the Small Stone Race.
Between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago, this strange race was very active on every Great Territory Battlefield. They seemed like they didn’t have much sentience and had no concept of strategy or tactics, but they weren’t afraid of death or being corrupted by Black Ink Strength. Their presence had brought the Black Ink Clan quite a lot of trouble during wars.
Numerous Black Ink Clansmen had died at the Small Stone Races’ hands.
Following the continuous killings of the Small Stone Race over the years though, their numbers decreased until they more or less disappeared. Occasionally, some cultivators would bring out some Small Stone Race Soldiers leftover from the various battles, but there would only be a dozen of them at most.
From what the Black Ink Clan gathered from the Black Ink Disciple, Yang Kai was the source of the Small Stone Race.
In addition, Yang Kai had also used the Small Stone Race when he attacked the No-Return Pass back then.
The Black Ink Clan initially thought that those strange beings had been essentially wiped out, so they never anticipated seeing such a huge bunch of them be summoned in the Ancestral Land!
At that instant, the Black Ink Clansmen stopped attacking while Di Wu’s expression became as gloomy as a rain cloud.
This couldn’t be helped because back when Yang Kai attacked the No-Return Pass, Di Wu had personally witnessed the attack this killing star had executed with a similar Small Stone Race Army’s help.
Back then, Yang Kai seemed to have used some kind of technique and instantly sacrificed 2 million Small Stone Race Soldiers to form a terrifying explosion of Purifying Light that even seriously injured the Royal Lord, giving Yang Kai a chance to escape!
Therefore, in Di Wu’s memory, while these Small Stone Race members weren’t that terrifying, the means they gave Yang Kai access to was frightening!
“Kill him quickly!”
Seeing that the Small Stone Race Army was growing larger and larger, Di Wu immediately roared while retreating to put some distance between himself and Yang Kai.
The four Territory Lords didn’t need Di Wu’s order for them to go all out as they fired their Secret Techniques at Yang Kai.
But by now, the space around Yang Kai had become densely packed with Small Stone Race. Although those attacks killed and injured a large patch of Small Stone Race Soldiers, Yang Kai remained untouched.
*Hong long long…*
Thunder came down from the sky, and another fight started. The Territory Lords and Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciples operating the Grand Array had reactivated the Killing Array to target the Small Stone Race Army.
Not only that, the Black Ink Clan Army, which had retreated far away while Yang Kai was fighting Di Wu and the Territory Lords, came forward once again and surrounded the Small Stone Race from all directions.
In an instant, the battle between Masters had become a violent war between two Armies, further heating up the atmosphere in the Ancestral Land.
The Small Stone Race roared and pounded their chests as their desire to kill the enemy had been raging since they were summoned by Yang Kai. Since the third time he visited the Chaotic Dead Territory, Yang Kai had discovered that the Small Stone Race nurtured by Big Brother Huang and Big Sister Lan were extremely sensitive to Black Ink Strength, probably because they were opposites of each other. Therefore, on the battlefield, the Small Stone Race would charge fearlessly whenever they sensed Black Ink Strength and either kill their enemy ruthlessly or die trying.
In the beginning, the Humans didn’t have a method to control them because of these characteristics. Once the Small Stone Race were sent to the battlefield, they became like unleashed wild horses, which caused the Humans to lose many more of them than necessary.
Later, the Humans began using a beast-taming method and an Artifact refining method to control the Small Stone Race. The situation had improved quite a lot. At the very least, the Humans could now issue the Small Stone Race simple instructions.
The Small Stone Race Soldiers Yang Kai summoned just now obviously hadn’t undergone any such taming or refinement. After he gained these Small Stone Race members from Big Brother Huang and Big Sister Lan, Yang Kai just kept them inside his Small Universe and ignored them.
That was why these fellows began running around after being let out, charging in the direction where they sensed Black Ink Strength.
At that moment, the scene was a chaotic mess, but Yang Kai just laughed like a madman, “Die! All of you must die! Hahaha!”
A fierce battle was happening in the Ancestral Land.
The Small Stone Race’s intrepid nature doomed them to have a bad ending if no one controlled them. Many Small Stone Race Soldiers charged at the four Territory Lords, but could not get near them because they were rendered to pieces of stone scattered on the ground by the latter’s Secret Techniques.
