They hadn't been traveling long when they saw a mass of dark ink clouds churning ahead. Within the clouds, a large group of Ink Clan were fleeing in their direction, panicked and desperate like stray dogs, as though some flood or fearsome beast were hot on their tails. Among them, several bore the aura of Ink Clan overlords.
Shen Ao stood on the deck, squinted forward, and burst out laughing. "Good heavens, there have to be several hundred of them!"
Several hundred Ink Clan, several overlords among them — that was no trivial force. An ordinary team might not be able to swallow them whole, forced instead to skirmish and pick them off one by one. Yet here they were, fleeing for their lives without a moment's rest.
The strength of whatever team was chasing them had to be formidable. Yang Kai didn't need to think hard to guess that it had to be one of those elite teams.
Teams as formidable as Dawn were not the only ones in the Bifo Pass. Besides Dawn, several other teams had been around longer, veterans by any measure.
These elite teams were few in number, but each was capable of carrying out missions that no ordinary team could handle.
Before Dawn came onto the scene, these veteran elite teams had been locked in a quiet competition with one another. Then Dawn burst onto the horizon, and in barely a few decades, loomed over them like a mountain, making it hard for the other elite teams to catch their breath.
It came down to one thing: over two major campaigns spanning a hundred-plus years, the battle merits Dawn had accumulated dwarfed those of every other team, leaving them far behind.
That had left a bitter taste in each of their mouths. During the hunting patrols at the forward outpost, every team poured everything they had into the work, desperate to claw back a point and show this upstart Dawn that the honors of their elders were not to be shaken.
"Snatch them or not?" Ning Qizhi's words were directed at Yang Kai, but the eager gleam in his eyes said more than his question.
Yang Kai was well aware of the unspoken rivalry between Dawn and those veteran teams, though he'd never given it much thought. Strictly speaking, when it came to merits earned through killing enemies on the battlefield, Dawn was about even with the others — no team was noticeably worse off.
But much of Dawn's merit came from extraordinary windfalls: the Void Yin-Yang Mirror Yang Kai had offered up, the Domain Lord Zhu Feng that he and Bai Yi had cut down together, the time Yang Kai had led Dawn through various grotto-heavens and blessed realms, sweeping through all the Ink Clan powerhouses within — all of that merit was credited to Dawn as a whole. After every major battle, Dawn's total merit soared far ahead of every other team, holding firm at the top of the Merit Hall rankings, eye-catching to say the least.
The merits earned during hunting patrols, however, were not as disproportionate. Dawn was roughly on par with the other teams in that regard, with the rankings shifting back and forth between them.
The higher-ups were well aware of this and had no intention of intervening. This kind of rivalry was harmless — if anything, it stoked the soldiers' enthusiasm for killing the enemy. It was a good thing.
Snatching targets from other teams was common during hunting patrols, but it had always been Dawn doing the snatching. Against the power of the Space Laws, any Ink Clan that caught Dawn's eye had nowhere to run.
That was why Ning Qizhi had asked.
"Snatch what?" Yang Kai said immediately. "It's precisely you lot who've ruined Dawn's reputation. Do you know what those other teams call us? They say we're gadflies — the kind that feed on blood. And not just any blood, but our own comrades'. How is that proper?"
Shen Ao was quietly channeling his power while offering a reminder: "Captain, the Daybreak has concealment formations, but they have a range limit. If we get any closer, those Ink Clan will spot us. And look, Captain — they're fleeing in such panic, yet the team behind them still can't catch up. Nine times out of ten, it's that Old Turtle team. If we don't act, these Ink Clan are going to slip away."
Yang Kai nodded. "Indeed. In that case, it seems we have no choice but to step in."
As he spoke, he pointed forward. "Get them!"
The team members were already prepared. The moment Yang Kai's words fell, the warship hummed with power as formation after formation activated, channeling the might of their artifacts. Beams of light lanced toward the fleeing Ink Clan.
The Ink Clan were stunned with terror. They had never expected a human warship to be lying in ambush ahead. Caught off guard, they suffered devastating casualties in an instant.
One volley shattered their formation, and the Daybreak surged into their midst like a bolt of lightning. Several Seventh-Grade Opening Heaven cultivators leaped from the ship, unleashing their divine abilities without restraint.
Several hundred Ink Clan was no small number, but before Dawn, it simply wasn't enough. Forget the team as a whole — Yang Kai alone could have dispatched them.
In barely the time it took to draw a few breaths, every last Ink Clan had fallen. Not one escaped.
Only then did a warship come rushing in from the direction the Ink Clan had been fleeing from.
This ship was quite different in style from the Daybreak. The Daybreak had undergone several major refits — the merits spent on it were mostly Yang Kai's, but Feng Ying had overseen the work. As a woman, she had her own aesthetic sensibilities, so the Daybreak as a whole looked rather elegant, with all manner of performance enhancements to match.
This incoming warship was something else entirely. At first glance it looked rough and bulky, the whole vessel resembling a mobile fortress. On its deck sat over a dozen artifacts of all shapes and sizes, every single one a fearsome killing tool.