Even after all these years of witnessing life and death,
Elite squads were few and far between. Each Great Pass had at most a handful, and every captain of an elite squad was a candidate for promotion to the Eighth Order.
Many of the current Eighth-Order commanders had once risen through the ranks as captains of elite squads.
What's more, among the ten Seventh-Order cultivators of the Snow Wolf Squad, Yao Kangcheng was far from the only one with Eighth-Order potential.
Now that the entire squad had been annihilated, the Human Race had effectively lost several promising Eighth-Order candidates.
What truly gnawed at Yang Kai was the question of what exactly had happened on the
Unfortunately, no one knew what had transpired at the time. The answer could only be found in the battles to come.
Stowing the warship wreckage, Yang Kai's blood surged. Amidst the void saturated with Mo Power, he instantly became a blazing beacon in the darkness, blazing with radiance, and shot forward like a streak of light, charging into battle.
In the vast expanse of the void, Ink Clan squads returning to defend the Royal City could appear at any moment. Yang Kai harbored a simmering fury within, and his strikes grew ever more ruthless and merciless.
Five days after he had begun his campaign, Yang Kai was in the midst of hunting down Ink Clan forces when he suddenly detected violent energy fluctuations ahead—someone was fighting!
He rushed over at once. Upon closer inspection, he found a Human Race warship there, nimbly circling a Lord-tier Ink Nest and bombarding it relentlessly, riddling it with holes.
From within the Ink Nest, a Lord roared in fury, unleashing one divine ability after another, but could do nothing against the warship.
When squads from both races encountered each other in such open void, the Humans held an overwhelming advantage with their warship. The Ink Clan members who refused to abandon their Ink Nest were nothing more than sitting ducks.
By this point, abandoning the Ink Nest was no longer an option for the Ink Clan. With the Nest, the Lord could draw on its power to resist; without it, there would be no hope of escape whatsoever.
This particular Human squad was nothing special—just an ordinary unit of a little over a dozen people, led by two Seventh-Order cultivators.
By the time Yang Kai arrived, the Ink Nest was already on the verge of collapse. Under the Lord's command, a number of Superior and Inferior Ink Clansmen charged fearlessly toward the warship, but none could get close—they were all blown apart by the power of the Artifact formations aboard.
In this situation, the Ink Clan wouldn't hold out much longer. At most half an hour, and the Ink Nest would be destroyed. The remaining one or two Lords would be unable to stand alone.
The Human squad's victory was already assured!
Under such circumstances, Yang Kai saw no reason not to add to the kill. He charged in with his spear, his fierce killing intent locking onto the Ink Nest's master from a distance.
The Lord's heart lurched. He whipped his head toward Yang Kai, and all he saw was a forest of spear shadows.
This Lord was no coward either. Sensing danger, he desperately channeled the Ink Nest's power, his aura surging violently in an instant. He thrust a palm forward, slamming it toward Yang Kai.
A torrent of violent energy erupted between them. Yang Kai shot past the Lord, careening tens of thousands of li before stabilizing himself. His body erupted with cracking sounds as golden blood sprayed everywhere.
The Lord's desperate counterattack had, after all, wounded him.
After days of continuous battle, traversing this vast void, the number of Ink Nests he had destroyed was beyond counting, and the Lords who had perished at his hands were innumerable.
Every single time, Yang Kai had gone all out, striving to eliminate his enemies as quickly as possible so he could rush to the next location.
In battles of such intensity, it was impossible for Yang Kai to emerge unscathed.
The wounds on his body, large and small, were nearly as numerous as the Ink Clansmen he had slain. Were it not for the power of the Dragon Vein, these injuries alone would have stripped him of the ability to fight.
The Dragon Vein's strength lay in its recovery. As long as the injuries weren't too severe, Yang Kai couldn't be bothered to worry about them.
And at that very moment, behind him, the massive Ink Nest had been snapped in half. Its master—the Ink Clan Lord who had traded blows with Yang Kai—had lost half his body.
Somehow, he hadn't died outright yet, but under the onslaught of energy from the Human warship, he was quickly reduced to ash.
By the time Yang Kai returned to the battlefield, the fighting was already over.
The captain of this squad appeared to have recognized Yang Kai and hurried over to greet him. "Brother Yang!"
Inwardly, the man was stunned. Yang Kai's killing intent was boiling over, so dense it had taken physical form—he couldn't fathom how many Ink Clansmen Yang Kai had killed over these past few days.
The wounds and blood covering his body were the marks of his battlefield accomplishments.
Yang Kai nodded slightly and asked curiously, "Where did you lot come from?"
The two Seventh-Order cultivators in this squad were not among the five hundred from before. Though Yang Kai didn't know all five hundred personally, he had a passing impression of most of them, and these two were not among them.
The Seventh-Order who had greeted him replied, "The Corps Commander ordered us to intercept fleeing Ink Clan forces. We were dispatched from Great Principle."
Yang Kai suddenly understood.
The five hundred had been fighting beyond the defensive line. Once the Ink Clan got word, the outer Lords would naturally fall back to defend.
And Great Principle Pass lay directly in the path of these retreating Ink Clan forces. Dispatching squads from the Pass was the perfect way to intercept them and cut off their route back.
Yang Kai realized he had effectively fought his way in a complete circle around the Ink Clan's Royal City; otherwise, he wouldn't have run into people dispatched from Great Principle here.
Without lingering for conversation, Yang Kai gripped the Azure Dragon Spear and cautioned, "Be careful out there. If you run into a strong enemy, try to link up with other squads. There should be more of our people in the area."
With that, he vanished in a flash.
Watching the direction he had disappeared, the Seventh-Order cultivator sighed with emotion. "We're all Seventh-Order, yet we aren't even a hundredth of his worth!"
They had witnessed the ferocity of Yang Kai's attack firsthand. Their entire squad had struggled against the enemy for half a day without finishing the job, yet Yang Kai had arrived and dealt with it in a single thrust.
The gap between them was as vast as that between clouds and mud.
The other Seventh-Order laughed. "If he didn't have that kind of ability, he wouldn't be fighting alone. No need to put ourselves down—war isn't something one person can win."