Mocha waved his hand and asked, "How much do you know about this Ink Battlefield and the Ink Clan?"
"Not much. Before coming here, I only heard some accounts from the various Supreme Elders."
Mocha nodded. He knew that intelligence about this place had always been a secret kept from the Three Thousand Worlds, with only the higher-ups and elite Disciples of the Blessed Realms having some knowledge — and even that was incomplete. It was only natural that Yang Kai wouldn't know too much.
He flipped his hand and produced an item — round, about the size of a fist.
Yang Kai squinted at it and asked doubtfully, "A Cosmos Map?"
He had one of these himself, purchased back then in a certain Star World. The Three Thousand Worlds were vast beyond measure, with countless Great Domains connected to one another. Without a Cosmos Map for guidance, it was virtually impossible to determine direction or plot a course. As a result, virtually every Open Heaven Realm cultivator carried one.
Every Blessed Realm knew how to forge them, since they were a steady source of income. The revenue generated each year by the Blessed Realm through Cosmos Maps was enormous.
But Yang Kai couldn't fathom why Mocha would produce one now.
"This is a Cosmos Map of the Ink Battlefield. Though the information it contains dates back three thousand years, it differs very little from the current situation." As he spoke, Mocha handed the Cosmos Map to Yang Kai.
He had entered the Ink Battlefield four thousand years ago alongside his sect elders. Three thousand years ago, during a clash with the Ink Clan, he had been careless and allowed the Ink Force to corrode him, transforming him into an Ink Disciple. The information on his Cosmos Map had never been updated since.
Yang Kai accepted it gladly. For his current situation, this was an invaluable asset.
His Divine Sense surged into it at once, and in an instant it was as though he had stepped into a vast cosmos. His field of vision expanded, and at a glance he beheld a series of fortified passes arranged across the interior of the map in a formation resembling the Nine Palaces and Eight Trigrams.
He saw pass after pass, each bearing a name that seemed tied to one of the Blessed Realms.
Among them, he spotted the Great War Pass, Yin-Yang Pass, Langya Pass, Golden Antelope Pass, and others…
These passes echoed one another across great distances, linked end to end, forming an enormous formation that spanned the void. Yang Kai could almost envision how breathtakingly massive these true fortress passes must be within the Ink Battlefield.
Behind all of them lay the No-Return Pass, which served as the demarcation line separating the Three Thousand Worlds from the Ink Battlefield — the final line of defense. If the No-Return Pass were to fall, it would mean the Ink Clan could sweep straight through, and the Three Thousand Worlds would be in grave peril.
"Senior, where exactly are we now?" Yang Kai asked after studying the map for a moment without finding their location. In theory, his own position should have been immediately obvious on the map, yet he couldn't see it at all.
He vaguely attributed this to their being inside a Secret Realm — a small world of its own that blocked what lay outside, thereby obstructing the Cosmos Map's display.
Mocha extended a finger and tapped a point on the map. A spot instantly lit up. "This location."
Yang Kai gauged the distance from that point of light to the Blessed Realm passes and couldn't help but bare his teeth. It was quite far — practically deep in the heartland of the Ink Battlefield. Reaching those passes would no doubt require navigating through untold dangers.
Mocha explained, "This area is the territory of Domain Lord Red Sickle. He commands a considerable number of Ink Clan forces, and Ink Disciples are plentiful as well. The first threat you'll face upon leaving this Secret Realm will be in this layer."
Before coming here, Six Wood Divine Lord and the others had explained to Yang Kai that the Ink Clan possessed a rigid hierarchical structure. At the very top were the Ink Royals. Every adult Ink Royal commanded strength comparable to a Ninth-Order Open Heaven cultivator.
Beneath the Royals were Domain Lords, equivalent to Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivators.
This Domain Lord Red Sickle was undoubtedly of that caliber.
Below the Domain Lords were Territorial Lords, equivalent to Seventh-Order Open Heaven cultivators.
Beneath the Territorial Lords were ordinary Ink Clan, which were divided into Upper Ink Clan and Lower Ink Clan. The Upper Ink Clan were roughly comparable to mid-grade Open Heaven cultivators, while the Lower Ink Clan matched the low-grade. These Ink Clan posed no real threat to Yang Kai.
That said, if their numbers were great enough, they could still become troublesome.
Within the Ink Battlefield, a single Royal commanded multiple Domain Lords, each Domain Lord in turn commanded multiple Territorial Lords, forming a strict chain of command where the lower ranks obeyed the upper without question.
As for Ink Disciples, regardless of their cultivation level, they all ranked beneath the Ink Clan. Even a mere first-grade Ink Disciple held a higher status in the Ink Battlefield than an eighth-grade Ink Disciple.
That said, for the Ink Clan, weakness was the greatest original sin. The ordinary Ink Clan often received worse treatment than high-cultivation Ink Disciples, because during major battles they were used as cannon fodder to exhaust the strength of the Blessed Realm powerhouses, and the Ink Force that leaked from their deaths served as a further deterrent against the Blessed Realm cultivators.
In virtually every major battle, countless ordinary Ink Clan were slain — whether Lower Ink Clan or Upper Ink Clan — yet over the ages these expendable foot soldiers were never killed off, never driven away for good.