For Cha Hu, even if he couldn't kill this Ink Clan Domain Lord today, he was determined to force the creature to slink back to its Ink Nest to recuperate for decades or even a century.
Time slipped by, and the battle raged on.
The Ink Clan army suffered a crushing defeat.
Nearly twenty thousand Ink Clan troops had originally gathered in this region, but their numbers had now been slashed by more than half. Though most of the fallen were lower-rank and upper-rank Ink Clan, with relatively light casualties among the Lords, the humans' victory was already unstoppable.
What stung even more was that after paying such a devastating price, the results they had achieved were woefully meager.
Not only had they failed to convert a single Ink Disciple, but they had also been unable to kill many of the human warriors.
The Palace Artifacts proved devastatingly effective on a battlefield like this. All Fifth-Order and Sixth-Order Open Heaven cultivators sheltered under the protective cover of their respective squad's warship, while only Seventh-Order cultivators emerged to slay the enemy.
Without destroying those warships first, there was no hope of killing even a single human.
But the defensive power of the Palace Artifacts was formidable — how could destroying them be easy?
After half a day of fierce fighting, the Ink Clan had managed to blow up over thirty human warships. However, thanks to support from nearby squads, those who had lost their warships still had the power to fight on. Fewer than a hundred humans had fallen, and not a single Seventh-Order among them.
This was precisely why the Ink Clan both loathed and coveted the humans' Palace Artifacts. Without those artifacts, every human stronghold would have long since fallen to the Ink Clan, and humanity would never have been able to resist for so many countless years.
The Ink Clan had not been idle in their desire to forge Palace Artifacts of their own. If the Ink Clan possessed their own Palace Artifacts, their lower-rank and upper-rank troops could project power far beyond their true level. Over the countless years, the Ink Clan had tirelessly pursued this goal.
However, the humans exercised strict control over the forging of Palace Artifacts. Every Artificer involved in their production was forbidden from setting foot on the battlefield and was carefully protected. Even if the Ink Clan wished to convert a few master Artificers into Ink Disciples, they were powerless to do so.
To this day, the Ink Clan still had no Palace Artifacts of their own. They had managed to forge some ordinary flying artifacts, but these served only as transportation and were useless in battle.
The Ink Clan army crumbled, and the three Domain Lords fared no better.
Cha Hu's opponent needed no explanation — it was already outmatched, merely clinging on in desperation. Xie Xiuping's and Lu An's opponents could trade blows with them on equal terms, but they had no capacity to influence the broader battle, and could only watch helplessly as the army was routed.
Under Cha Hu's deliberate guidance, the Ink Clan Domain Lord sustained several more gaping wounds, each one deep enough to expose bone. Ink blood flowed freely, and its aura had long since fallen from its peak.
With the army's defeat now merely a matter of time, the Domain Lord lost all will to linger. It unleashed a savage strike, took a full blow from Cha Hu head-on to force him back, and seized the opportunity to flee into the void.
But at that very moment, a sudden aura locked onto it, and a single point of light shot toward it from somewhere in the void like a bolt of lightning.
The Domain Lord's skin prickled with an instinctive chill. Horrified, it whipped its head around, and in its field of vision, an attack shaped like a pair of spread wings was rapidly expanding before its eyes.
On the deck of the Dawnbreak, Bai Yi's eyes gleamed with an eerie light as they reflected the Domain Lord's silhouette. She slowly lowered her longbow, gasping for breath, her face as pale as parchment.
This sudden strike had clearly been hers.
Although she had not joined the fray on the ground like Yang Kai and the others — standing instead at the bow of the Dawnbreak to provide support with her exquisite archery — over the course of this half-day battle, more than a dozen Ink Clan Lords had already perished at her hands. Thanks to her archery support, Yang Kai and the rest had been able to strike without reservation.
One could say that though Bai Yi was a single individual, her addition had boosted Dawn's overall combat power by more than thirty percent.
Prolonged use of her archery had drained her enormously, and this final strike in particular was clearly a powerful secret art that consumed far more than any of her previous shots.
Even Xu Boliang had been unable to guard against such a strike and had been wounded by it. The already grievously injured Domain Lord stood no chance.
The spread wings plunged instantly into the Domain Lord's chest. It roared in fury, its howl laced with unconcealed rage, but its already waning aura dipped by two more notches.
Only now did it finally understand why Zhufeng had placed such importance on a single human Ink Disciple. This human truly possessed extraordinary abilities and warranted special attention.
Though it longed to cut down the woman who had ambushed it on the spot to vent its fury, the Domain Lord knew that fleeing took priority. So after being struck, it did not slow down — it accelerated, plunging deeper into the void.
But a figure suddenly materialized before it, blocking its path.
Through its perception, the Domain Lord realized that the one standing in its way was nothing more than a human Seventh-Order!
Rage surged within it. Being ambushed and gravely wounded by Xu Boliang was one thing. Being unable to defeat Cha Hu was another. The human woman attacking from a distance with arrows it could do little about — fine. But now a mere Seventh-Order had the audacity to block its path? Was everyone determined to trample on it today?
The Domain Lord spread its massive hand wide. Dense Ink Force coalesced in an instant into a colossal black palm seal and slammed down toward the figure.
Cha Hu, who had been in hot pursuit, saw this and his expression changed drastically. "Yang Kai, dodge!" he cried.
He had never imagined that at this critical moment, Yang Kai would come charging up from the battlefield below, only to plant himself directly in the escape path of an Ink Clan Domain Lord.
This Domain Lord was in a state of cornered desperation right now. Even Cha Hu had to deal with it cautiously, let alone Yang Kai, a mere Seventh-Order.