Mi Jinglun gently closed his eyes, his heart clenched as though pierced by a blade!
When he opened them again, the vast power of heaven and earth surged around his body. He stamped lightly beneath his feet, commanding the massive Ink-Expulsion Warship to charge straight into the battlefield.
There was no longer any need for him to stand apart from the fray, orchestrating strategy from the rear. The Great Evolution Northern and Southern Armies possessed soldiers who did not fear death, and Eighth-Order Open Heavens who led the charge in person. With such men, why should victory be in doubt?
He, too, would leave his mark on this battle. As an Eighth-Order Open Heaven, he was not merely a strategist and commander—he was also a fierce warrior who could storm the front lines!
From the moment the battle erupted, the Ink Clan's army had been thrown into chaos. No one had anticipated that the humans would be so resolute this time. Less than a dozen breaths after fighting broke out, a Domain Lord had already been slain by a human Eighth-Order under the sword.
That was a Domain Lord, not some low-ranking Ink being or common fodder.
Killed that quickly?
Though the human Eighth-Order had soon perished on the spot, before his death he had still taken thousands upon thousands of Ink Clan lives with him.
One powerful Domain Lord and Eighth-Order Ink Apostle after another fell in battle. The intensity and savagery of this clash exceeded even the Ink Clan's imagination.
It exceeded the humans' imagination as well.
Never before had the human race suffered such devastating losses in a single battle.
Even more than a century ago, when the Northern and Southern Armies first arrived in the Great Evolution Theater and intercepted the Ink Clan army pouring out of Great Evolution, the toll had not been this severe.
In that battle, though Eighth-Order Open Heavens had fallen and perished, only a handful had been lost, and they had died gradually over the course of many days of fighting.
This time was different. From the start of the battle to now, barely an hour had passed, and seven Eighth-Order Open Heavens had already been killed. If the fighting continued, that number would only climb higher.
The fall of seven Eighth-Order Open Heavens had claimed at least seven Domain Lords and three Eighth-Order Ink Apostles in exchange, along with tens of thousands of Ink Clan soldiers!
Those who had perished on the battlefield were the seniors and mentors of the soldiers still fighting—men who had cared for them, guided them, and taught them well in times past.
Now that their elders had fallen, it was time for those who came after to shoulder the burden!
The soldiers fought with bloodshot eyes. The continuous fall of Eighth-Order Open Heavens had shifted the momentum of the entire battle. Every human began fighting desperately, regardless of their cultivation level or rank.
Twenty-odd thousand humans against nearly four hundred thousand Ink Clan troops—a staggering disparity in numbers. Yet, by drawing on the momentum paved with the lives of their Eighth-Order Open Heavens, by drawing on the collective resolve of soldiers united as one, they drove the Ink Clan back step by step.
The sounds of Domain Lords and Eighth-Order auras falling in death still echoed from various points across the battlefield.
Warships were blasted to smithereens, erupting into balls of fire.
Floating continents shattered. The battlefield descended into chaos.
The army of several hundred thousand Ink Clan soldiers had initially entered this region of floating continents in relatively orderly formation. But once the Eighth-Order Open Heavens leaped out and unleashed their devastating strikes, the formations began to crumble.
Until, at some point, they dissolved into complete bedlam.
Zhe Chun fell!
Domain Lord Zhe Chun had served as the commander of this Ink Clan army. While he lived, the other Domain Lords had obeyed his orders. But with him gone, which Domain Lord would defer to another?
Every Domain Lord had his own ideas, especially under these circumstances. Those human Eighth-Order Open Heavens each had eyes glowing green with killing intent, their powerful auras locked firmly onto the Domain Lords, giving every impression that they might charge over at any moment to drag one of them down to mutual destruction.
This was no joke. The humans had already proven their resolve and daring in the scenes that came before.
The Domain Lords, chilled to the bone under those staring gazes, had no choice but to command their subordinate forces to establish tight defensive perimeters around themselves, lest a human Eighth-Order truly come seeking them out.
As defensive forces increased, the forces available for attack naturally diminished.
On the battlefield, human warships swept back and forth, unleashing the power of secret techniques and Artifacts time and again, reaping victories with every strike.
The Ink Clan's numbers dwindled rapidly, and so did the humans'.
Both sides paid an enormous, almost unbearable price in this battle.
The fighting lasted three full days.
Three days later, the clamor of the battlefield gradually subsided. The two armies each regrouped, facing one another across a distance of mere hundreds of thousands of li in the void.
The floating continent region that had once existed was almost entirely gone. The two armies had clashed across this terrain, and every floating continent had been shattered to pieces—less than a tenth of them remained.
Against the backdrop of that shattered terrain, with the central army's Ink-Expulsion Warship at the lead, the surviving human warships arranged themselves into a defensive line. Many of those warships were wreathed in flames, their formations crackling and booming. Some looked battered and dilapidated, as though a single touch would send them falling apart.
Yet this ragged collection of warships, gathered together, exuded an overwhelming aura—as though a single man could hold the pass against ten thousand!
Hundreds of thousands of li away, the Domain Lords gathered their subordinate forces into a single mass as well.
They still held an enormous advantage in numbers, but compared to the formidable presence of the human forces, the Ink Clan army was now shrouded in boundless dread and terror.
In this battle, the Ink Clan had truly been beaten into fear. They had gained a visceral understanding of what human madness and death-defying courage looked like.
When even the precious Eighth-Order Open Heavens could trade their own lives to drag Domain Lords down to mutual destruction, what was there that the humans would not do?
These humans were all madmen!
The Domain Lords who had survived had not done so because they were stronger than those who had fallen. They had simply been lucky—they had not been the ones targeted by those desperate, suicidal human Eighth-Order Open Heavens.