The Ink Clansmen's Ink Nests were divided into grades, each tailored for Ink Clansmen of different levels of strength. The hierarchy was extremely clear-cut.
Yang Kai thought for a moment and asked, "Can a Lord's Ink Nest split off child nests?"
Zagu laughed and shook his head. "A Lord's Ink Nest is already the lowest grade of Ink Nest. How could it possibly split off child nests?"
"Then whose child nest is the King's Ink Nest?"
Zagu was taken aback by the question. "The King's Ink Nest is already the highest grade of Ink Nest."
Yang Kai frowned. "But as Brother Zagu said earlier, all Ink Nests are split off from a higher-grade Ink Nest. By that logic, there must be an ultimate source for all Ink Nests. Where is that source?"
Zagu turned to look at Yang Kai, his face blank with confusion. It took him a good while before he let out an awkward laugh. "Brother Yang, you've got me completely bewildered. I don't know where the source of the Ink Nests is either. But as far as I know, the King's Ink Nest really is the highest grade—there's nothing above it. Perhaps the King's Ink Nest itself is the source."
Yang Kai nodded and could only accept this explanation.
Letting the matter drop, Yang Kai turned his curious gaze to the box Zagu had been holding in his arms the entire time. "Brother Zagu, how exactly do you hatch this thing so it becomes a real Ink Nest?"
Zagu chuckled. "You'll find out when the time comes."
They chatted idly as they traveled. After roughly half a day, Zagu suddenly came to a halt and produced the Universe Map to check their position.
The Universe Map had originally been crafted by the human race, but after countless years of conflict between the two races, many of the humans' creations had found their way to the Ink Clansmen—flying artifacts among them, and the Universe Map as well.
"This is the place." Zagu confirmed their location and said with a look of renewed vigor, "With this point as the center, everything within half a day's full-speed flight is my fief!"
Yang Kai was mildly surprised. "Brother Zagu's fief is no small territory."
After all, Zagu was a Lord-level Ink Clansman. Half a day's flight at full speed would encompass an enormous stretch of land.
Zagu laughed. "Just luck, just luck."
Saying this, he looked around.
The Ink Battlefield had originally been a thriving void world, but due to the nature of the Ink Clansmen, it was now filled with dead Universe Worlds.
Before them, several lifeless universes and fragments of floating land masses drifted in the emptiness.
Zagu quickly selected a target and flew toward a Universe World of neither large nor small size. Shortly after, the group landed on its surface.
The entire world was steeped in death, utterly devoid of life. Yang Kai couldn't sense even a trace of the power of heaven and earth within it, but this was to be expected—nothing surprising about it.
"We'll choose this one." Zagu looked left and right, and was clearly quite satisfied with the location.
As he spoke, he very solemnly set down the box he had been cradling against his chest. It wasn't large and appeared square in shape, but it was clearly immensely heavy. Yang Kai hadn't noticed while Zagu was holding it, but when he placed it on the ground, the earth visibly trembled, and the ground around the box sank inward by a noticeable margin.
Zagu's expression turned solemn as he stared at the box and said gravely, "Brother Yang, didn't you want to know how to hatch an Ink Nest? Then you'd best watch closely."
Yang Kai gave a slight nod and fixed his gaze without blinking.
He watched as a dense surge of Ink Force poured from Zagu's body and gently settled over the box. Zagu performed some manner of technique, and the box cracked open with a sharp snap, immediately revealing what looked like an unbloomed flower bud imprinted before Yang Kai's eyes.
The thing didn't look vastly different from the Ink Nests Yang Kai had seen before, except that this one was still undeveloped and appeared extraordinarily small and delicate.
But Yang Kai could feel an incredibly dense surging of Ink Force within this Ink Nest—so thick it seemed almost impossible to dissolve.
Like every Ink Nest Yang Kai had ever encountered, the thing seemed almost alive. With each gentle expansion, wisps of Ink Force leaked outward.
At this moment, all of Zagu's subordinates had retreated to the side. Without a single order being given, they all dropped to their knees in unison, performing exaggerated bows of prostration in the direction of the Ink Nest, their expressions devout, their mouths murmuring ceaselessly as though conducting some kind of ritual.
Zagu's expression carried a hint of excitement. Suddenly, he thrust his hand toward his own chest.
The scene startled Yang Kai, who instinctively feared Zagu might be having some desperate thoughts and intended to take his own life.
But he quickly realized that wasn't the case. Although Zagu had driven one hand into his own chest, it was clearly not a suicide attempt. When he withdrew that hand from his chest, a single drop of ink-black blood glistened at his fingertip.
Though the Ink Clansmen's lives were born from Ink Nests and not through the union of yin and yang as with the human race, their physical structures were largely the same in overall terms.
The moment Yang Kai saw that drop of Ink Blood, he recognized it for what it was—Zagu's heart's blood. For the Ink Clansmen, this was just as precious as the essence blood of the human race. Any loss of it would inevitably cause a drop in one's aura, and in severe cases, a drastic decline in strength.