These massive Domain Lords clad in bone armor appeared and immediately spewed forth Ink Force. The force condensed without dispersing, coalescing in their hands into enormous bone shields that formed sturdy defenses, shielding those behind them.
Judging from their auras, these were clearly all Innate Domain Lords. Each one was incomparably powerful, their average strength surpassing the Domain Lords the human race had previously encountered—they were roughly on the level of Chekong.
Attacks from the human passes rained down upon them, but when they struck the bone shields, their killing power was greatly diminished.
With furious roars, the Domain Lords scattered and charged toward the various passes. Behind them, the Ink Clan army surged forward like a tide, shadowing their every move.
Within each pass, the hum of the formations grew more ferocious. The walls trembled, and the ground shook as though the very earth were quaking.
Bone shields were continually blasted apart. The Domain Lords behind them were sent stumbling, sparks flying from their bone armor. They rarely lasted long before being obliterated without a trace.
The combined assault of over a hundred human passes was something even the King Lords would struggle to endure, let alone these Domain Lords.
Without the protection of these bone-armored Domain Lords, the Ink Clan warriors who charged out with them were often cut down in droves the moment they were exposed.
Yet the situation remained far from optimistic. The power of the formations and Artifacts was clearly insufficient. Relying on the relentless, wave-after-wave efforts of those Domain Lords wielding bone shields and clad in bone armor, the Ink Clan army pushed their formation forward with ease to an unprecedented degree, advancing step by step toward the human passes.
Corpses littered the path.
Many of the human race's experts couldn't help but show grave expressions.
Mo had prepared for this day for a full million years, and its reserves were unfathomably deep. At present, while the human race held an absolute advantage, as the great battle continued, no one could predict what the final outcome would be.
After several more days of fierce fighting, the number of casualties below the Domain Lord tier on the battlefield was already impossible to count. Among the Domain Lords alone, over a thousand had been slain by the human race.
That was a number that made one's scalp tingle.
After all, these were all Innate Domain Lords. When Mo created them, they had been granted extraordinarily powerful defensive capabilities, and their own strength was not to be underestimated either—each one was no less formidable than a human Eighth-Order cultivator.
How many Eighth-Order human cultivators were there? Currently, across the various passes, each pass averaged at most forty to fifty. With over a hundred passes, that meant fewer than five thousand Eighth-Order cultivators in total.
Over a thousand Domain Lords was roughly equivalent to the Eighth-Order strength of twenty passes. Such a force was incomparably powerful. If the human race hadn't held the advantage of their terrain, destroying them would have required an enormous price.
At the breach, bone-armored Domain Lords and Ink Clan armies continued to pour out without cease, wave after wave, fearless of death.
Their very purpose was to facilitate Mo's liberation. Death was their ultimate destiny.
The human race could no longer clear away the Ink Force. The entire battlefield was shrouded in chaotic energy. Teams tasked with clearing the Ink Force would very likely be struck by friendly fire if they ventured too deep, and even if they weren't, they would struggle to accomplish anything under such conditions.
Mo was likely still reclaiming the Ink Force, because near the breach, the Ink Sea had not expanded in scale.
However, even though it could easily create fodder, the Domain Lords, Lords, and even the upper and lower Ink Clan warriors who perished on the battlefield could not be produced at will.
Thus, every Domain Lord or Lord the human race killed was a loss for Mo.
The King Lords remained nowhere to be seen, lurking in the depths of darkness, unmoved—like a blade suspended in the air, keeping the human race constantly on alert.
A full month after the great battle erupted, on the battlefield, a bone-armored Domain Lord roared furiously as he condensed an Ink Force spear in his hand and hurled it viciously toward a pass ahead.
The ink-colored spear instantly broke through the spatial seal, smashing into the pass's defenses and sending ripples cascading across them.
Although the Domain Lord who launched the attack was quickly torn to shreds by the countless human strikes, that blow marked a breakthrough in the Ink Clan's offensive.
A Ninth-Order Old Ancestor spoke in a deep voice: "Make your move."
Relying solely on the passes' own defenses and the attacks from formations and Artifacts was no longer sufficient to effectively halt the Ink Clan army's advance. If this continued, the Ink Clan would soon reach the passes themselves.
It was time for the human army to mobilize.
As his words fell, from within pass after pass, auras that made the very void tremble suddenly surged forth. From each pass, streaks of radiant light sliced outward like bolts of silk.
Where the light passed, even those Domain Lords wielding bone shields and clad in bone armor could not withstand its power—they were cleaved directly in half, Ink Blood spraying wildly.
The divine abilities and secret arts unleashed from over a hundred passes plowed through the entire battlefield, carving out over a hundred void-ripping corridors of vacuum. The Ink Clan forces along their paths were annihilated to the last.
The clamorous battlefield fell into an eerie momentary silence.
The Ninth-Order Old Ancestors had taken action!
Seizing this opportunity, warships that had long been ready for departure from each pass transformed into streaks of light, guarding one another as they raced toward the battlefield.
Before these warships even set out, Eighth-Order cultivators had already surged onto the battlefield, locking onto Domain Lords one by one and unleashing their divine abilities and secret arts to drag their opponents into the fray.
At Great Yan Pass, the Dawn Team also charged out with the army.
And they were the fastest.
Other teams had fewer members and less powerful warships, and might need to watch each other's backs on such a battlefield. But as an elite team, Dawn had always charged through the battlefield single-handedly.
Yang Kai led at the front. Shen Ao and Xue Ya guarded the warship's flanks. Ren Bingbai, Yu Ziyou, and Miao Feiping held the rear. Bai Yi stood tall at the bow, her longbow radiating light as power surged into it.