Two Human Eighth-Order cultivators were intercepted mid-journey by Mo Chi and Zhong Ning, and a fierce battle erupted between them.
On another front, outside the floating continent where Xiang Shan was undergoing his advancement, the fighting raged with equal ferocity.
The Wild Boar Squad, the Water Snake Squad, and the Old Turtle Squad — three elite squads — swept back and forth through the void, slaughtering the Ink Clan forces so thoroughly they could barely fight back.
Since the founding of the Outpost Camp, decades had passed. In all that time, every human squad had been carrying out hunting patrols, but never once had they experienced killing as satisfying as today's.
Ink Clan reinforcements and harassment streamed in endlessly, as if they would never stop. Ink Clansmen trickled in from every direction, constantly charging toward the floating continent where Xiang Shan was advancing, clearly determined to disrupt his breakthrough at any cost.
The vast majority of the Ink Clan forces were intercepted by the three elite squads. The occasional straggler that slipped through couldn't escape the ambushes laid by Chenxi and Qingfeng, who had been lying in wait.
In the beginning, the number of Ink Clansmen drawn by the aura of Xiang Shan's advancement wasn't all that large. With the five elite squads working together, they could handle everything quite handily.
But as time wore on, more and more Ink Clansmen were attracted to the area. Yang Kai and the others gradually began to feel the pressure, though it remained manageable.
To prevent any one squad from burning through its strength too quickly, Yang Kai held a brief discussion with the other four squad leaders and decided on a rotation system.
At all times, two squads would guard the perimeter of the floating continent, keeping the Ink Clan at bay, while the other three devoted themselves to slaying the enemy.
No one knew how long this situation would last — it could be quick, it could be drawn out. Everything depended on how Xiang Shan's advancement progressed. Not a single person entertained the thought of retreating. Xiang Shan was attempting this breakthrough alone; if they withdrew, his end would be a tragedy.
Though the fighting was intense enough, compared to the full-scale clashes at the Outpost Camp, it was still little more than a skirmish.
For decades, the human great army and the Ink Clan great army had maintained a tense standoff across millions of kilometers of void at the Outpost Camp. The humans had no intention of pressing the attack, and the Ink Clan didn't dare provoke them. Both sides simply dispatched squad after squad to hunt each other across the void.
This equilibrium had held for decades, with losses on both sides.
But today, under the Ink Clan army's sudden, undeclared assault, the balance shattered.
The void between the Outpost Camp and the Ink Clan army's temporary encampment was instantly filled with the silhouettes of warriors from both races. Vast armies clashed without respite, and with every passing moment, life forces withered and died — severed limbs and shredded flesh sprayed across the void.
Human warships streaked back and forth, while Seventh-Order Open Heaven cultivators fought valiantly alongside their respective squad vessels.
The many Eighth-Order cultivators, meanwhile, had carved out their own battlefields, matching up against Domain Lord after Domain Lord.
The Outpost Camp was no match for the Biluogate headquarters. The entirety of Biluogate itself was a colossal palace-grade Artifact, expanded bit by bit over countless millennia by human warriors. Relying on Biluogate's natural defenses and its myriad protective and offensive formation arrays, the humans' defensive efforts achieved twice the results with half the effort.
This was one of the cornerstones of humanity's resistance against the Ink Clan.
The Outpost Camp had no such advantages. Though the Biluogate garrison had spent decades setting up all manner of measures here, they couldn't compare to even a fraction of what the headquarters possessed.
Under normal circumstances, it would be unable to withstand the Ink Clan army's assault.
However, decades ago, the Ink Clan army had suffered devastating losses and been severely weakened. On top of that, years of hunting by human squads had whittled their numbers down considerably. So the Ink Clan forces facing the Outpost Camp today weren't nearly as formidable as before.
Hundreds of thousands of Ink Clansmen might sound like a lot, but their caliber couldn't hold a candle to what they'd once been. The number of Domain Lords alone had dropped by nearly a third, and the proportion of Lords was far smaller than in previous years. Aside from the cannon fodder that made up more than half their ranks, most of the Ink Clansmen were low-ranking or mid-ranking fighters — not remotely threatening.
As a result, the garrison at the Outpost Camp held not just parity but an outright advantage in their engagement against the Ink Clan army.
Decades of preparation had allowed the humans to stockpile enough Ink Expulsion Pills to sustain a major battle, and they had far more Artifact Refiners than before.
Damaged warships returned from the front lines one after another, and the prepared Artifact Refiners swarmed in — those that could be repaired were patched up quickly, and those too far gone were simply replaced with fresh vessels drawn from reserve.
Having learned their lesson from the last expedition, the Outpost Camp had multiplied its logistical and material support severalfold.
The stockpiling of Ink Expulsion Pills and the forging of warships were the top priorities.
During one gathering of Eighth-Order cultivators, the majority had voted in favor of a proposal: Biluogate would mass-produce squad-level warships once more, with the goal of ensuring every squad had at least one backup vessel. Only this way could they guarantee sustained combat capability in a prolonged engagement and avoid a repeat of the last expedition, where some squads had their warships damaged beyond repair and lost their fighting ability.
Two hundred years ago, Biluogate would never have had the means.
Every warship required vast quantities of resources to build, and old Biluogate simply lacked that foundation. But now things were different. Resources were no longer a bottleneck for Biluogate's development. Setting aside the enormous haul they'd gained through the Void Yin-Yang Mirror, victory in this battle would grant them permanent control over vast swaths of Ink Clan territory — and extracting resources from that territory would be easy enough. The void was home to countless dead and silent Universes, harboring inexhaustible riches.
A battle between two great armies was never something that could be decided in a short time. It was bound to drag on for days.
Several days later, outside the floating continent where Xiang Shan was advancing, two warships held formation in a pincer arrangement. More than a dozen Seventh-Order cultivators were deployed at various positions, sealing the perimeter of the continent so tightly that nothing could get through.