This situation reminded Yang Kai of when he had first arrived on the Ink Battlefield.
Back then, he had stepped into the Ink Battlefield for the very first time and appeared directly in the heart of Ink Clan territory. With no other option, he had disguised himself as an Ink Thrall and tagged along behind an upper-class Ink Clan member.
Yang Kai vaguely recalled that the Ink Clan member had been named Fury Blaze. Fury Blaze couldn't be bothered to remember human names, and because Yang Kai was quite powerful, he had simply dubbed him "Jia Yi" — First of the First.
There had been others too: Yi Er, Bing San, Ding Si, Wu Wu, and the like.
Thinking back on those days, it all felt like smoke drifting away in the wind.
Counting the time he had spent in the River of Time, it had been nearly five thousand years ago now.
While disguised as an Ink Thrall at Fury Blaze's side, Yang Kai had been unable to escape. Fortunately, the soldiers of Azure Sky Pass, led by their Old Ancestor, had launched an assault on Ink Clan territory. In the chaos of the battle, Fury Blaze had been killed, and Yang Kai had managed to break free — only to run into Feng Ying.
Together, he and Feng Ying had gathered a large number of scattered human soldiers, fighting their way back from the depths of Ink Clan territory all the way to Azure Sky Pass.
Ning Qizhi, Qi Taichu, Shen Ao — he had met them during that time, and he had rescued them from the Ink Clan as well.
Of those three, Qi Taichu and Ning Qizhi had fallen in battle one after another. Whether Shen Ao was still alive, no one knew.
And now, he needed to lead Huang Xiong, Lin Qi, and the rest of the scattered human survivors toward No Return Pass. How eerily similar it was to the past.
The difference was that Azure Sky Pass had been under human control back then, while No Return Pass was now in the hands of the Ink Clan. His strength was incomparably greater than it had been back then — countless times over, in fact — but the danger this time was something the previous occasion could not even begin to compare to.
Traveling alone, flickering through the void, Yang Kai arrived at the outer perimeter of No Return Pass in just a few days.
This was his second time coming here.
The further he advanced, the heavier his heart grew, because he had been unable to establish any resonance with the Dragon Pool.
The Dragon Pool was the very foundation of the Dragon Clan, hidden in a place so mysterious and unknown that ordinary people could never hope to find it. Only a powerful Dragon Clan elder presiding over a special ceremony could open the entrance to the Dragon Pool and allow the younger generation of dragons to enter for cultivation.
His inability to sense the Dragon Pool meant that there were no longer any Dragon Clan members within No Return Pass. And the several Dragon Emperor statues used for the ceremony must surely have been taken as well.
Dark clouds of Ink Force drifted through the void. Yang Kai slipped into one and concealed his aura.
Outside, several Ink Clan squads moved back and forth, but none of them detected his presence.
He looked toward the direction of No Return Pass, but the distance was too great, and the obscuring layers of Ink Force made it hard to see clearly.
Still, just as Lin Qi had said, the area around No Return Pass was shrouded in dense Ink Force. The Ink Clan had also relocated a number of dead Worlds to the area. On each of those Worlds, there were anywhere from a few dozen to several hundred Ink Nests, packed together so tightly they formed a sea of black.
Ink Clansmen were constantly being gestated within the Ink Nests and were gathering toward No Return Pass.
Beyond the Ink Nests, even more Ink Clansmen were hard at work, transporting supplies.
The Ink Clan was mass-producing troops — Yang Kai had already noticed this on his way here. The Worlds along the route had been stripped bare of resources. Previously, there had still been many unexplored Worlds scattered throughout the void, but now they were nowhere to be found. Everywhere the Ink Clan army passed, every last resource those dead Worlds contained had been completely mined out.
Yang Kai was silent for a moment, then lightly traced a finger across his left eye.
Open!
A golden cross-shaped pupil appeared, and Yang Kai's gaze pierced through the thick layers of Ink Force to see clearly into what lay within.
In the next instant, his eyes narrowed slightly.
Behind that curtain of Ink Force, he saw one human fortress after another — at least seventy or eighty of them.
There had originally been one hundred and eight human fortresses in total, corresponding to the one hundred and eight Blessed Realms.
During the grand expedition, not a single fortress had been left behind — all of them had fought their way to the Grand First Restriction. At that time, the human race's forces had been at their strongest, their combined might at its peak.
But after the battle outside the Grand First Restriction, the human army had been defeated. During the retreat, a portion of the fortresses had stayed behind to cover the withdrawal and had either been stranded or shattered, scattered throughout the void.
In the end, fewer than eighty had made it to No Return Pass.
Now, every last one of these fortresses was in a wretched state. Some had been so badly damaged that only fragments remained.
Though he hadn't witnessed it firsthand, the sheer devastation of these fortresses was enough for Yang Kai to imagine the apocalyptic battle that had raged outside No Return Pass.
A battle of that magnitude — even Ninth-Order Old Ancestors and Ink Clan Royal Lords had surely perished in large numbers.
Now, these ruined fortresses had been arranged around the perimeter of No Return Pass, serving as fertile ground for Ink Nests to take root. Every single one of the fortresses harbored an Ink Nest within it.
Looking deeper still, No Return Pass itself looked different from before too — battle scars marked every surface. Yang Kai did not see the Indestructible Parasol Tree.
The Phoenix Clan's sacred treasure had either been taken away or not. It must have been taken away. The tree was of paramount importance to the Phoenix Clan — it was the very foundation of their existence. Without the Indestructible Parasol Tree, the Phoenix Clan would face extinction.
In any case, there was no way the Phoenix Clan would have allowed the Indestructible Parasol Tree to be destroyed.
Behind No Return Pass lay the gateway to the Three Thousand Worlds. The last time Yang Kai had been here, he hadn't paid much attention to it — just a casual glance was enough to tell him that the gateway had been sealed with countless restrictions and could not easily be opened.