By the time Yang Kai hurried back from the depths of the void, what he saw before him left him dumbstruck.
He had previously been sent flying by a single hammer blow from Hong Hu, his blood and energy churning wildly as he drifted who knew how many tens of thousands of miles away. Even with his Dragon Vein physique, he had been gravely injured in an instant.
Once he had stabilized himself, he had immediately rushed back, never expecting to witness such a scene.
Five Eighth-Order cultivators led by Ding Yao appeared to have formed some kind of unknown formation, trapping Hong Hu within it. No matter how Hong Hu struggled, he could not break free of the formation's restraint. Ding Yao and the others remained like maggots burrowed into bone, maintaining a fixed distance from him at all times.
On the other side, Wujiang was actually being besieged by four Eighth-Order cultivators as well. The battle here was far more intense than the one involving Hong Hu — it shook the heavens and split the earth, the void itself quaking violently.
Yang Kai even caught sight of Xiang Shan among them, though at this moment, he was already an Eighth-Order cultivator.
How long had it even been? From the moment Yang Kai was sent flying to his return — roughly ten breaths at most. How had the situation changed so drastically? Fortunately, the changes were entirely favorable to their side, and Yang Kai's taut nerves finally relaxed.
He glanced around and flickered onto the Old Turtle Team's warship, standing shoulder to shoulder with Chai Fang.
The Old Turtle Team's warship was in poor condition. The entire vessel was battered and torn, its various formations clearly in shambles. Even the turtle-shell Artifact mounted atop the warship was riddled with cracks. After this battle, the warship would need an extensive overhaul before it could return to the field.
Chai Fang and the others' auras were somewhat listless, clearly bearing injuries of varying severity.
"Is this the elders' arrangement?" Yang Kai asked with a frown.
Though he didn't know why the situation had suddenly shifted so dramatically, given what he was seeing, Yang Kai had his suspicions.
"It must be." Chai Fang nodded, his tone bitter. "They kept every last one of us in the dark about it."
"How did they get here?" Yang Kai asked again.
Chai Fang silently pointed downward.
Yang Kai looked down and only then noticed the Purge Warship left behind on the floating continent, and understanding dawned on him immediately.
But who would have thought a Purge Warship could be used like this?
The Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivators' ideas truly were wildly imaginative.
Though he didn't know whose idea it was, the Purge Warship had clearly been stored inside Xiang Shan's Small Universe in advance. At the critical moment, he had deployed it, allowing Ding Yao and the others who had been garrisoned at Biluo Pass to use the Universe Grand Formation within the warship to teleport to this location instantly and join the fight.
Though this location was extremely far from Biluo Pass, the formidable cultivation of the Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivators was sufficient to ensure their safety during such a long-range teleportation.
That wouldn't have been possible for Seventh-Order cultivators. If they had tried to teleport all the way from Biluo Pass, there was a real risk of their bodies hurtling through the sky as lifeless corpses.
On the two battlefields — one a five-versus-one, the other four-versus-one — the humans held an overwhelming advantage in both. It was easy to imagine that neither Hong Hu nor Wujiang, the two Domain Lords, would escape alive this time.
However, watching the actions of Ding Yao and the others, it didn't appear that they intended to kill Hong Hu. On the contrary, on Wujiang's side, Lu An and the others were launching nothing but lethal strikes, leaving Wujiang overwhelmed and in desperate straits.
Judging by the formation Ding Yao and the others had assembled and their apparent intentions, they seemed to want to capture Hong Hu alive.
At this, Yang Kai immediately thought of the Ink Clan Lord imprisoned in the underground chamber of the forward camp, and the image of the Troublemaster involuntarily popped into his mind. Understanding dawned.
Capturing a Lord alive was not difficult — any single Eighth-Order cultivator could manage it.
But Yang Kai had never heard of a Domain Lord of the Ink Clan being captured alive before. After all, once one's strength reached the Domain Lord level, only an Eighth-Order cultivator could stand against them.
That there was no precedent did not mean the humans were incapable of it.
It was simply that Biluo Pass had never before had the means. A Domain Lord's body was saturated with such dense Ink Force that even Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivators risked having their Small Universes corroded after prolonged exposure. What would be the point of capturing one? It would be an exhausting effort with no practical benefit, all while requiring constant vigilance.
Relatively speaking, defeating a Domain Lord was the easiest, killing one came next, and capturing one alive was the most difficult.
But now things were different. The humans had developed means to counter the corrosive effects of Ink Force. Moreover, the Troublemaster's research on the Evil-Slaying Divine Spear had made tremendous progress. Experiments on a Lord were clearly no longer sufficient to satisfy the Troublemaster's needs — he required a Domain Lord for deeper experimentation to improve the forging of the Evil-Slaying Divine Spear.
Hong Hu, targeted by Ding Yao and the others, was likely the objective of this operation. As for Wujiang, they would simply have to kill him. A Domain Lord's life force was tenacious — one was sufficient, there was no need to bring back two.
Members of several elite squads returned one after another, their respective warships arriving alongside them. Even the Clear Wind Team had recovered their severely damaged warship.
Earlier, the Clear Wind Team's warship had been sent flying by a single strike from Hong Hu, suffering severe damage. The status of their crew was unknown, and their captain, Wan Zhengxin, had been extremely worried. However, he had been locked in combat with Wujiang at the time and had no opportunity to check on his team members.