Five hundred thousand strong, the Ink Clan army encountered the relentless bombardment of formations and Artifacts once they entered a zone five million li from the floating continent. The attacks blanketed the sky like a furious tempest, unleashing their devastating power without restraint.
Under normal circumstances, such an assault would have been enough to force the Ink Clan army into retreat.
Not this time.
The Royal City was on the verge of falling, and every Domain Lord understood the gravity of the situation. No matter the cost, they had to reinforce the Royal City.
Domain Lord Zhechong led from the front, spearheading the charge alongside numerous other Domain Lords and eighth-grade Ink Disciples, pressing toward the human encampment while weathering the full brunt of the human army's attacks.
In a mere five million li, the Ink Clan left tens of thousands of dead in their wake—advancing over the corpses and blood of their own kin. The Domain Lords and eighth-grade Ink Clan fighters leading the charge all bore wounds of their own.
This time, the Ink Clan displayed a resilience and resolve beyond imagination. Under the ceaseless bombardment of human formations and Artifacts, not a single leading Domain Lord or Lord flinched. Even as their companions fell and perished one after another, nothing could halt their advance.
The Domain Lords knew these costs were unavoidable. As long as they could close the distance and engage the humans in close combat, the Ink Clan's numerical superiority would turn the tide.
Though their clashes over the years had been intermittent and far from intense, the Ink Clan had still managed to gauge the fundamental strength of the human forces.
The humans boasted an army of thirty thousand. That number may well have been accurate when they first arrived near Dayan Pass, but among them were several thousand artifact refiners, formation masters, alchemists, and other specialized personnel. Factor in the losses sustained over years of skirmishes, and the humans could now deploy roughly twenty thousand fighters at most.
The Ink Clan, meanwhile, had five hundred thousand soldiers, and their count of high-level combatants was not far short of the humans'.
Even with the advantage of warships, the humans could not hope to gain the upper hand.
Half a million soldiers, wading through the blood and corpses of their own kind, finally closed in on the human encampment. But when they set foot upon it, they were dumbstruck.
The floating continent that had been bustling with activity moments ago was now completely deserted. Across the vast landmass, not a single living soul could be found.
Worse still, many of the Artifacts that had been embedded in the formations as core nodes had been taken as well. All that remained were the formations themselves—too large and entrenched to be removed.
The Domain Lords extended their spiritual senses in every direction, but within their range of perception, there was not a trace of the human army.
Where had they gone?
The Domain Lords racked their brains but could not fathom how the humans had managed a complete evacuation in such a short time without leaving a single clue behind.
Even the eighth-grade Ink Disciples, who knew the humans extremely well, could offer no explanation.
After all, they had been corrupted by the Ink thirty thousand years ago. The Ink-Expelling Warship and the Heaven and Earth Formation had only come into existence after Yang Kai arrived at the Ink Battlefield. How could they possibly understand the intricacies of such things?
"Damn it!" one Domain Lord roared, slamming his foot into the ground. The violent release of power sent tremors across the entire floating continent.
"Don't—" Zhechong tried to stop him, but it was already too late.
A wave of dangerous energy suddenly shrouded the entire floating continent. In the next instant, the myriad formations still embedded across its surface flickered to life in unison, linking together into a vast, interlocking network.
In the span of mere moments, the entire floating continent was covered by a colossal formation array.
Countless Ink Clan figures streaked skyward in desperate escape as the floating continent detonated in a thunderous explosion. Violent energy swept outward in every direction, coating the Domain Lords in dust and debris.
When the aftershocks subsided, Zhechong surveyed the aftermath with a grim expression. Where the floating continent had once existed, there was nothing—reduced entirely to powder. And in that single catastrophic event, the Ink Clan forces that had set foot on the continent instantly lost over ten thousand lives.
Those were mostly lower-ranking Ink Clan warriors—upper-tier and lower-tier soldiers, mostly. The losses were not severe in the grand scheme of things, but they were infuriating all the same.
And he was grateful that the floating continent had not been large, and that, playing it safe, he had not allowed too many Ink Clan troops to step onto it. Otherwise, the casualties would have been far more than a mere ten thousand.
Zhechong turned to glare at the Domain Lord who had stamped his foot, which only made the latter flare up with humiliated fury. "I'll kill them all! I'll wipe every last one of them off the face of this world!"
Of the five hundred thousand Ink Clan soldiers who had set out from Dayan Pass, they had lost a full tenth in just half a day's march.
The remaining four hundred thousand and more knew full well that traps and ambushes likely awaited them ahead, but they had no choice but to press onward with gritted teeth.
Zhechong was no fool—otherwise he would not have made the snap decision to flee beyond Fengyun Pass that day. A fool of a Domain Lord was destined for a short life.
Over the years of clashing with the human Northern and Southern Armies, he had long since realized that there was a tactician among the enemy ranks—someone skilled in strategy and layout.
Against an opponent like that, no amount of caution was excessive.
Thus, after setting out again, the Ink Clan army did not march in a straight line. Instead, they wound and weaved in unpredictable patterns, and even Zhechong himself had no fixed direction. This way, he could ensure the army would not stumble into any traps the humans had prepared in advance.
Whenever they encountered floating continents or zones of Heaven and Earth fragments, the Ink Clan army gave them a wide berth, never setting foot within.