Watching the despicable behavior of the human army, the numerous Ink Clan Domain Lords were all furious.
They couldn't help but wonder whether the decision to focus entirely on defending outside the Royal City—to hold it at all costs—had been the wrong call.
An Ink Clan that could only defend was like a fierce beast shorn of its claws and fangs, posing virtually no threat to humanity. Even when the humans planted their base right on the Ink Clan's doorstep, they couldn't do a single thing about it.
If only they could launch counterattacks, how could the humans come and go so brazenly?
Yet this thought merely flickered through the minds of some Domain Lords—they didn't dare voice it. After all, holding the Royal City at all costs was the order the Monarch had given before entering slumber.
The only thing that gave the Domain Lords some comfort was that this human assault hadn't disrupted the Monarch's recovery.
Though this time, several more Universe Worlds had attacked from the right side of the Royal City than before, under the Ink Clan army's reckless defense at any cost, every last one had been destroyed and intercepted midway.
Not a single one caused any disruption to the Royal City.
But the price paid was heavier casualties than last time.
This was unavoidable—compared to disturbing the Monarch's recovery, the Domain Lords would rather suffer greater losses.
However, after experiencing this twice, the Ink Clan had seen through the humans' plan.
Using those Universe Worlds, the humans could inflict losses on the Ink Clan without spending a single soldier. In two attacks spanning several years, the Ink Clan army had been reduced by a hundred thousand.
If this pattern continued, the Ink Clan's million-strong army would likely be whittled down to nothing. And then what would they have left to resist the human army's assault? Those Domain Lords and Eighth-Order Ink Disciples?
Though they were powerful, the humans also had Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivators, and their numbers were no less impressive.
The longer things dragged on, the worse it would be for the Ink Clan.
All they could hope for now was the Monarch, still recovering from his injuries. They could only pray that his condition would improve before the human ancestor's, allowing them to turn the tide. Of course, if the Ink Clan at Dayan Pass could send reinforcements, that would be even better—they could then pincer the human army from both sides, leaving them with no way forward or back.
After the second attack on the Ink Clan's Royal City using Universe Worlds, the humans repeated this operation every few years.
But overall, the intervals grew longer and longer.
The gap between the second attack and the first had been only five years. Between the third and the second, seven years. By the fourth, it was a full ten years.
This change was simply unavoidable.
In the void, though Universe Worlds were countless, few were suitable for laying formations and attacking the Royal City. This sort of thing required a specific scale.
If the scale was too large, the formation's energy cost would be excessive. If it was too small, it probably wouldn't pose any real threat to the Ink Clan.
The right scale was the sole criterion by which the humans selected these Universe Worlds.
Finding suitable Universe Worlds took time, and extracting resources took time as well. Once the nearby worlds were exhausted, the humans naturally had to search farther out in the void.
That was why the intervals kept growing longer.
That said, the high command of the Eastern and Western Armies had consistently upheld this strategy without wavering. In the twenty-odd years since the armies had planted their base outside the Ink Clan's Royal City, they launched four successive assaults.
The Eastern and Western Armies hadn't lost a single man, because they had never engaged the Ink Clan head-on. Each time, at Xiang Shan's command, the grand fleet would take to the air, advance toward the Royal City, and then withdraw.
Yet the results they achieved were immensely rewarding.
The resource cost of the four Universe World raids was incalculable, but the casualties inflicted on the Ink Clan likely exceeded three hundred thousand, among them numerous Lords and Seventh-Order Ink Disciples.
Not a single Domain Lord or Eighth-Order Ink Disciple had died, but those tasked with defending against each Universe World raid had been driven to the point of total exhaustion.
Looking at the Ink Clan's Royal City now, the army defending outside still numbered in the millions—its size seemingly unchanged.
But its overall strength had weakened noticeably from the start.
The Ink Clan army first assembled outside the Royal City had been the elite forces under each Domain Lord's command. Those who filled the ranks after the fallen were, at best, low-level Ink Clan warriors of meager strength. These Ink Clan played a negligible role on the battlefield, though they served well enough to pad the numbers.
Outside, twenty or thirty years had passed in a flash. Within the Small Universe, spring gave way to winter as the seasons turned—over a hundred years had elapsed.
The small mountain village was still the same small mountain village, perhaps slightly larger than before, but only marginally so.
The hunters in the village lived by hunting, just as their ancestors had for generations. Old hunters passed their bows and arrows to the next generation before they passed on, and the cycle continued.
In the small courtyard, a family of three lived in warmth and contentment.
After more than a hundred years, the hunter couple had aged beyond recognition.
Both were now a hundred and fifty years old—an age that, for ordinary people who had never cultivated, was considered exceptionally long-lived.
Relatively speaking, the strong woman had aged even worse. Perhaps from shouldering too many worries in her youth, she no longer had that robust build. Though still tall, she appeared gaunt and bony, her complexion dull and her eyes clouded.
The hunter still had some vigor in him, though his hair had turned completely white.
The two old folk sat side by side in their chairs, basking in the midday sun, its warmth wrapping around them in comfort.