The Ink Nest space, which had lain calm for three long years, erupted into chaos the moment the last sparks of life from the two Eighth-Order Ink Disciples flickered and died.
Amid the soul shockwaves, the wailing of the three wounded Domain Lords and Yang Kai rose and fell without cease.
The three uninjured Domain Lords had all snapped to heightened alert. Not one of them dared let their guard slip again. Who knew whether this human could unleash a fourth attack like the ones before?
None of them could identify the Artifact he had used. Even the Domain Lords had no defense against it—one might say it struck with perfect certainty.
It was a long, long while before the Domain Lords managed to ease their vigilance slightly. The human truly seemed to lack the strength for another strike. His current state made that plain enough—his Spiritual Spirit appeared to be twisting and distorting under some catastrophic wound, its luster dimming, as if the Artifact had lost all its vitality.
Had it not been for the Warm Divine Lotus sheltering him, such damage would have sent his soul scattering into nothingness on the spot.
Only then did the three Domain Lords dare to check on the condition of their three injured comrades. After a brief examination, every brow furrowed deep.
Just as with the Domain Lords wounded before, the Artifact carried an ability to grind away at a soul's spiritual nature, and it was extraordinarily stubborn—impossible to expel in any short span of time.
The situation had become thorny beyond measure.
Hundi's face had grown so dark it looked ready to drip ink.
Six Domain Lords, four Eighth-Order Ink Disciples—a full ten strong laid ambush in this Ink Nest space—yet a single Seventh-Order Open Heaven human had run roughshod over them until only three remained standing and three lay wounded, with all four Ink Disciples already dead to the last.
Counting the four Domain Lords from before, the Ink Clan had already lost eleven elite fighters to this human Seventh-Order, whether dead or crippled.
Hundi simply could not fathom how things had spiraled into this state.
But now was no time to keep tangling with this human Seventh-Order. Ten of them had failed to put him down—what could the three remaining uninjured ones possibly do?
Wait for him to recover and then let him annihilate them to the last?
That would be too humiliating to bear.
The thought of retreat had already taken root in Hundi's mind. Setting everything else aside, he needed to get these three wounded Domain Lords back to the Ink Nest and into healing first. Losing a few Ink Disciples stung the Ink Clan, certainly, yet at this point, losing any more Domain Lords would cripple them to the bone.
But the human seemed to have seen through his intentions. No sooner had the thought surfaced than the wailing Yang Kai ground his teeth and sent a voice transmission: "Thinking of running? The moment you open this space, I'm gone—first thing!"
The single remark left Hundi's stomach in a knot, wretched beyond description.
Another Domain Lord snarled, "Insolent human, know your place! You're nothing but a Seventh-Order—surviving until now is already a stroke of miraculous luck. How much longer do you think you can hold on?"
Yang Kai let out a harsh, savage laugh. "Probably not much longer, but I reckon I can outlast those three wounded ones. Care to bet on it?"
The Domain Lord snorted coldly and said nothing more.
In truth, the Domain Lords now faced only two paths. The first was to abandon their three injured comrades and continue grinding Yang Kai down.
Three years had already passed. No matter how resilient this human's body might be, it had surely reached its limit by now.
If they could exhaust his physical form before the three wounded ones deteriorated further, that would be ideal.
What worried the Domain Lords, however, was the possibility that this Seventh-Order had some method of replenishing his body's consumption. Otherwise, there was no way he could have endured three full years. If that were the case, continuing the stalemate would be utterly pointless.
The second path was to open the Ink Nest space and retreat.
But doing so would render all their prior efforts and sacrifices meaningless. The four Ink Disciples would have died for nothing. The Domain Lords could not stomach that.
The three uninjected Domain Lords held a brief exchange through divine sense and found themselves deadlocked, unsure which way to turn.
Within the Warm Divine Lotus, Yang Kai struggled with everything he had to cling to a single thread of clarity in his soul.
Having deployed the Soul-Sacrificing Thorns three times in succession, he had been dancing madly along the razor's edge between life and death. Yet opportunity did not strike twice—he was fairly certain there would never be another chance like this again.
At his current cultivation of Seventh-Order Open Heaven, facing the Ink Clan's Domain Lords in a straight fight would, at best, end in a clean retreat. Actually wounding or killing one depended on favorable timing, terrain, and sheer luck.
Yet in this Ink Nest space, the Domain Lords and Ink Disciples he had felled over the course of these battles now numbered eleven. Out of twelve Soul-Sacrificing Thorns, only one remained.
This was the finest chance to slash the Ink Clan's upper echelon fighting strength, and one that required no excessive risk—rarely would such an opportunity present itself, whether for him alone or for the entire human race.
That was why he refused to withdraw. He still meant to use that last thorn.
Were it not for that, he would never have had the heart to goad those Domain Lords. Right now, "better dead than alive" was the most fitting description of his condition; even the Warm Divine Lotus could do little to soothe the agony tearing through his soul.
Despite his desperate straits, he had no choice but to divert a fraction of his awareness to monitor the Domain Lords' movements.
What if they opened the Ink Nest? If they did and he failed to slip out in time, he really would be trapped here for good.
Something else nagged at the back of his mind as well, but with his soul in such violent upheaval, he had no bandwidth to dwell on anything else.
While he struggled on, the three uninjured Domain Lords were debating their strategy.
There was little real disagreement. After a brief exchange, the three Domain Lords decided to open the Ink Nest space—because as things stood, there was no sign that the human Seventh-Order's physical body was deteriorating. Otherwise his soul would not have remained so robust just moments ago.