The towering figure of the Giant Spirit was seen charging in from the other side, the massive bone in its hand sweeping and smashing in every direction, shattering the void and sending cracks branching out everywhere.
Yang Kai blinked in surprise. "Another Giant Spirit?"
Xiaoxiao Old Ancestor shook her head. "It's the same one."
"Why did it come back?" Yang Kai asked, utterly confused.
The Old Ancestor had no intention of explaining. "Just keep watching. You'll understand."
Yang Kai frowned and watched as the Giant Spirit retraced its steps, hurtling back the way it had come until it vanished from sight in an instant. Its movements might look clumsy, but in truth its speed was astonishingly fast—the apparent clumsiness was merely due to its enormous size.
He couldn't make heads or tails of it.
Yang Kai was bewildered.
The Old Ancestor still showed no inclination to explain.
After a short wait, Yang Kai's eyes narrowed. The Giant Spirit had once again charged in from the direction it had originally come from, rumbling through the void and sweeping past before quickly disappearing into the distance.
Yang Kai's expression grew grave, and a vague guess began to take shape in his mind.
Xiaoxiao Old Ancestor sighed.
She had suspected as much earlier but hadn't been certain. Now, having seen the Giant Spirit appear and retreat three times, she could finally confirm it.
"This Giant Spirit… is dead?" Yang Kai asked.
The Giant Spirit was shrouded in baleful energy, yet Yang Kai couldn't sense even a trace of life from it. What truly sent a chill down his spine was the fact that he had finally noticed—the Giant Spirit's body was covered in wounds, and those wounds bore the unmistakable marks of ancient age.
Xiaoxiao Old Ancestor's expression was inscrutable. "You could say that."
"Then why—"
Knowing what he wanted to ask, the Old Ancestor said, "The Giant Spirit clan was immensely powerful, but their hearts were simple and guileless. We don't know what he faced before death, but judging by his current behavior, he was likely locked in battle against countless enemies at the end."
Racing back and forth along his path, the Giant Spirit never stopped swinging the enormous bone in his grip—as though invisible enemies surrounded him on all sides, a endless horde that needed to be cut down.
A Giant Spirit, naturally gentle by nature, had been consumed by baleful energy until he became something terrifying beyond measure.
"The Ink Clan," Yang Kai murmured.
In this environment, who else could be the Giant Spirit's enemy? It could only be the Ink Clan.
Though he couldn't imagine what that ancient battle must have looked like, the Giant Spirit's current state alone told him everything. The creature had been besieged, fighting alone against many, until his strength finally gave out and he perished.
His life force had long since faded, yet the obsession in his heart endured. Through untold ages, he still roamed this battlefield, striking at enemies that no longer existed, never tiring, never resting.
Perhaps only when his physical body finally collapsed would he truly stop.
A strange ache settled in Yang Kai's chest. His contact with the Giant Spirits hadn't been extensive, but both A-Da and A-Er had left a favorable impression. This was a genuinely gentle clan that had never used their tremendous strength to bully others.
Yet even a clan like the Giant Spirits had been drawn into the war in that ancient era, and had ultimately fallen. That alone spoke volumes about how desperate the situation had once been.
The Ink Clan was not merely humanity's great enemy—they were the enemy of every living being across the vast expanse of the universe.
"Let's go," Xiaoxiao Old Ancestor called out.
The Giant Spirit shrouded in baleful energy no longer had any spark of life. He was merely repeating the actions of his lifetime, rushing back and forth across a battlefield that belonged to him, waging war against enemies who were no longer there.
Tragic, yet awe-inspiring.
Following the Old Ancestor toward Dayan, Yang Kai watched as the Giant Spirit once again charged in from behind.
He suddenly turned to glance back, and a thought struck him—this Giant Spirit might not simply be fighting enemies. He could be saving someone, or blocking an advance.
With a Giant Spirit's power, if the fight had truly been beyond him, he could have fled. Yet he continued racing back and forth across this battlefield, which meant there was someone—or something—that prevented him from simply walking away.
Perhaps on that ancient battlefield, the ancestors of humanity had fought side by side with the Giant Spirit, right here, holding back the armies of the Ink Clan.
Ancient events could not be retraced. But the later generation had set foot upon the path their predecessors had walked. How this chapter would end, no one knew.
The Ink Battlefield grew more perilous the deeper one ventured.
It was impossible to imagine the scale of the cataclysmic war that had once erupted here between the ancient humans and the Ink Clan—a war destined to end only in the utter annihilation of one side.
The void was filled with violently chaotic energy, along with Ink clouds and Ink seas formed by condensed power of Ink. Those forces, entangled with the power of Ink, had evolved over the passage of ages into boundless hazards.
Half a year after departing the Ink Clan's Royal City, Xiaoxiao Old Ancestor could no longer focus on healing in peace.
The dangers ahead were too numerous, and relying solely on Eighth-Order Open Heaven cultivators sometimes meant they went entirely undetected. After triggering a massive energy eruption that nearly shattered all of Dayan's defenses, the Old Ancestor had no choice but to emerge from seclusion and take up station personally.
At this point, the hidden dangers lurking in the void posed a genuine threat even to Eighth-Order cultivators.
The deeper they went, the more perilous it would become.
It was the same on the Dayan front as on every other pass. And under the influence of all that chaotic energy, many of the passes had already lost contact with one another.