Shen Tu Mo replied, "Yes and no…"
Yang Kai was left baffled.
Shen Tu Mo mused for a moment, seemingly considering how best to explain the matter to Yang Kai, since laying it all out clearly would take some effort.
After a long pause, he finally spoke. "You've been in the Ink Battlefield for two or three hundred years now. That isn't long, but you already have experiences that many warriors who've fought the Ink Clan here for thousands of years have never had. You've even ventured to places that no Eighth-Order has ever set foot. Have you ever wondered why the Ink Battlefield is so vast? Why it stretches to such an incomprehensible size?"
Yang Kai thought to himself, *Why would I wonder about that? And even if I did, what answer could I come up with?*
But now that Shen Tu Mo had brought it up, it did pique his interest. Indeed — why was the Ink Battlefield so impossibly vast? Any great domain in the Three Thousand Worlds could be called boundless, yet compared to the Ink Battlefield, there was simply no comparison.
The Ink Battlefield's enormity had already surpassed the scale of any single domain. It seemed limitless.
"The Corps Commander means…" Yang Kai hesitated, looking at him.
Shen Tu Mo sighed. "According to certain fragmentary historical records, in the earliest days when the worlds were first born, the Ink Battlefield also consisted of many separate great domains. Each domain flourished with life, and between them stood domain barriers, connected by domain gates — much the same as the Three Thousand Worlds today. But the birth of the Ink Clan changed everything. The Ink Clan arose from some unknown place, and their innate corrosiveness and peculiar method of reproduction made it easy for them to become the rulers of domain after domain."
"Whenever the Ink Clan fully conquered a great domain, that domain would begin to decay. The domain barrier would collapse, and adjacent domains would begin to merge, growing in size like a snowball rolling downhill, growing ever larger. That is why the Ink Battlefield became so impossibly vast."
Yang Kai frowned. "In other words, the Ink Battlefield as it exists today was formed by the merger of countless different domains?"
"That's right." Shen Tu Mo nodded.
It was the first time Yang Kai had ever heard such an explanation, and it was quite a novel one.
Yang Kai asked, "My Lord, why would the domain barrier collapse once the Ink Clan fully conquers a domain? And how would one even determine whether the Ink Clan has completely conquered a domain?"
Shen Tu Mo shook his head. "I don't know that either. Everything I've told you comes from very ancient texts, and what they record is far from complete. No one has been able to verify whether any of it is true. Still, it does explain why the Ink Battlefield's territory is so vast."
"Then where did the Ink Clan originate in the first place? Ordinary Ink Clan are born from Ink Nests, and the nests are graded by rank — a lower-level Ink Nest is a child nest of a higher-level one. Tracing that chain upward, whose child nest is a Domain Lord-level Ink Nest?"
This question had puzzled Yang Kai for a long time, but he had never received an answer. Ever since learning the secret of the Ink Nests, he had always suspected that they must have some ultimate origin.
Seizing the opportunity, Yang Kai eagerly sought an explanation from Shen Tu Mo, hoping for a definitive answer.
But Shen Tu Mo shook his head. "I don't know. Before you uncovered the secret of the Ink Nests, we humans didn't even fully understand the relationships between the nests."
Yang Kai couldn't help but feel a twinge of disappointment. Then a thought struck him, and he asked with some puzzlement, "My Lord, why have you suddenly brought all of this up?"
Just moments ago, they had been discussing his speculations about troop movements within the Pass. How had the conversation veered so abruptly in this direction?
Shen Tu Mo said, "The reason I'm telling you all of this is that a plan is about to be set in motion within the Pass. This plan concerns not only Biluogate but every human Pass across the battlefield."
Yang Kai's eyes lit up. "The expedition is about to begin?"
Ding Yao, who had been silent until now, spoke up. "It's related to that, yes. But before the expedition can happen, this must be accomplished! Just listen — you don't need to ask questions."
Yang Kai promptly shut his mouth.
Shen Tu Mo picked up where he left off. "In the ancient era, the Ink Clan rampaged without restraint, and domain after domain fell. It was then that mighty human figures, united against the enemy, established one hundred and eight Passes here in the Ink Battlefield to resist the Ink Clan. That effort has blessed their descendants down to the present day. Without those one hundred and eight Passes, the Three Thousand Worlds would have long since become the Ink Clan's territory, and neither you nor I would exist."
"One hundred and eight Passes, each fighting independently yet in truth closely linked as one, forming a solid defensive line."
As he spoke, he suddenly extended his hand and drew a shape in the air before him. Pure power of heaven and earth condensed into substance, forming a luminous glow.
Under his control, the light resolved into two distinctly separate regions — one white, one black. He pointed to the white area. "This is the Three Thousand Worlds."