Even the Black Ink Clan Army that came back had begun surrounding these unruly and scattered combatants.
Numerous Small Stone Race Soldiers were being broken to pieces with each breath.
However, large amounts of Small Stone Races were still appearing around Yang Kai. It was like there was an infinite amount of them, impossible to wipe out. On the other hand, Yang Kai’s laughter grew louder and wilder, as though he had gone crazy.
Di Wu had withdrawn his aura and was now hiding among the Black Ink Clan Army, cautiously observing the situation.
The memory of the technique Yang Kai used at the No-Return Pass, in which he sacrificed two million Small Stone Race Soldiers, was still etched in Di Wu’s mind. Therefore, Di Wu immediately retreated when Yang Kai began summoning his Army to avoid being surrounded and experiencing the same tragedy from that time.
Back then, the Royal Lord had been injured, causing his aura to drop by at least 10%. It took the Royal Lord a full 1,000 years to recover from that incident. So, if Di Wu, a mere Pseudo-Royal Lord, was hit by the same technique, he would likely end up in an even worse state.
In addition, if Di Wu remembered correctly, there were some powerful Masters among the Small Stone Race.
The Black Ink Clan had previously encountered a number of massive Small Stone Race Soldiers roughly 1,000 metres tall that had strength similar to that of an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master. Even though they had lower sentience and couldn’t wield this strength efficiently, their attacks were still not to be underestimated.
After observing for a long time, Di Wu noticed that none of the Small Stone Race Soldiers Yang Kai summoned were 1,000 metres tall. The strongest of them all was only 100 or so metres tall, which gave them power equivalent to Seventh-Order Masters and Feudal Lords.
Di Wu didn’t take these Small Stone Race Soldiers seriously, and even the four Territory Lords currently in battle could easily kill vast swaths of them.
As chaos swelled on the battlefield, Yang Kai summoned more Small Stone Race Soldiers. The four Territory Lords were in a better situation as they had formed the Four Symbols Formation, so they only had to hold their ground and kill every Small Stone Race member that came at them.
However, the Black Ink Clan Army seemed to be having difficulties holding on despite having help from the Killing Array.
Originally, a million Black Ink Clan soldiers had been deployed to the Ancestral Land; Yang Kai had already killed half of them, leaving only about 500,000 of them. Now that the Small Stone Race had joined the battle, even fewer Black Ink Clan Soldiers were left standing. Although the Small Stone Race undoubtedly suffered greater losses, the Black Ink Clan Army would be wiped out eventually if this continued.
Despite the disadvantageous situation, the Black Ink Clan Soldiers didn’t dare to retreat because the Territory Lords were still fighting, so how could they withdraw?
On the other hand, Di Wu finally rejoined the fight, but his target wasn’t Yang Kai. Instead, he was still hiding among the Black Ink Clan Army and killing the Small Stone Race Soldiers, his cautious personality making him decide to continue observing the situation for now.
Four days later, the 500,000 strong Black Ink Clan Army had been reduced to only a few tens of thousands, and all the survivors were soaked in blood and had unstable auras. Despite their discomfited looks, the surviving Black Ink Clansmen all seemed excited.
They won! They killed all the Small Stone Race Soldiers that came at them.
During these few days, they estimated they had killed at least 2 million enemy soldiers!
It wasn’t because they were strong of course, but because they had a Pseudo-Royal Lord hiding among them. The Small Stone Race Soldiers only had Masters on par with Seventh-Order Humans as their strongest combatants, so how could they stand against a Pseudo-Royal Lord? Di Wu could kill hundreds or even thousands of Small Stone Race Soldiers in a single move.
Moreover, the Black Ink Clan had help from the Grand Array. The lightning bolts fired from above had culled many Small Stone Race Soldiers as well.
More importantly, this was only the accomplishments of the Black Ink Clan Army and Di Wu.
Even though the four Territory Lords didn’t kill 2 million Small Stone Race Soldiers, they managed to slaughter at least a million of them.
The originally loud Ancestral Land suddenly fell silent, with pieces of stone scattered everywhere, which were naturally the remains of the fallen Small Stone Race soldiers.
Nearly three million Small Stone Race were lost over the past few days, which was a huge number.
Some time ago, Yang Kai had stopped summoning Small Stone Race Soldiers and engaged the four Territory Lords on his own!
