The final battlefield lay roughly two or three days' travel from the base. During the transit, the Dawn's crew took turns at the helm controlling speed and heading while the rest rested and conserved their energy.
Yang Kai stood alone on the deck, keeping watch in all directions.
Two days later, before the Dawn had even reached its destination, Yang Kai spotted vast flickers of light in the distant void. Even from that far away, occasional fluctuations of energy ripples drifted over from that direction.
The battle had already begun? Yang Kai's expression turned serious, and he immediately sounded the alarm.
The cabin doors swung open and figures poured out one after another, taking positions on the deck. At a glance they could see the raging battle in the distance.
The final engagement had indeed already started, but as the Dawn drew closer, Yang Kai realized the fighting couldn't have been going on for very long. The Ink Clan army's formation was still intact, and their casualties appeared relatively light.
Judging by the state of things, the battle had erupted at most an hour or two ago.
The Dawn's timing was practically perfect.
Looking out across the vast battlefield, the human race's Palace Artifacts streaked and darted through the void. As they flew, beams of power in various brilliant hues erupted from within—each beam plunging into the clustered ranks of the Ink Clan and throwing them into chaos. Those were clearly the offensive formations housed within the Palaces.
Very few warriors had left the protection of their Artifacts to fight. Only those Seventh-Order Open Heavens with supreme confidence in their own strength chose to do so.
This wasn't Biluo Pass, after all. During the last great war between the two races, even if a human warrior was corroded by the Ink Force, they could quickly retreat behind the Pass and use the Purifying Light stored in the Ink-Purging Warships to cleanse it.
Here and now, there were no Ink-Purging Warships. If someone actually got corroded by the Ink Force, they'd have to activate the World Art to return to the base—and a round trip would take at least two or three days. By the time they came back, the battle might well be over.
Moreover, the fighting had barely begun, so the human side was doing everything to preserve their strength, relying on their Palace Artifacts to slay the enemy.
On the opposite side of the human battle line, the Ink Clan army surged like a tidal wave, their overwhelming presence filling the sky. Devastating barrages of attacks hammered into those Palace Artifacts, forcing the protective formations on each one to flicker and strain.
A few unlucky squads had already lost the ability to keep fighting and were forced to retreat hasty back toward the base.
The Dawn surged forward at increased speed. The moment it entered the battlefield, Yang Kai faintly sensed several powerful divine senses enveloping the entire field, locked in distant confrontation with one another. These divine senses clearly belonged to the human race's Eighth-Order Open Heavens and the Ink Clan's Domain Lords.
It was precisely because the Eighth-Order Open Heavens were restraining their counterparts that the Domain Lords couldn't intervene in this battle. This held true for both sides—their apex forces were pinned against each other, leaving the outcome to be decided by the ranks below.
Standing on the deck, Yang Kai swept his gaze across the battlefield and spotted a weak point in the human defensive line. There, the Ink Clan's assault was particularly ferocious. Over a dozen squad-level Artifacts were supporting one another as best they could, but the situation was visibly on the verge of collapsing. One of the tower ships had a protective formation whose glow had already dimmed—it clearly wouldn't hold for much longer.
Yang Kai pointed in that direction. "Over there!"
The Dawn immediately shot toward the spot, and within a dozen breaths it had plunged into the battlefield.
Seeing reinforcements arrive, the humans in that area were overjoyed. Though only a single squad-level Artifact had come, at a time like this, any help was desperately welcome. Perhaps this squad's arrival would be enough to stem the Ink Clan's advance.
On one of the tower ships, a burly man with a thick beard stood at the bow with both hands planted on a massive sword, looking every bit the imposing warrior. He waved to his vice-captain and ordered, "Send them a greeting—have them coordinate with us."
His vice-captain was a beautiful woman who was about to send a message to the Dawn when she suddenly saw it sweep straight past the human defensive line of over a dozen tower ships and ram directly into the heart of the Ink Clan army.
The beautiful woman was stunned into speechlessness. The bearded man flew into a thunderous rage. "Where did this squad come from? Are they trying to get themselves killed?!"
Their dozen squads working together could barely hold back the Ink Clan's advance, and this newly arrived squad had just charged straight into the enemy swarm. There was no way they'd survive—in the blink of an eye, they'd be blasted to atoms by the Ink Clan, and every last one of those dozen people would vanish without a trace.
Even as he cursed, his heart ached in secret. That was over a dozen Open Heavens experts. He had no idea who that idiot captain was—getting yourself killed was one thing, but dragging an entire squad down with you was another.
Before his words had even faded, the bearded man's expression shifted to one of pure shock. The squad's tower ship, which had looked no different from theirs, suddenly rippled with a layer of distortion after plunging into the Ink Clan army—and a warship roughly twice the size of a standard squad-level Artifact abruptly materialized before their eyes.
That Palace Artifact was nearly comparable to a Guardian-level warship!
"The Dawn!" The bearded man's realization hit him like a thunderclap. Across the entirety of Biluo Pass, only the Dawn squad possessed such a distinctive warship. Back at the base, he had personally seen the Dawn undergoing repairs, and he'd coveted its performance capabilities to no end.
"Are they the Dawn?" the beautiful woman asked.
The bearded man nodded emphatically. "No mistake about it!" Then a jolt of inspiration struck him, and he bellowed his command: "Quick, quick, quick—follow them! Tear the Ink Clan's defensive line to shreds!"