Even from a distance, Ouyang Lie and his disciple could sense the abnormalities in the human army. The Ink Clan powerhouses inside the Great Pass had no reason not to notice.
In truth, they had spotted it even earlier than Ouyang Lie and his disciple.
A human army of sixty to seventy thousand had come bearing down on them in full force. On the surface, the Ink Clan hadn't seemed to take it all that seriously, but in reality, their conduct was extremely measured.
The Ink Clan hadn't marched out of the Pass to meet the enemy head-on. Instead, they were doing exactly what the human defenders of the Great Pass had done thirty thousand years ago—relying on the defensive advantages of the fortress and leveraging thirty millennia of fortifications to whittle down the human army's strength first.
So once the tens of thousands of human soldiers entered attack range, the Domain Lords issued their commands, and the arrays and Artifacts stationed along the walls began to unleash their power.
The grade of these arrays and Artifacts deployed on the walls was incomparable to those at any human stronghold—inferior in every respect. Their numbers were considerable enough, but their power was far weaker.
The reason was simple. The Ink Clan was sorely lacking in both artifact refiners and formation masters. Their primary source of such personnel was Ink Slaves who had been corrupted by the Ink. Over the past thirty thousand years, while quite a few Ink Clan members had devoted themselves to studying artifact refining and formation arts, whether due to the difference in their races or some other reason, they had never been able to perfectly master the human path of artifact refinement or the Dao of formations. They could never achieve any great accomplishments in these side disciplines.
As a result, the Artifacts they forged and the arrays they deployed were of a mediocre grade, and their power naturally couldn't be all that formidable.
However, with thirty thousand years of accumulation, their numbers were enormous.
Originally, according to the Domain Lords' estimates, leveraging the power of the arrays and Artifacts might be able to inflict some casualties on the human army, though the toll shouldn't be too heavy—humans weren't fools, and they would naturally know to mount a defense when attacked.
Most importantly, it would serve to crush the humans' arrogant spirit.
But when the battle truly began, the power of those arrays and Artifacts produced results that stunned every last member of the Ink Clan.
Under waves of radiance, the humans fell like stalks of straw, their bodies obliterated, leaving not even remains to bury.
This outcome left the Domain Lords both astonished and delighted. Though they had no idea why the humans were so feeble, it was exactly the kind of situation they wanted to see.
Yet as the human army's numbers dwindled sharply, the situation on the field took on an eerie quality.
Facing the Ink Clan's overwhelming onslaught, the human army showed no intention of fighting back. They didn't even bother to defend themselves. No matter how many fell, the rest simply charged forward with their heads down, as if the word "death" meant nothing to them.
What concerned the Domain Lords even more was that after these humans fell, they displayed none of the signs that should have been present.
And where were the human warships?
In every theater of war, humanity's greatest asset besides their fortresses was their warships, which served both offensive and defensive roles.
Though the Great Pass had seen no combat in over thirty thousand years, which Domain Lord among them hadn't led troops to reinforce the battles at the Azure Void Pass or the Wind and Cloud Pass? Every few hundred to a thousand years, they had clashed with the humans.
Every Domain Lord had experienced the might of human warships firsthand, and none had forgotten it.
Yet this army of tens of thousands of humans hadn't brought a single warship along. That was clearly abnormal.
From the moment the human army appeared within attack range, no more than half an hour had passed before the tens of thousands had been reduced to mere thousands.
Upon Hund's command, the arrays and Artifacts along the walls that had been humming continuously gradually fell silent.
The abnormalities were far too obvious for Hund to miss. The other Domain Lords had all noticed them as well.
Under the Domain Lords' watchful eyes, the remaining several thousand humans still marched straight toward the Great Pass. Before long, they had arrived just several hundred li from the fortress walls.
At this distance, the Domain Lords could already make out what was going on.
As Hund frowned, he reached out with his hand and grabbed toward the front. Several hundred li away, a human soldier was plucked through the air and brought before him.
Every Domain Lord's gaze converged on the figure, and their expressions all darkened.
The thing before them showed no signs of life whatsoever. It wasn't a human soldier at all—it was a puppet merely draped in a layer of clothing.
And this puppet was emanating the aura of a Sixth-Order Open Heaven cultivator!
It was easy to imagine that the entire human army of tens of thousands had been puppets like this one. It was only because their numbers were so vast that their combined aura was overwhelmingly strong, and the distance had been great enough that even the Domain Lords hadn't detected anything amiss.
They had actually believed the human army was genuinely attacking the Great Pass.
"What are the humans trying to do?" one Domain Lord asked, baffled.
The other Domain Lords were silent. No one knew the humans' intention behind this.
Hund spoke in a deep voice: "When something deviates from the norm, there must be a reason. Crafting tens of thousands of puppets is no easy task. The humans wouldn't do this without a purpose. This matter must be reported to the Sovereign Lord."
With that, he turned and departed with the puppet in tow, evidently heading off to report the matter to the Sovereign Lord.
Outside the Great Pass, in the hidden location of Ouyang Lie and his disciple.
Gong Lian frowned. "Master, the entire human army of tens of thousands has been annihilated."
This news alone was enough to crush one's spirits, yet at this point, Ouyang Lie had actually grown more composed. He had already sensed that something was wrong.