His face was filled with rage, and his eyes were completely bloodshot. Also, his aura fluctuated wildly, as though he was not in a stable state of mind.
Every time he charged at one of the four Territory Lords, he would be repelled by their combined attacks. He would have lost a long time ago if he hadn’t borrowed strength from the Ancestral Land and had Ancestral Strength shielding his body in an impenetrable protective layer.
Of course, the Ancestral Land’s suppression of the Territory Lords’ strength was also very important.
Even a Pseudo-Lord like Di Wu lost 10% of his strength, not to mention the Territory Lords. Those four Territory Lords felt an even heavier suppression of their strength and were now some 20% to 30% weaker than normal.
If they battled Yang Kai one on one in such a state, they wouldn’t be his opponent at all, but since they had formed the Four Symbols Formation and linked their auras, no matter which Territory Lord Yang Kai targeted, it was akin to him trying to attack all of them at once. So, how could Yang Kai win in such a situation?
It could be said that the strength of the four Territory Lords combined, though not as high as a Pseudo-Royal Lord like Di Wu, was greater than that of an Innate Territory Lord at their peak, which was also why they could stand a chance against Yang Kai.
In the beginning, the four of them were still hesitant when facing this killing star, but after battling each other for a while, they felt that Yang Kai wasn’t as strong as they had imagined!
Or, more precisely, it wasn’t that he wasn’t strong. It was more like he had suffered a huge backlash after using his strange Soul Secret Technique and now could not fight effectively.
In the Humans’ words, this man was now an idiot, so he couldn’t exert his full strength anymore.
This realisation greatly bolstered the Territory Lords’ confidence. Since the Small Stone Race had all been ruthlessly killed, and Yang Kai had fallen into this demented state, they had the confidence to slowly whittle away his energy and kill him eventually.
The Ancestral Strength in the Ancestral Land couldn’t be inexhaustible, so once it was completely drained, Yang Kai wouldn’t be far from death!
Successfully killing Yang Kai was an incredibly glorious achievement, and it could only be obtained once in this world. If the Royal Lord decided to create more Pseudo-Royal Lords in the future, they would be the first in line to gain such power, just like Di Wu!
Of course, Innate Territory Lords wished for greater strength, but they could only become Pseudo-Royal Lords, and they would have to pay a high price for that. Therefore, the Royal Lord wouldn’t create a Pseudo-Royal Lord if it weren’t a dire situation.
Regardless, these Territory Lords wouldn’t be able to get their wish because Di Wu was the one in charge of this mission to kill Yang Kai. He was turned into a Pseudo-Lord just for this mission, and now that things were leaning in their favour, how could Di Wu possibly let the Territory Lords steal the credit from him?
If that were to happen, it would make him seem too useless.
After several days of secretly observing Yang Kai, Di Wu concluded that this Human killing star… was an arrow at the end of its flight. According to the current situation, Yang Kai couldn’t turn things around.
Di Wu felt a little lucky that Yang Kai had over-used his Secret Technique, messing up his mind and revealing his trump cards.
Borrowing strength from the Ancestral Land and the 3 million Small Stone Race Army were definitely the secret trump cards Yang Kai had. If he were in a conscious state of mind and used those two methods to corner Di Wu…
If that happened, Di Wu would definitely have been taken by surprise. Once that happened, with the strength Yang Kai had revealed, they would most likely have failed their mission.
At the thought of that, Di Wu shivered.
Although they had lost four Territory Lords and a million Black Ink Clan Soldiers, that was still nothing compared to being able to kill Yang Kai.
When Yang Kai was blown away by one of the Territory Lords again, the light barrier made of Ancestral Strength around him became extremely dim and did not immediately recover like usual. Seeing that, Di Wu didn’t hesitate and dashed over like lightning.
Yang Kai was immediately thrown to the ground, and before he stabilized his footing, Di Wu arrived. With a fierce explosion of power, Di Wu used his hand like a knife and pierced through the Ancestral Strength’s protection and into Yang Kai’s chest.
Following that, Di Wu roared, “Die!”
[I did it!] Di Wu suddenly felt a little excited as he could even feel Yang Kai’s beating heart in his chest.
[Wait! Why is his heartbeat still so… strong?] While frowning, Di Wu instinctively felt something wasn’t right and looked over at Yang Kai.
