Cang had never seen Mo deploy such a secret technique before, and he couldn't even begin to deduce what it intended to do next.
But he finally understood why Mo had been maintaining the balance of the battlefield, allowing so many of its servants to be killed.
Everything—all of it—had been preparation for this very moment!
Even without knowing exactly what Mo was planning, Cang knew he had to stop it, or the human race would be doomed.
He frantically channeled his own power, attempting to seal the gap in the Primordial Grand Restriction, but from within the darkness on the other side, an equally frenzied force met his, preventing the gap from closing.
The two sides struggled against each other. Cang, drawing upon the power of the entire Grand Restriction, held the upper hand. The gap was slowly closing—just at a crawl.
"Kill the enemy!"
The thunderous cry of a Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm expert rang out across the entire battlefield. Everyone knew the war had reached its critical juncture. Whatever Mo's plans were, if they couldn't stop it, the battle was lost.
Hundreds of thousands of soldiers who had been resting in the various passes, conserving their strength, surged out in unison and charged toward the battlefield.
The human race committed its entire force!
Even the soldiers stationed at the formation arrays boarded warship after warship and rushed to the front.
In the blink of an eye, over a hundred passes became empty nests.
The Ink Clan army split in two—one half moved to intercept the humans, while the other threw itself body and soul into the Ink Tide, bolstering its might.
The contest between Cang and Mo continued, but Cang now held a clear advantage. The speed at which the Grand Restriction's gap closed accelerated sharply.
It was then that, from the depths of darkness beyond the gap, a vast and oceanic force surged outward, piercing through the gap in an instant and merging with the churning black tide outside.
The black tide twisted and writhed, gradually coalescing into the crude shape of an arm!
Though the arm was assembled from countless streams of Ink power, Ink blood, and fragmented flesh and limbs, it radiated no trace of death energy. On the contrary, it pulsed with vibrant vitality—as if it were a genuine, living arm.
Muscles bulged upon the arm, powerful and mighty. It was enormous, vast as a river of stars. That single arm alone exuded a terrifying ferocity that shook the soul.
The arm connected to the power flowing through the gap. From a distance, it looked as though some colossal giant on the other side of the Restriction was reaching a massive hand through!
And in truth, Cang could indeed feel a horrifying aura reawakening within that darkness. A giant was rapidly taking form inside.
That arm, stretching between the interior and exterior of the Grand Restriction, became a tremendous obstacle to the gap's closure.
Cang's expression changed drastically. "You've touched that level?" he exclaimed.
That level…
Beyond the Ninth-Order!
Back in the day, Cang and the other nine had also been exploring that level, but ultimately none of them had gained much from the effort. His strength certainly exceeded that of ordinary Ninth-Order cultivators, but in the end, he had never truly transcended the Ninth-Order.
That was a realm beyond the reach of mortals—the realm of the Creator!
Mo's tone, however, carried a note of listless boredom. "That level? Perhaps… I'm not sure if it is, to be honest. Do you think it is? I don't really feel like it is."
Cang's mind trembled.
He recalled the violent fluctuations of power within the Restriction from long ago—the time Mo had nearly broken free. It seemed that Mo had already touched the Creator's level even then. Within that endless darkness, it had forged a powerful existence.
When he thought about it, it wasn't so strange. Mo itself could create countless servants. All Ink Clan members were born from its own Ink power. With such innate advantages and millions of years of accumulation, touching the Creator's level was hardly surprising.
The Ink Clan weren't actually created directly by Mo. Mo's essence was the primordial darkness of the world. What it had truly created were only the Ink Nests.
The Ink Clan were born from within the Ink Nests.
That was Mo's innate gift.
But this time, the powerful being within the darkness had truly been created by Mo itself!
Suddenly, Cang's expression turned calm. He let out a soft sigh. "Mo, you were born of Heaven and Earth, blessed with extraordinary fortune and remarkable talent. You should have been free to roam the world at your leisure. Pity that the power you possess… was never meant to be tolerated by the myriad realms."
Mo spoke with a hint of hesitation. "What are you planning to do?"
Cang replied mildly, "A million years is more than enough. It's time this came to an end. My old friends have been waiting a long while—they're probably getting impatient."
A sense of unease washed over Mo. "Don't do anything reckless!"
Cang threw his head back and laughed. "You're the one being reckless!"
As he spoke, he flicked his finger. A streak of radiance shot through the void. Every Ink Clan member it encountered along the way was pierced clean through and burst apart.
He had told Yang Kai earlier that while inside the Primordial Grand Restriction, he could only act upon things within the Restriction and couldn't interfere with the outside. That wasn't entirely absolute—he could do it, but at a tremendous cost.
Now, to send this streak of radiance out, he could no longer afford to worry about the price.
The moment he made his move, the entire Primordial Grand Restriction showed signs of instability. Mo seized the opportunity and pushed with all its might. The gap widened dramatically. The colossal arm spanning the interior and exterior of the Restriction shook violently, accelerating the gap's expansion.
"Stop it!" Mo's divine sense radiated outward through the void. Though it didn't know what Cang's streak of light actually was, it absolutely could not let him succeed.
A King Master reached out to seize the radiance, but before his hand could even touch it, his entire arm exploded. The power contained within that streak of light was terrifying beyond imagination.