In the void, Heiyuan moved like lightning, racing toward a distant battlefield. By the time he finally arrived, all that greeted him were corpses strewn across the expanse — severed limbs floating everywhere, all belonging to dead Ink Clan.
Many wounded Ink Clan writhed in agony, their screams of pain turning the battlefield into something out of a hellish nightmare. A single sweeping glance revealed that at least a hundred Ink Clan had fallen here.
Heiyuan's face was dark as iron. Since he had begun pursuing Yang Kai, he had seen this scene far too many times. Every time he received word and rushed to the scene, he was met with more or less the same carnage — and Yang Kai had always managed to slip away a step ahead, never leaving him the slightest opening.
He had never encountered a human so skilled at fleeing. It left him seething with rage that had nowhere to go.
The surviving Ink Clan in the vicinity saw Heiyuan arrive but didn't dare approach too closely. Over these past days, Heiyuan had personally cut down quite a few of his own people. If, in his fury, he decided they had been lax in their duties and struck them down as well, that would be the cruelest injustice of all.
They had fought desperately to hold Yang Kai back just moments ago. But their strength had simply been insufficient — what could they do against him? They could only watch as he slaughtered his way through their ranks and departed without a backward glance.
"Where did he go?" Heiyuan's voice was cold and sharp. No Ink Clan volunteered information.
The nearest upper-ranking Ink Clan pointed a trembling finger in one direction.
Heiyuan looked that way, and his brow furrowed.
That direction... was where his direct territory lay. While this vast stretch of void was technically all under his domain, the location of his Ink Nest was his true foundation — his direct territory.
The realization struck him like a physical blow. His heart lurched. Combining this with Yang Kai's flight pattern over these past days, a terrible suspicion began to take shape — Yang Kai's escape had not been aimless at all. It had been deliberate, pointed, leading somewhere specific.
At that very moment, an Ink Clan Lord came hurtling in from the distance, making straight for Heiyuan. His face was a mask of panic. "Domain Lord! Terrible news!"
"What's got you so flustered?" Heiyuan turned to look, and that ominous feeling intensified.
There was no mistaking it — this particular Lord was stationed at the nearest Ink Nest and was responsible for monitoring activity in all directions. Clearly, some report had come in, which was why he had rushed over immediately.
Sure enough, the Lord said, "Word has come from your territory, my Lord. That Yang Kai has attacked!"
The words hit Heiyuan like a hammer to the skull. His head buzzed, and for a moment the world swam. But in the same instant, he saw through Yang Kai's intentions completely. A furious roar tore from his throat: "The audacity!"
He had never imagined that Yang Kai — trapped deep in Ink Clan territory, alone and cut off — would not only show no intention of fleeing, but would seize the moment when the rear was weak to wreak absolute havoc.
Truthfully, it was a move that spoke of both extraordinary skill and breathtaking nerve, and it had left Heiyuan thoroughly shaken.
Twilight Monarch's Domain Lords had all been dispatched to face the Yin-Yang Pass army. There was no time when the territory was more vulnerable than now. If that hadn't been the case, Heiyuan wouldn't have been unable to deal with Yang Kai for so long.
Now Yang Kai was charging toward his direct territory. While there were several Lords stationed there, whether they could actually hold him off — Heiyuan had no confidence. The chase over these past days had shown him just what Yang Kai was capable of.
And the reason Yang Kai had headed in that direction was almost certainly the Ink Nest.
Any Lord or Domain Lord who held territory owed their foundation to the Ink Nest. Without an Ink Nest, one could not truly be called a Lord or Domain Lord.
This was something Zha Gu had taught Yang Kai himself.
An Ink Nest's growth consumed enormous quantities of resources. A Lord-tier Ink Nest, from hatching to full maturity, required an astronomical amount — and that was nothing compared to a Domain Lord-tier Ink Nest. The consumption required for a Domain Lord-tier Ink Nest's growth was at minimum a hundred times, even a thousand times that of a Lord-tier one.
If the Ink Nest was destroyed, Heiyuan's foundation would be gone. It would be a devastating blow. He could, theoretically, receive a child nest from the Monarch and begin the incubation process again, but that would burden the Monarch's own Ink Nest as well as cost Heiyuan an enormous amount of time and energy.
And more to the point — after an incident like this, whether the Monarch would even grant him another child nest was very much in question.
Throughout the history of conflict with the human race, the destruction of Lord-tier Ink Nests was not uncommon. But the destruction of a Domain Lord-tier Ink Nest was exceedingly rare. Each one that fell was a humiliation for the Ink Clan — one that could only be washed away in human blood.
Even as the roar still echoed from his throat, Heiyuan shot toward his direct territory at full speed, silently praying that the Lords stationed there could delay Yang Kai, praying that Yang Kai would not — could not — destroy his Ink Nest.
But Yang Kai had headed straight for his direct territory. That meant he had something big planned, and the likelihood of it being aimed at the Ink Nest was extremely high. After all, Yang Kai had lived among them disguised as an Ink Disciple for years — it was entirely possible he had learned the secrets of the Ink Nest from some source.
Gripped by dread, Heiyuan pushed himself to the limit.
What would normally take a Domain Lord half a day to traverse, he covered in a mere two hours.
When he finally arrived at the floating continent housing his direct territory, what he saw froze the blood in his veins.
The floating continent had been smashed apart, nearly split into several pieces. Signs of battle between powerful cultivators were visible everywhere. The once-prosperous city was reduced to ruins — crumbling walls, shattered structures, devastation in every direction. The bodies of the dead Ink Clan were beyond counting.
All of that would have been bad enough. But what truly shattered him was the Ink Nest that had once stood at the very heart of the city. It had collapsed. The Ink Nest, which for countless years had bloomed like a flower bud, now showed unmistakable signs of withering. Thick Ink Force poured out of it like fresh blood, and at its roots — the very foundation of his power — something had been severed completely by a savage, devastating blow.