Throughout their clash so far, the feeling the opponent gave him could be summed up in a single word.
Eerie!
Not eerie in the sense of demonic energy, but eerie in every action, every response to danger — all of it carried an unsettling, almost supernatural strangeness.
The scene felt eerily familiar.
The Eighth-Rank Commander couldn't help but recall a battle from his younger days. Back then, his strength had clearly surpassed his opponent's, yet instead of cutting the fight short, he had stalled and feigned weakness, drawing out the mastermind pulling the strings behind his enemy before eliminating them in one decisive strike.
Right now, the feeling this opponent gave him was identical to the way he had hidden his true power all those years ago.
Was this guy concealing his strength?
The Eighth-Rank Commander could hardly believe it. In terms of raw power, a human Eighth-Rank Open Heaven was generally stronger than a Domain Lord, and these Ink Servants — who broke through their own limits by borrowing the power of the Ink — couldn't even measure up to a Domain Lord.
In other words, a true human Eighth-Rank was at least twenty percent stronger than an Eighth-Rank Ink Servant.
On a battlefield where both sides were enemies, an Eighth-Rank Ink Servant would fight with everything they had. Holding back one's strength meant risking death at any moment.
If this man could afford to hide his power, just how strong was he really? And what was his true objective?
The Eighth-Rank Commander couldn't figure it out. But regardless of the opponent's intentions, his own goal remained the same: kill him. To have been locked in combat with an Eighth-Rank Ink Servant for this long, to have even deployed the Divine Evil-Breaking Spear without bringing the man down — it was practically a joke.
Without letting his guard down, the Commander's offensive suddenly turned savage. To end the fight as quickly as possible, he didn't hesitate to burn off a portion of his own vital blood.
The already formidable pressure erupted skyward in an instant.
The Eighth-Rank Ink Servant was caught off guard and looked even more wretched than before.
"Ahh—" A sigh suddenly sounded right beside his ear. The instant it rang out, a streak of sword light flashed past like a startled swan.
The Eighth-Rank Commander fighting against it felt every hair on his body stand on end. An overwhelming sense of crisis crashed over him, filling him with the bone-deep certainty that he was about to die.
Without a moment's hesitation, the Commander threw himself backward. His field of vision was already swallowed by that blinding sword light.
Ninth-Rank!
The opponent was actually Ninth-Rank!
In that instant, he finally understood what that eerie feeling had been.
His guess had been right — the opponent was hiding his strength. But he had never imagined this man was a Ninth-Rank Ink Servant.
Humans and the Ink Clan had clashed for countless ages, and over those ages, untold numbers of humans had fallen into the Ink Clan's hands and been converted into Ink Servants.
Every war zone had its share of Ink Servants, more or less.
But in most cases, these Ink Servants didn't survive for long. Once they hit the battlefield, the Ink Clan would order their subordinates to fight to the death whenever their own lives were threatened, buying time to escape.
This meant that ninety percent of Ink Servants were cut down on the battlefield before they ever had room to grow.
Before the emergence of the Purifying Light, the human side had shown Ink Servants no mercy either. Death was the only true release for an Ink Servant.
Across all the war zones, even Eighth-Rank Ink Servants were rare.
It was only here in the Dayan War Zone that a battle thirty thousand years ago had converted a considerable number of Dayan Pass soldiers into Ink Servants. With no major conflicts since, those Ink Servants had had enough time to grow, giving rise to a notable number of Eighth-Rank ones.
But from the dawn of history until now, not a single war zone had ever produced a Ninth-Rank Ink Servant!
Ninth-Rank — that was the realm of Ancestors, the pinnacle of human combat power.
And now one stood before him.
A Ninth-Rank Ink Servant, using a secret technique to conceal his cultivation, could indeed go entirely undetected. After clashing for so long, the Commander had only sensed something odd, instinctively guessing the man was hiding strength, never once suspecting he was facing a Ninth-Rank Ink Servant.
So Ink Servants really could grow to the Ninth-Rank Open Heaven stage. The thought flashed through the Eighth-Rank Commander's mind in that instant.
It was always said that Ink Servants could use the power of the Ink to break through their own limits, ignoring their natural ceilings to reach heights that would otherwise be impossible. But that was only the ideal scenario.
Humanity now knew that the kind of limit-breaking enhancement an Ink Servant underwent carried enormous risk. Nearly every Ink Servant who broke past their own constraints came out twisted and grotesque, and each breakthrough was far more perilous than a human's normal advancement — the chance of perishing was enormous.
So the ideal was just that: ideal. In truth, almost no Ink Servant had ever managed to use the power of the Ink to break through to the Ninth-Rank. The process was virtually a one-in-a-hundred shot at survival!
But there were always exceptions to every rule — that was why miracles existed.
A Ninth-Rank Ink Servant appearing on the battlefield was far too shocking. And the fact that he had been concealing his strength while toying with him, never once going for the kill, clearly meant he harbored ill intent.
His target was the Ancestor!
The Eighth-Rank Commander grasped the opponent's plan in a flash. He opened his mouth to cry out a warning, only to realize his strength was draining away with terrifying speed, and not a single sound would come out.
At the same moment, from somewhere across the battlefield, the Smiling Ancestor's voice rang out, shaking heaven and earth: "I thought you were a King — turns out you're an Ink Servant. If you hadn't revealed yourself, I might never have found you. Now that you're here, don't even think about leaving!"