He saw Yang Kai standing before him, unmoving, his black hair hanging over his forehead, creating a dense shadow that covered his eyes so that no one could see his expression.
Only his lips were showing, curled up in a meaningful grin.
Di Wu then heard something that terrified him.
“You finally decided to come out!”
Yang Kai suddenly raised his head, and Di Wu immediately saw a pair of bloodshot eyes. Those eyes were filled to the brim with ruthlessness and murderous intent, but there was no trace of madness in them.
[A trick!]
Di Wu immediately thought. What he saw all this time was just what Yang Kai wanted him to see, making him think that the killing star was not in a conscious state of mind and had uncontrollably revealed all his trump cards. He might even be feigning weakness right now, making it seem he had reached his limit after being besieged by the four Territory Lords.
All of this was just to lure Di Wu out.
But why would Yang Kai do this? Did he have another way to turn the tide of battle even from this dire situation?
No matter what Yang Kai was up to, Di Wu wouldn’t let him use any more tricks.
Just as Yang Kai finished speaking, Di Wu exerted strength into his hand and stabbed it further into the former’s chest. If he could pierce just a finger length deeper, he could tear apart Yang Kai’s heart.
To an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master like Yang Kai, having his heart destroyed might not be a lethal blow, but it would still be a severe injury!
But just as Di Wu exerted his strength, a large hand grabbed his wrist and firmly held him in place.
In terms of cultivation, a Pseudo-Royal Lord was indeed stronger than an Eighth-Order Master like Yang Kai; however, in terms of raw physical power, a Pseudo-Divine Dragon like Yang Kai surpassed Di Wu by a wide margin.
Therefore, how could Di Wu move when he was restrained in such close proximity to Yang Kai?
Although Di Wu had been stopped, he wasn’t flustered. He clenched his other fist and threw a punch at Yang Kai’s face.
Before his fist could reach its target though, it too was seized by Yang Kai.
A Pseudo-Royal Lord and a Pseudo-Divine Dragon were now standing face to face at arm’s length from one another, locked in mortal combat.
Di Wu was entirely at a disadvantage because Yang Kai had the absolute upper hand when it came to physical strength. The excruciating pain coming from Di Wu’s wrist was something he had never experienced before.
“Next time, don’t make others wait so long!” Yang Kai bellowed before headbutting Di Wu. The aggressive force was like the whole world was coming at him, making Di Wu feel dizzy and almost disperse the Black Ink Strength he had gathered inside him.
The sudden change rendered the four Territory Lords dumbfounded. Originally, they thought that this would be an easy kill for Di Wu, but the results shocked them.
In their flustered state, the Territory Lords didn’t have time to think about anything else and quickly attacked Yang Kai with their Secret Techniques, trying to save Di Wu.
A series of explosions sounded across the Ancestral Land. Since the light barrier protecting Yang Kai had been torn open by Di Wu, Yang Kai had to take on consecutive attacks from the Territory Lords with his own body. Although he had his own layer of protection from his World Force, resisting the attacks was difficult. His body was instantly battered, and he kept spitting out Golden Blood.
“Are you done? I’ve been enduring you all for too long!” Yang Kai roared.
Suddenly, a pair of bright but also strange patterns appeared on the back of Yang Kai’s hands.
They were the Great Sun and Moon Marks.
An extremely mysterious force appeared from within the Marks, which then began permeating out across the Ancestral Land. In an instant, tiny wisps of light flew out from the Small Stone Race corpses.
Those lights were either pure yellow or blue. When they first began appearing, there weren’t that many at a glance, but in the blink of an eye, the ground and sky were densely packed with a sea of blue and yellow covering the entire battlefield.
Some three million Small Stone Race Soldiers had died in this vast land over the past few days, and if Di Wu had observed carefully enough, he would have noticed that these Small Stone Race Soldiers had two different characteristics. There were even numbers of Great Sun Small Stone Race and Great Moon Small Stone Race.
Big Brother Huang and Big Sister Lan had spent years painstakingly nurturing these special beings with their power, and with the Small Stone Race’s nature of devouring and refining resources to grow themselves and breed new clansmen, it could be said that they were now living Yellow and Blue Crystals, although less pure than the real ones. They had the purest form of Yang and Yin Energy contained inside them.
Despite being smashed, this pure energy hadn’t dissipated and if other Small Stone Race members came across this place, they could devour the corpses of their fallen brethren to continue growing stronger.
