At the same time, on the wall of the Great Principle Pass facing the Ink Clan's Royal City, the power of formation Artifacts also began to unleash its full might.
The humans naturally would not simply take hits without striking back. The Great Principle Pass's defenses were sustained jointly by Eighth-Order Open Heaven masters and the Old Ancestor, while the soldiers on the walls were responsible for killing the enemy.
The best defense was offense. If they could slaughter all the Ink Clan forces ahead, what need would there be for defense?
Across a span of a million li, the secret arts of the two races intertwined through the void, clashing wildly against each other. Many techniques collided midway, blossoming into dazzling radiance before dissipating into nothingness.
The ripples across the Great Principle's barrier grew ever more violent, but as long as the barrier held, the safety of the human warriors remained assured.
On the Ink Clan army's side, however, hundreds of thousands of troops packed the battlefield shoulder to shoulder. Any human secret art that landed among those ranks was certain to claim casualties—more or fewer depending on its power.
Across a million li, they surged forward five hundred thousand li in the blink of an eye.
Braving the frenzied assault of the Ink Clan army, the Great Principle Pass pressed onward with unstoppable momentum.
Yang Kai suddenly raised his head to gaze upward. He could see the Great Principle's barrier light fluctuating ceaselessly—dimming one moment, blazing bright the next. He knew that even with the combined power of the Eighth-Order Open Heaven masters and the Old Ancestor, the barrier would not hold for much longer.
The Ink Clan's offensive was too ferocious, and their numbers too vast. The Great Principle Pass needed to bombard the Royal City and could not easily change direction—in the open void, it was simply a target.
Crack…
A faint shattering sound rang out, and Yang Kai immediately looked toward its source. He could see that at one point on the barrier, after enduring over a hundred Ink Clan attacks, a crack had suddenly split open.
But the gap vanished almost instantly—the Eighth-Order masters and the Old Ancestor had already channeled power to repair it.
Crack, crack, crack…
From every direction, fissures appeared one after another, only to be patched up in an endless cycle.
As the distance to the Ink Clan army shrank, the situation aboard the Great Principle Pass grew increasingly dire. The seemingly sturdy barrier could collapse at any moment.
Xiang Shan's furious roar suddenly echoed across heaven and earth: "Prepare to engage the enemy!"
At the order, Yang Kai and the other squad captains all summoned their respective squad warships. The team members swiftly boarded, formation hums droning to life as defensive shields blazed open!
The cracking sounds continued unabated, and more and more fissures appeared. The Eighth-Order masters and the Old Ancestor were visibly struggling to keep pace with the repairs.
Until, at a critical moment, one corner of the barrier enveloping the Great Principle reached its limit and suddenly shattered.
A breach appeared in what had been an airtight defense.
There was no time to repair it. Through the gap, a sky-covering barrage of Ink Clan secret arts rained down into the Great Principle Pass.
Booming explosions sounded without end. Ink Power spilled outward as large swaths of buildings collapsed and the entire pass shook violently.
Several squads that happened to be stationed nearby were instantly engulfed by those attacks. Fortunately, all of them had already summoned their warships beforehand. The team members sheltered inside, and the warships' own barriers absorbed the shockwaves. Even so, those warships were knocked about wildly.
By the time the members regained their bearings, the warships bore some damage, though thankfully no one had been killed.
This was only the beginning. With the first breach in the Great Principle's barrier, a second followed, then a third…
In an instant, the entire Great Principle Pass had become a dilapidated house riddled with holes. Despite the desperate efforts of the Eighth-Order masters and the Old Ancestor stationed at the core, they could not stem the tide.
Ink Clan secret arts continued to hammer into the Great Principle Pass. The entire fortress was plunged into a state of scorching desperation.
Yang Kai himself was stationed at the Dawn's defensive formation at that moment, channeling his power to fuel the barrier's might. The Dawn's warship swayed and shuddered with every tremor of the Great Principle, making it nearly impossible to keep one's feet.
Suddenly, a life force withered and faded somewhere within the Great Principle Pass.
Everyone's expression darkened. After pressing the attack for so long, the humans had finally suffered their first casualties.
But this was unavoidable. In this assault on the Ink Clan's Royal City, the humans had committed everything they had. The Ink Clan, in turn, had likewise given their all. The deep blood feud between the two races would end only with the annihilation of one side.
The Great Principle Pass surged forward, now mere inches from the Ink Clan's fifth line of defense. The hundreds of thousands of Ink Clan troops had suffered considerable losses, but their numbers were simply too vast. Even with the casualties, it did not touch their foundation.
Seeing the Great Principle Pass bearing down upon them and unable to halt its advance, the Ink Clan Domain Lords roared out their orders. The massive army split into three—one force retreated to hold the front, while the other two flanked left and right to encircle the Great Principle Pass.
In the blink of an eye, the spiraling charge of the Great Principle became a tiger plunging into a wolf pack, and the battle between them grew ever more savage.
The Ink Clan's fifth line of defense lay only three million li from the Royal City. In other words, once this final line was breached, the Royal City would face the full force of the Great Principle Pass head-on.
The Ink Clan could not dodge, nor did they dare to.
Facing this imposing human fortress barreling toward them, they had no way to stop it in time. They could only use this approach to grind away at the humans' strength and buy the time they needed.
Their tactics were proving effective.
Assailed on three sides, the Great Principle Pass's barrier deteriorated further. The Eighth-Order masters and the Old Ancestor had clearly abandoned the defense of certain sections to concentrate their full efforts on maintaining the rest.
The entire Great Principle Pass was under relentless bombardment from Ink Clan secret arts at every moment. Nearly all the buildings inside the pass had been leveled flat. Only two places remained untouched.
The Spirit Memorial Stele. The Cemetery!
Even at this critical juncture, the Eighth-Order masters and the Old Ancestor still devoted a portion of their power to safeguarding these two locations.
They wanted the ancestors who had fallen in battle on the Ink Battlefield to watch—to watch as the humans defeated the Ink Clan. Every sacrifice and every effort made by the predecessors had been worthwhile. The younger generation was still carrying on the legacy of those who came before!
Crack, crack, crack…