One year later, under his full and undivided attention to recovery, Yang Kai's injuries were essentially healed.
Rising from the World within him, Yang Kai surveyed his surroundings for a moment before streaking through the void toward the Ink Nest of the Royal Lord level.
Though the Ink Nest of the Royal Lord level had been blasted apart by a single thrust of his spear, remnants still remained.
After searching through the debris for a time, Yang Kai found a considerable amount of resources.
These resources had all been mined by the Ink Clan from the surrounding area. The Ink Clan's reproduction itself placed enormous demands on resources, and the Goat-Headed Royal Lord had needed to consume resources to heal his wounds as well.
Now, all these unused resources had fallen into Yang Kai's hands.
He wasn't planning to use them for cultivation—he had no such inclination at present. His main reason for collecting them was to set up a World Formation.
This Ocean Phenomenon was a treasure. After leaving this time, Yang Kai wasn't certain he would ever be able to find it again. Leaving behind a World Formation might prove useful in the future.
He already had a fair number of resources in his possession, but they weren't complete. Gathering more from the Ink Nest filled the gaps nicely before long.
Soon, within the small world where the Royal Lord's Ink Nest had once stood, a World Formation took shape. Yang Kai also laid down some simple restrictions to conceal it.
He gazed deeply at the Ocean Phenomenon for a long moment before finally turning to leave.
Behind him, only the vast expanse of the void remained, strewn with a dense carpet of corpses, as if bearing witness to a brutal battle.
Back when he had been outside the Primordial Grand Boundary, Yang Kai had attracted the attention of the Goat-Headed Royal Lord and been pursued relentlessly. He had been following the human army's expedition route back the way they had come, originally intending to reach the Inextinguishable Fortress and draw upon the strength of the Dragon and Phoenix Clans to deal with the Goat-Headed Royal Lord.
Unfortunately, he had lost his way along the route, and the further he fled, the more disoriented he became.
Now he had no idea where he was, nor which direction was correct.
But he wasn't overly worried. He believed he would eventually find his way back—it would simply require some time.
Another thing that left him feeling helpless was that he had no idea how many years had actually passed.
He could calculate the time he had spent within the Ocean Phenomenon with reasonable precision, but the true passage of time in the outside world remained unknown to him. Each of those rivers of time seemed to flow at a different speed, making any calculation impossible.
He had no way of knowing the final outcome of the great war between the two races either. When he had fled from the Primordial Grand Boundary, Cang had already merged himself with the Boundary itself, using that to summon the power of Mu Chenfeng and force the Ink into slumber.
In that final moment, Cang had left a contingency—a contingency with consequences of enormous magnitude!
It was precisely because the Ink Clan had discovered this contingency that the Goat-Headed Royal Lord had chased him so relentlessly.
As it stood now, Yang Kai bore no resentment toward Cang. In those final moments, Cang may well have regarded Yang Kai as the only person he could trust. After all, Yang Kai was one of the means by which this universe could save itself. Having been chosen by that inscrutable will, Yang Kai was naturally different from others. Putting himself in Cang's position, Yang Kai would have made the same choice.
Regardless of how that battle had turned out, the human army could not possibly still be stationed at the Primordial Grand Boundary.
If the humans had won, they would certainly have withdrawn and returned home.
If they had lost, they would similarly have retreated to the Inextinguishable Fortress to join forces with the Dragon and Phoenix Clans garrisoning it. Only in that way could they hope to withstand the Ink Clan's offensive.
So Yang Kai's objective now was singular: the Inextinguishable Fortress.
Given his current predicament, determining the direction of the Inextinguishable Fortress was difficult. However, if he could locate the Recent Ancient Battlefield, he would be able to roughly ascertain his position.
The Recent Ancient Battlefield was vast in scale—finding it should not be too hard.
He moved through the void, his figure shifting and flickering.
Every ten days or so, he would stop and activate the World Art once, attempting to connect with the World Formations he had set up in those Purification Warships.
To no avail, however. Each time he activated the World Art, the only formation he could sense was the one at the Ocean Phenomenon. The rest remained completely unresponsive.
This situation pointed to one conclusion: the distance was simply too great—so vast that even the World Art couldn't bridge the gap.
Though these attempts failed to locate the Purification Warships, they weren't entirely without purpose. At the very least, he could use the World Formation he had left at the Ocean Phenomenon to work backward and deduce his own approximate position.
As time passed, his sense of the World Formation at the Ocean Phenomenon grew increasingly faint, indicating that he was moving ever farther away from it.
More than half a year later, the connection was lost entirely.
Given the speed of his current teleportation, it had taken a full half year to sever his link with the Ocean Phenomenon—testament to the immense range a World Formation could cover.
The void was home to all manner of celestial phenomena.
Yang Kai had encountered many during his flight, and to shake off the Goat-Headed Royal Lord, he had even plunged deep into the Mist Phenomenon and the Ocean Phenomenon.
But at that time, with urgency pressing him and the desperation of being hunted leaving no room for contemplation, he had been in no mood to appreciate the grandeur of these phenomena.
Now, in his relaxed state, observing them carefully, he finally recognized their profound wonder.
These phenomena were likely all manifestations of the primordial might of heaven and earth from the dawn of creation. Most radiated an aura of extreme danger, while a few seemed unfathomably deep—like the Ocean Phenomenon, which on the surface appeared as a stagnant pool, yet once inside, one discovered its treacherous and churning depths.
The Thirty Thousand Worlds held no such phenomena. Perhaps because the traces of human cultivators had been too pervasive, any that had once existed had gradually faded away.
No, that wasn't right!