These three million Small Stone Race Soldiers weren’t sacrificed in vain.
Since deciding to summon the Small Stone Race, Yang Kai had been planning for this very moment.
Never would the Black Ink Clan have thought that the dead Small Stone Race could still have such great power even after death; after all, there were only a dozen or so Divine Spirits who had the Great Sun and Moon Marks, and none of them had shown such mysterious techniques before on the battlefield.
Di Wu thought he had been careful enough, but the reality was that he would never be able to understand just how cunning Humans could be.
When he recovered from his dizzy state, the two-tone lights he saw around him made alarm bells ring in his head, and he was once again reminded of the time when Yang Kai trashed the No-Return Pass.
The Black Ink Strength inside Di Wu surged madly as he desperately wanted to escape from Yang Kai’s grasp. At the same time, he yelled, “Let go!”
“Too late!” Yang Kai snarled while using all his strength to activate the two marks on the backs of his hands.
At that instant, the yellow and blue lights merged, causing the two colours to disappear instantly and transform into the purest white light. The light gradually condensed into a ball that rapidly expanded across the battlefield, like a great rising Sun.
Time seemed to have frozen at that moment, and under cover of the intense Purifying Light, the scattered Black Ink Strength and Black Ink Clouds formed from the massive amount of Black Ink Clansmen killed in this battle were instantly vaporized. It was as if they had never existed before.
On the other hand, the surviving Black Ink Clansmen felt like ants that had been thrown into boiling oil, screaming and struggling, but unable to resist the erosion of the Purifying Light at all. The Black Ink Strength inside their bodies quickly dissolved and their auras grew fainter. Those weaker ones were soon killed on the spot, while the stronger ones were barely clinging to life.
At the same time, the four Territory Lords fired more Secret Techniques at Yang Kai, but these attacks were severely weakened by the Purifying Light and lost at least half of their power by the time they hit their mark.
Not only that, but the Territory Lords were also enduring the pain of having their bodies literally melting as the Purifying Light invaded them, destroying their very foundation.
As for Di Wu, who was right in front of Yang Kai, he was experiencing the worst of these effects.
Since he was the strongest and was literally being held down by Yang Kai, the place he was standing was where the Purifying Light was the most intense. At this moment, the Pseudo-Royal Lord was like a melting candle. The jet-black Black Ink Strength was continuously flowing out of his body, which would then be neutralized by the Purifying Light.
Fortunately for Di Wu, he had mustered all his strength and pushed the knife hand being gripped by Yang Kai further into the latter’s chest just before Yang Kai activated the Purifying Light.
Although Yang Kai wasn’t willing, he was forced to let go at that last moment and quickly put some distance between them to avoid his heart being pierced through.
Now that Di Wu wasn’t being restrained, he immediately flew into the sky, desperately wanting to escape the area being enveloped by Purifying Light.
At that moment, space suddenly became extremely viscous and simultaneously felt like it was being stretched out infinitely. It was only for a moment, but it was still torturous for Di Wu.
It only took three breaths of time for the blast of Purifying Light to dissipate, but during that short moment, the Black Ink Clan had suffered a terrifying loss.
Di Wu finally escaped the space binding and charged out of the area being encased by Purifying Light, but when he looked down, he felt devastated.
The tens of thousands of Black Ink Clan Soldiers that had survived the previous slaughter were now reduced to less than 2,000 by the intense Purifying Light; however, even these survivors were like flickering candles in the wind, at risk of being snuffed out at any moment.
As for the four Territory Lords who had formed the Four Symbols Formation… All four of their auras had disappeared.
Soon, Di Wu saw Yang Kai covered in blood, and in his hand was a huge head. That head belonged to one of the Territory Lords, and the expression on its face was filled with reluctance and disbelief. Obviously, this Territory Lord never expected their originally advantageous situation to suddenly make a huge turn for the worse.
Yang Kai was cornered and at his limit, but he suddenly regained control of the entire situation in the blink of an eye and even had the time, while Di Wu was escaping, to kill the four weakened and stunned Territory Lords who were being tortured by the Purifying Light to the point of wanting to die.
Yang Kai seriously injured a true Royal Lord by sacrificing 2 million Small Stone Race Soldiers back at the No-Return Pass. Today, 3 million Small Stone Race had died here, so how could mere Innate Territory Lords withstand the resulting burst of Purifying Light?
