The small stone clan that charged out of the cave were all roughly a foot tall, their bodies angular and sharp-edged, gleaming with a bright luster—clearly different from the clan members who had been hauling rocks just moments ago.
It appeared that both sides had roughly the same numbers. The invading small stone clan numbered over a thousand, and the ones that had burst from the cave numbered about the same.
The two factions formed their ranks at the mouth of the cave, facing each other across a distance of about a hundred zhang.
The small stone clan members stood in impeccable formation, row after perfect row.
Within each camp, several members wielding stone hammers or stone clubs stood out—particularly tall and imposing, their bared teeth glinting with a chilling, cold light even more sinister than the rest.
From the side that had emerged from the cave, the largest of the small stone clan members strode to the very front of the formation, each hand gripping a stone hammer nearly as big as himself. He paced back and forth before the ranks, letting out rhythmic shouts.
And as he moved, every single clan member roared in unison.
"Hah! Hah!" The cries echoed without cease.
Yang Kai watched with a peculiar expression and murmured to Yue He, "Is this some kind of pre-battle morale boost?"
Yue He nodded. "Something like that."
It wasn't just the small stone clan from the cave that did this—the invading group did the exact same thing. Their movements were mirror images of each other, as if carved from the same mold.
In short order, once the morale-boosting was complete, both sides began advancing toward each other in orderly fashion.
A hundred zhang of distance was erased in the blink of an eye.
The two small stone clans, belonging to different tribes, crashed into each other and quickly became an indistinguishable mass.
Under Yang Kai and Yue He's observation, despite their tiny stature, these small stone clan members fought with a ferocity that could only be described as reckless disregard for death. Those armed with weapons charged up to their enemies and swung their weapons high overhead before smashing down—often a single hammer blow was enough to shatter an opponent to pieces. Those without weapons lunged onto enemies and wrestled them into a tangle, then opened their fanged mouths and bit down hard.
Their teeth were undoubtedly razor-sharp. Every bite tore away chunk after chunk of stone from their foes.
As they fought, they shouted "Hah! Hah!" in a rising and falling chorus!
In an instant, the scene was one of utter carnage. Small stone clan members were torn apart one after another, reduced to scattered rubble strewn across the ground.
Both sides had originally numbered close to two thousand combined, but in the time it took to drink a cup of tea, roughly two to three hundred had fallen. After the time it took an incense stick to burn, only half remained.
Then, without the slightest warning, the battle abruptly stopped. Both sides, locked in a desperate fight to the death, ceased hostilities and made peace as if a switch had been flipped.
Immediately after, the surviving small stone clan members began carrying away the corpses of the fallen, each group retreating back the way they had come.
Many who had lost arms or legs in the battle struggled to drag themselves along, returning to wherever they had come from as well.
Yang Kai watched, thoroughly bewildered. "What are they doing?"
Yue He said, "Just keep watching, Young Master. This race is quite strange—this kind of battle seems to be one of their ways of survival. It happens frequently."
"What about their intelligence? Have you tried communicating with them?"
Yue He replied, "We tried, of course, but their intelligence is quite low. Communication is simply not possible."
Yang Kai nodded and said nothing more.
Over at the battlefield, the cleanup was completed swiftly. Both sides had suffered losses. The invading tribe slowly withdrew, while the defending cave tribe methodically carried their own dead and enemy corpses back into the cave.
Yue He called out softly, and she and Yang Kai followed behind the small stone clan members into the cave.
The cave was only about a person's height, with some sections even shorter. The two of them had to stoop and bend frequently to navigate through it.
Just as Yue He had described before, the small stone clan's nest bore a striking resemblance to an ant colony—winding and twisting in every direction, with passages crisscrossing haphazardly, forming a vast underground network of tunnels.
Along the cave walls, many small stone clan members had dug out tiny alcoves where they rested. Disturbed by Yang Kai and Yue He's passage, they poked their heads out one after another, staring with pairs of round, dark eyes.
As they descended deeper, Yang Kai extended his senses carefully and felt a secret chill run through him—the underground had been almost completely hollowed out by the small stone clan.
After descending a full dozen li or more, the two of them suddenly emerged into a massive cavern.
Within that cavern, several bridge-like tunnels connected to an enormous central platform. And upon that platform, a figure far larger than any of the other small stone clan members came into Yang Kai's view.