"However, from the perspective of later generations, the ancients' methods must have failed. The Ink Clan burst out from the Hive and built one royal city after another, scavenging the resources of nearby cosmoses, hatching more Ink Clan, and expanding the scale of the Ink Battlefield."
Ancestor Xiaoxiao's eyes shimmered with a bright light as she speculated about the secrets of the ancient era.
"To counter the Ink Clan that broke out, the ancients forged those fortresses one by one, using them as strongholds to hold back the Ink Clan invasion. That's right… the emergence of the various Grotto-heavens and Blessed Lands is also connected to them. They established Grotto-heavens and Blessed Lands across the Three Thousand Worlds, nurturing talented individuals of all kinds, selecting suitable personnel, and throwing them into this Ink Battlefield — a tradition that has continued to this day."
As she spoke, Ancestor Xiaoxiao vaguely recalled an ancient text she had once seen within Yin-Yang Heaven. The text was extremely old, not the sort of thing that contained cultivation techniques or secret manuals — more of a miscellaneous record. She had stumbled upon it by chance.
The text briefly mentioned the founding of Yin-Yang Heaven, which aligned remarkably well with her current speculation.
However, at the time her strength had not been particularly high, and the miscellaneous record contained many archaic characters that were exceedingly abstruse and difficult to comprehend. She had little interest, glanced at it a few times carelessly, and tossed it back.
She let the thought go. After all, everything was merely her own speculation. No one truly knew what the situation had been like in the ancient era — unless they could find someone who had survived from that time.
But the ancient era was at minimum hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of years in the past. Even the Ancestors still alive today had not lived that long.
Collecting her thoughts, Ancestor Xiaoxiao said, "We should currently only be on the outer periphery, and even here it's already so dangerous. One can only imagine what it's like further in! Pass down the order — everyone must exercise extreme caution as we advance. We must not lose our heads before we've even found the Hive."
"Understood!"
"How are things at the other battle zones?" Ancestor Xiaoxiao asked.
Xiang Shan reported, "Almost every battle zone has experienced the same situation as ours. The path ahead is filled with obstacles."
"What a grand undertaking!" The Ancestor's eyelids narrowed involuntarily.
One had to understand that the entire Ink Battlefield was vast and boundless. The more than one hundred human fortresses barely managed to encircle the whole battlefield. Now all the major fortresses were pushing forward simultaneously into the depths of the void, searching for traces of the Ink Clan Hive, and the path ahead was littered with restrictions and residual divine abilities in every direction.
Did this not mean that those ancient powerhouses had laid down arrangements across the entire Ink Battlefield? Such methods were nothing short of astonishing.
With the current resources of the Grotto-heavens and Blessed Lands, it might be possible to replicate something similar, but it would certainly take an enormous amount of time.
"Everyone stay vigilant above all else. If anything unusual is detected, report it immediately!"
"Understood!" Xiang Shan accepted the order and withdrew respectfully.
After he had gone, Ancestor Xiaoxiao murmured softly, as if to herself, "The ancients…"
Yang Kai's expression shifted slightly. He couldn't help but recall the scene he had witnessed within the Dragon Clan's sacred relic, the Crystal Palace. That Crystal Palace seemed to possess the power of temporal reversal. At the time he had found it quite remarkable, but now it seemed connected to the Dragon Clan's bloodline gift.
After all, the Law of Time was inherently a Dragon Clan bloodline ability.
Under that temporal reversal, he had witnessed the scene within the Sacred Spirit Ancestral Ground — the Dragon Emperor and Phoenix Empress, two supreme powerhouses, leading the charge against that Ink-stained Giant God Spirit, ultimately using the sacred relics of various clans to seal it away.
He did not know how many years ago that had been preserved from, but judging from that battle, the ancient powerhouses had perhaps not managed to repel the enemy beyond their borders.
The power of Ink had already infiltrated the Three Thousand Worlds. Even the Giant God Spirits had been corrupted by Ink.
That was right!
In that distant era, the power of Ink had definitely invaded the Three Thousand Worlds before. Within that Black Prison, had an Ink Clan Royal Lord not been sealed away?
And he, Yang Kai, had entered the Ink Battlefield through that very passage from the Black Domain all those years ago.
In that case, the Royal Lord had been sealed away even longer ago than anyone had imagined at the time!
The events of the ancient era could no longer be traced. No one knew what had truly happened in that distant age.
The situation humanity now faced remained far from optimistic.
"There is one silver lining, though," Yang Kai said with a light laugh.
Ancestor Xiaoxiao glanced at him. "What silver lining?"
Yang Kai said, "If the path ahead is truly riddled with obstacles, then few of the fleeing Ink Clan will likely survive. Moreover, they are essentially clearing the road for us right now."
After the previous battle at the royal city, not all of the Ink Clan forces at Great Profound Fortress had been wiped out. Many had fled. These Ink Clan varied in strength — there were few Domain Lords among them, but no small number of Territory Lords.
These Ink Clan fleeing toward the rear were effectively blazing a trail for Great Profound Fortress. This way, Great Profound could avoid a great many unknown dangers.
Ancestor Xiaoxiao considered it for a moment, then realized the logic was sound. She couldn't help but laugh, suddenly feeling a twinge of regret at having hunted down so many Domain Lords earlier.
If she had let some of the Domain Lords escape, their trail-clearing effect might have been even more effective.
But under those circumstances, with both Mo Zhao and the Ninth-Order Ink Servant having been destroyed one after another, her own strength as a Ninth-Order Open Heaven left no one on the battlefield capable of restraining her. Naturally, she had wanted to exterminate every last one.
Great Profound continued to hack its way forward through the thorns. With the advance scouts probing ahead, there were indeed many remnants of restrictions and divine abilities along the path — just as Xiang Shan had reported. Some of the residual divine abilities were quite obvious, immediately visible to the eye, while others were concealed within the void, lying dormant, only erupting into action when nearby energy triggered them.
The scout teams suffered considerably because of this. Fortunately, the sheer age of these formations meant that the remaining power of these restrictions and divine abilities was not particularly strong. With the warship's protective barriers, no casualties were sustained among the personnel.
Even from within Great Profound, Yang Kai could sense the occasional bursts of energy fluctuating outside the fortress — the result of hidden divine abilities or restrictions being triggered.
However, Great Profound's sheer scale was immense, and its outer perimeter was shielded by powerful defenses. These energy eruptions posed no real threat to it.