The collision between the two great armies was fierce, yet both sides showed remarkable restraint. Neither ventured to act rashly, for this was the vast expanse of the void—there was no terrain to shelter behind, whether for the humans or the Ink Clan.
If either side grew too aggressive and the tide of battle turned against them, it could easily lead to a complete collapse of the entire battlefield, resulting in devastating casualties.
Thus, if viewed from a great height above, the scene unfolding between the two armies was deceptively simple: thirty thousand human warriors and over four hundred thousand Ink Clan troops clashed like two rivers of vastly different size, colliding in the void, pulling back, colliding again, and pulling back once more.
Each collision was when killing techniques flew and secret arts rained down without mercy. Each retreat was when both sides regrouped and reorganized their ranks.
The human leadership had never harbored the delusion that they could crush the enemy in a single head-on engagement. Their only option was to adopt this approach—wearing down the Ink Clan's forces through repeated brief clashes, gradually seizing the advantage.
What Mi Jinglun and Ouyang Lie had not anticipated was that the one commanding the Ink Clan army shared precisely the same mindset.
The two commanders' thinking was so strikingly aligned that Mi Jinglun and Ouyang Lie found themselves almost grudgingly impressed with the Domain Lord leading the enemy forces.
The one directing the Ink Clan's army in this manner was none other than Zhe Chong.
This particular Domain Lord possessed decent strength, a sufficiently cautious temperament, and—above all—enough cowardice to survive. Had he lacked these qualities, he would never have made the split-second decision to flee when the human army had ambushed them outside Fengyun Pass, and he would not have escaped with his life.
Though he served as a Domain Lord in the Dayan War Theater, over the past thirty thousand years he had led reinforcement convoys to Fengyun Pass or Qingxu Pass dozens of times. Every single time, the forces he brought were shattered in battle, and those who returned alive could be counted on one hand.
Yet it was precisely this extensive combat experience against the human armies that enabled him to devise the most effective strategy at this critical juncture.
The earlier decision to have the Ink Clan troops condense Ink Clouds to conceal their forms when the Northern and Southern armies launched their surprise attack—that had also been his doing.
Had any other Domain Lord been in command, the sight of the approaching human army would have prompted an overwhelming charge in nine cases out of ten.
It had to be said that his strategies, while undeniably cowardly in appearance, left the human side feeling profoundly frustrated.
The kind of Ink Clan army that Mi Jinglun and Ouyang Lie had hoped to face was the mindless sort—the type that relied solely on numerical superiority and attempted to decide everything in one decisive clash.
They had never expected to encounter one who actually used his head.
This was a rare thing indeed. In all their years fighting the Ink Clan, this was the first time they had come across an Ink Clan commander like this.
The converging rivers of troops clashed again and again, and with each collision, the breath of life withered away—though it was always the Ink Clan that fell.
As long as the human warships held, there was virtually no risk. But should a warship be breached, every member of that squad could find themselves in mortal danger.
After a dozen or so such exchanges, the battlefield gradually descended into chaos.
The source of this chaos was not the humans.
Though the human army numbered thirty thousand, their ironclad discipline and strict adherence to orders on the battlefield meant that commands from their superiors were executed with meticulous precision.
The Ink Clan was a different matter entirely.
Hundreds of thousands of Ink Clan troops were, in name, under Zhe Chong's command. In reality, however, they were nothing more than a patchwork of a dozen or so Domain Lords' personal forces stitched together.
Each Domain Lord had his own ideas about how things should be done.
As they watched the Ink Clan suffer defeat after defeat in the repeated clashes while the humans appeared to have lost not a single man, fury boiled up in the hearts of the many Domain Lords, and their actions grew increasingly reckless.
This recklessness brought even greater losses and casualties upon the Ink Clan.
That only inflamed their rage further, and in the end, they took matters into their own hands and entered the fray personally.
How could the Eighth-Order Open Heaven masters tolerate such arrogance? When the Domain Lords had stayed out of the fighting, the Eighth-Order cultivators had been content to observe. But the moment the Domain Lords made their move, the Eighth-Order masters stepped forward to intercept them.
Thus, one hour after the two armies first collided, the battle suddenly erupted in ferocity. Across the entire battlefield, the shockwaves of clashes between Domain Lords and Eighth-Order masters could be seen everywhere.
On the Demon-Expelling Warship, Ouyang Lie spoke a single sentence: "I'm heading out. I'll leave things here to you, Brother Mi."
Mi Jinglun gave a slight nod. Ouyang Lie took one step forward and instantly appeared before a Domain Lord hundreds of thousands of miles away. He unleashed a devastating punch, and the Domain Lord, caught completely off guard, was sent flying through the void.
However, the Domain Lord was still a Domain Lord after all. Though Ouyang Lie's surprise attack left him momentarily dazed, he quickly regained his footing and engaged Ouyang Lie in close combat.
In the fierce battle, Ouyang Lie found himself constrained and hesitant, while the Domain Lord fought without the slightest restraint.
The reason was simple: surrounding their location were not only numerous Ink Clan troops but also a fair number of humans. The Domain Lord could fight without a shred of concern for Ink Clan casualties, striking with ruthless abandon. Ouyang Lie, however, could not disregard the lives of the human soldiers.
Thus, even though his ambush had given him the upper hand initially, he had no effective way to put the Domain Lord down.
Ouyang Lie was far from alone in this predicament. Most of the other Eighth-Order Open Heaven masters faced the same constraint. The despicable tactics of the Ink Clan Domain Lords left the human Eighth-Order fighters unable to fight with full force.
The central army's Demon-Expelling Warship hovered in the void, a full million miles from the battlefield.
This position was neither too close nor too far. If an Ink Clan Domain Lord decided to launch a surprise assault, they could arrive in mere moments—yet standing here, Mi Jinglun had a clear vantage from which to oversee the entire battlefield.