The area around the Old Turtle Team's warship instantly cleared.
The Ink Clan members that had been shunted aside weren't killed or injured. After a brief moment of hesitation, they once again surged toward the Old Turtle Team — but the Old Turtle Team had no interest in entertaining them.
The enormous warship wheeled around and charged straight toward the floating landmass, smashing every Ink Clan member that tried to block its path into pulp.
In the blink of an eye, the Old Turtle Team's warship swept past Dawn and Water Snake Team's positions, coming to a stop at a point quite close to the floating landmass.
Chai Fang's burly figure stood rigidly at the bow, his hands weaving seals in rapid succession, his expression grim, the vast power of Heaven and Earth surging wildly within him.
Moving in concert with him were the entire Old Turtle Team — fifty members each at their assigned stations, each performing their role, seals shifting ceaselessly.
"Eight Turtles, Eight Mysteries — Open!"
"Heaven and Earth, Boundless — Open!"
"Immovable as a Mountain, Knowing as Yin and Yang — Open!"
With each thunderous shout from Chai Fang, layer after layer of luminous halos rippled outward from the Old Turtle Team's warship. Each halo was as solid as substance, forming a circle that not only enveloped the warship but wrapped in its entirety the floating landmass beneath it.
Atop the Old Turtle Team's warship, the turtle-shell-like apparatus suddenly expanded, transforming into an enormous protective barrier that stretched across the floating landmass, blotting out the sky and earth.
In mere moments, the Old Turtle Team had single-handedly erected layer upon layer of unbreakable defensive barriers over the floating landmass.
Among Biluo Pass's five elite small teams, each had its own specialty. The Old Turtle Team was the most defense-oriented, and its protection wasn't limited to itself alone — by sacrificing offensive capability, it could generate a vast protected zone.
On battlefields throughout the years, many a human small team had escaped death's door by sheltering beneath the Old Turtle Team's umbrella. In terms of popularity, only Dawn ranked above the Old Turtle Team in all of Biluo Pass, because fighting alongside them was the safest option there was.
What the Old Turtle Team displayed now was its full defensive configuration. To achieve this, the entire warship had completely sacrificed its mobility and offensive capability — in other words, the Old Turtle Team had become nothing more than a target.
But that was more than enough. The Old Turtle Team's defensive state was Yang Kai and the others' greatest assurance for protecting Xiang Shan. The protection of one Old Turtle Team alone was more solid and reliable than Dawn and Water Snake Team combined.
Yang Kai and the others had originally intended for the Old Turtle Team to handle defense exclusively, but Chai Fang wouldn't have it. When was there ever a rare chance to kill enemies, who would want to stand idly in the back watching? That was why the rotation guard system had been in place.
However, the battle had developed to a point where Dawn and Water Snake Team alone could no longer guarantee Xiang Shan's safety. The only option was to deploy the Old Turtle Team's turtle shell.
Let the Ink Clan gnaw away. Against a turtle shell like this, even the sharpest teeth would shatter.
On the other side, seeing that the Old Turtle Team had raised its defenses, Dawn and Water Snake Team's two warships charged out without any concerns for their rear. They first scoured the Ink Clan from the perimeter of the floating landmass, then plunged into the void battlefield, leaving nothing but carnage in their wake.
In terms of defense, the Old Turtle Team was second to none — the other four small teams couldn't hope to compare. But in terms of killing enemies, the Old Turtle Team was by far the least efficient.
Now that offense and defense had been swapped, not only were they secure on defense, but the speed at which they slaughtered enemies had surged dramatically.
The eighty-thousand-strong Ink Clan army was mostly cannon fodder. In the earlier fighting, more than half had already perished. Now, with Dawn and Water Snake Team joining the fray, the Ink Clan's casualties skyrocketed.
In the distance, the Domain Masters Wujiang and Honghu wore grim expressions.
They had known all along that relying on those ragtag forces would be unlikely to do anything to these five elite human small teams, but the course of developments had still exceeded their expectations. The performance of these five elite human small teams was simply too astonishing.
The two Domain Masters silently congratulated themselves — it was fortunate that all of Biluo Pass possessed only these five elite small teams. If every human squad were this difficult to deal with, the ordinary Ink Clan would have no room to survive at all.
Though they hadn't achieved their predetermined objective, from the current trajectory of the battle, the two Domain Masters had managed to draw certain conclusions.
It truly seemed as though no human Eighth-Order was lying in ambush here. Otherwise, they couldn't have remained passive all this time — there had been several moments when the humans' situation had grown quite dire. Though each had been resolved in time, that was more a matter of luck than anything else.
The two Domain Masters had their judgments, but they had been exercising patience all along, waiting for the intelligence that the front line would send back. Only the news from the front line would serve as the beacon guiding their actions.
Judging by the timing, it should be just about now.
Sure enough, a little over half a day later — just as the Ink Clan forces they had rallied were on the verge of being wiped out entirely — a Lord hurried over to their side and reported: "Every single Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivator garrisoned at the human forward camp has been accounted for. Not one is missing!"
Wujiang's eyebrows shot up. "Good!"
Over decades of standoff, the Eighth-Order cultivators and the Domain Masters had clashed on occasion. Though the encounters had been few, each side had thoroughly probed the other's strengths. The human Eighth-Order cultivators had now split into two groups — one garrisoned at the forward camp, making up roughly eighty percent, while the other had remained entirely unseen. The Ink Clan had deduced that the missing Eighth-Order cultivators were likely held in reserve at Biluo Pass.