Moreover, there was also suppression from the Ancestral Land. If Yang Kai targeted them in such a situation, where they couldn’t even access 50% of their maximum strength, they were still doomed even if they had formed a Battle Formation.
When the four eyes suddenly met, Di Wu once again felt hopeless and terrified.
He came here in full confidence, but suddenly discovered after this huge battle that perhaps killing Yang Kai was an impossible task.
At that moment, he suddenly had the urge to retreat.
“Now there’s only the two of us.” Yang Kai casually tossed the head away as if he were throwing out the trash. When compared, Yang Kai’s injuries were definitely more serious than Di Wu’s. His Soul was constantly throbbing, and his body was completely battered. Even so, Di Wu’s mental state right now was far worse than Yang Kai’s.
Yang Kai looked at Di Wu with his deep, cold eyes while asking, “Are you ready to die, Sir Royal Lord?”
However, Di Wu just turned around and made a mad dash while yelling, “Open the Grand Array!”
Since the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Eight Palaces Great Pagoda Array was still active, he couldn’t escape without it first being opened.
Once he gave the command, a crack appeared on the Grand Array, and Di Wu immediately charged at it like lightning.
But when it came to speed, none could match Yang Kai.
Di Wu felt his sight blur for a moment before he saw Yang Kai already blocking the opening while looking down at him.
This scene stunned the Black Ink Disciples and Territory Lords managing the Great Array, and they didn’t know what to do.
With this strong opponent blocking his only path of escape, Di Wu steeled himself and gathered all his strength to form a Black Ink Cloud before charging at Yang Kai.
Yang Kai lifted his hands, and a Great Sun ascended into the sky as a Golden Crow cawed.
At the same time, the Full Moon rose into the air, bathing the world in its icy glow.
The mysterious scene of the Sun and Moon rising together reappeared, and Yang Kai stood below them like a deity.
Both Yang Kai’s trump cards of borrowing strength from the Ancestral Land and the Small Stone Race Army were just external aids, while the one he displayed right now was wholly his own.
Sun and Moon Divine Wheel!
That was a Secret Technique only Yang Kai could perform because it was the extreme fusion of both the Dao of Space and Dao of Time. Even though Zhao Ye Bai and Xu Yi could also stimulate the mysterious Space-Time Strength, they were still two individuals and could never truly comprehend the essence of this esoteric power.
Since Yang Kai had first comprehended this Secret Technique, he had used it many times in battle against enemies he couldn’t defeat through conventional means, and it had not disappointed him before.
However, he had never been able to call upon it so smoothly and with such ease as he did today.
Before now, his attainments in the Dao of Space had always been higher than his attainments in the Dao of Time. Even though he could still use the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel, since one of the two Grand Daos that it was formed from was stronger than the other, the technique had always been unbalanced. It was only after he came to the Ancestral Land this time and his attainments in both Grand Daos reached a balance that something had changed.
The Sun and Moon began orbiting around Yang Kai as Time and Space Principles permeated the air. These two Principle Strengths then began fusing together, creating a new Space-Time Strength. Everything happened incredibly smoothly.
It was only at this moment that Yang Kai gained an epiphany. Time and space were originally two interdependent Principles, so when they fused and integrated, they were just returning to their natural state. Space without Time was like a tree without roots, or a river without a source, and Time without Space was only a vast emptiness that had no substance to it.
Time was the imprint of space, and space was the carrier and root of time.
After millennia of studying and comprehending both the Dao of Time and the Dao of Space, Yang Kai was finally showing signs of gaining true understanding and mastery of them.
This newfound enlightenment had immediate tangible benefits in how the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel manifested.
Originally, the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel took the form of a Great Sun and the Full Moon rapidly spiralling towards each other as they shot forth, blasting out waves of Space-Time Strength as they flew forward.
But now that Yang Kai had gained a deeper understanding of Space-Time, the Sun and Moon were able to fuse entirely and turned into a mysterious Seal that was one half Great Sun and one half Full Moon.
This Seal was not nearly as dazzling and awe-inspiring as the original Sun and Moon Divine Wheel but it was actually far more profound as it had condensed all the power which had been blasting out into a single point. With unstoppable momentum, the Seal fiercely slammed into the Black Ink Cloud that Di Wu was hiding within.