The woman's exhaustion was plain for all the fleeing Ink Clan to see. They had already been shaken to their core by the slaughter, yet now a glimmer of hope rekindled in their hearts.
There were still three or four Ink Clan Lords remaining. Their eyes met, and without a word of discussion, they understood one another's thoughts.
So many Ink Clan and Ink Disciples had been butchered by a single human — the casualties were staggering. If they still let her escape, they would be utterly useless, and there would be no way to answer to their superiors.
When the blame came down from above, they would face punishment all the same.
The only option now was to fight to the death and pin this woman down. Only by killing her here could they wash away this humiliation.
The fleeing Ink Clan and Ink Disciples were rallied once more, led by the surviving Lords, and split into several groups to encircle the battered Sword Dragon.
They had already learned firsthand just how terrifying the Sword Dragon was — hundreds of their number had been cut down in half after only a few charges. None of them doubted her overwhelming power.
So when the Sword Dragon charged toward one direction again, the Ink Clan blocking that path immediately scattered, while the others frantically drove their secret arts, bombarding the Sword Dragon's body from a distance.
After three or five rounds of this, the Sword Dragon had failed to kill many Ink Clan, and its already battered form grew even more tattered. Yet when it finally halted, the encirclement remained intact — there was still no hope of escape.
Surrounded on all sides by Ink Clan and Ink Disciples, the woman's pale face remained utterly indifferent, as though she were not the one in danger.
A series of cracking sounds rang out once more as the sword beams composing the Sword Dragon twisted and reshaped themselves. Under the stunned gazes of every Ink Clan and Ink Disciple present, a brand-new, fully restored Sword Dragon came into being!
However, because many of the sword beams from the previous Sword Dragon had been shattered, this new dragon was less than half the size of the one before. Still, it stretched over a hundred zhang in length.
Yang Kai could only feel the deepest admiration for this woman. He had never imagined that a divine ability manifestation could be manipulated like this. It spoke volumes about her strength — her control over her own manifestation had clearly reached the level of effortless mastery, like moving her own arm. Her attainment in the Sword Dao was also terrifyingly high.
The hundred-zhang Sword Dragon charged forth once again. Though the dragon's body was shorter than before, it was still enormous by the standards of every Ink Clan and Ink Disciple present, and far more agile.
But the Ink Clan stuck to their strategy of stalling. They refused to engage her head-on, content to simply wear her down. This left the woman thoroughly exasperated — after several charges, she had killed very few enemies, and the Sword Dragon's body had once again been reduced to a battered wreck.
Round after round of attrition, of push and pull — with just one person, the woman held back the pursuit of hundreds of Ink Clan.
The Sword Dragon transformed again. Now it was only thirty-odd zhang long. One more transformation and the Sword Dragon form would likely collapse entirely. Once she lost the protection of the Sword Dragon, given her current weakened state, she would surely meet a grim end.
But she had already achieved her goal of delaying the pursuers. Whether she lived or died, the people aboard that tower ship would all manage to escape.
By now, it was obvious to everyone that the woman intended to break through the encirclement and flee. But after paying such a tremendous cost to finally drive her into a corner, how could the Ink Clan allow that to happen?
Though Ink Clan and Ink Disciples continued to fall, the encirclement held firm without a single gap, leaving her no opening whatsoever.
Yang Kai's heart was in agony. Watching this woman fight alone, he longed to reveal himself and stand beside her against the enemy. But the thought had barely flickered through his mind before he rejected it.
In this situation, even with his help, the woman would still be no match for the enemy. After all, he was merely a Sixth-Stage Open Heaven cultivator. Facing so many Ink Clan and Ink Disciples, how could he possibly prevail?
Moreover, it would be nearly impossible to earn her trust in time.
If he continued hiding, perhaps some opportunity would present itself.
The thirty-odd zhang Sword Dragon was battered beyond recognition. The woman had truly reached the end of her strength, her ashen face devoid of the slightest hint of color.
Seeing this, the Ink Clan and Ink Disciples intensified their assault.
In a sudden instant, the Sword Dragon reversed direction and charged straight toward Yang Kai and the others. The Ink Clan and Ink Disciples were horrified. Nu Yan, in particular, immediately dove to the side — for all his lack of skill, his instinct for dodging danger was remarkably sharp.
No one had expected the Sword Dragon to charge in this direction. Yang Kai and his group were positioned at the rear, and the woman had never once targeted this side before. She had repeatedly tried to break through the front, desperate to escape the encirclement, but had never succeeded.
This sudden reversal truly caught everyone off guard.
Yang Kai even suspected that everything she had done before had merely been a ruse to lull the enemy — that her real target had always been the rear of the encirclement.
The Ink Clan and Ink Disciples fell back in retreat, but the Ink Clan Lord on this side hesitated only briefly before roaring and charging forward.
He knew full well how powerful the woman was. But after fighting for so long, she had clearly been driven to the point of exhaustion. How much strength could she still muster?
Besides, he had tremendous confidence in his own abilities. If he could hold the woman back for even a single breath, the others from the remaining directions would converge to support him.
His confidence quickly turned to arrogance.
The thirty-zhang, tattered Sword Dragon spun like a drill and collided with the Ink Clan Lord. Silently, the Ink Clan Lord exploded into a cloud of blackish blood mist, instantly perishing — body and soul destroyed in the blink of an eye.
The High-Order Ink Clan and Ink Disciples behind him were swept up as well, falling in a swath of death and ruin.