Although he hadn't discovered the Ink Clan King Lord's tracks, Yang Kai was certain that the man was somewhere within No-Return Pass.
For the Ink Clan, this place was now their most important stronghold. With only a single King Lord to their name, where else could he be if not stationed here, guarding against the unexpected?
Was the fellow recuperating from his injuries?
The last time Yang Kai had deployed the physical body of the Qingxu Pass Ancestor to fight the King Lord head-on. Though the Qingxu Pass Ancestor was long dead, the methods he had left behind before his death still granted Yang Kai the combat power of the Ninth Grade.
In that battle, the Ink Clan King Lord could not possibly have walked away unscathed. He was definitely wounded.
And the best way for a powerful Ink Clan cultivator to recover was to slumber within an Ink Nest. If that was the case, the King Lord was certainly somewhere inside a King Lord-grade Ink Nest. After all, it had been less than a few decades since that battle.
As for which specific one, Yang Kai had no way to determine. Over the days he had spent observing, he had managed to identify roughly over a hundred King Lord-grade Ink Nests in the area.
This was consistent with the intelligence the humans had gathered before. Quite a few King Lords had walked out of the Grand Primordial Seal, but many had been slain, and humanity had paid a steep price for each.
When the battle at the Grand Primordial Seal had concluded, the number of surviving Ink Clan King Lords was around a hundred, corresponding to the hundred-plus King Lord-grade Ink Nests here.
Now those King Lords were almost all dead, but the Ink Nests remained — ownerless, all of them. Should any Ink Clan member grow strong enough in the future, they could enter these unclaimed Ink Nests and ascend to King Lord status, becoming their new masters.
Every King Lord-grade Ink Nest he destroyed now would reduce the Ink Clan's future chances of birthing new King Lords.
Convinced that the King Lord was deep in recovery, Yang Kai observed even more carefully.
A King Lord recuperating would require staggering amounts of energy. If that was the case, there would be traces to follow. Yang Kai wanted to pinpoint the King Lord's location — he was not about to launch his assault only to have a King Lord suddenly appear in front of him.
The Ink Clan forces at No-Return Pass were considerable in number, but their defenses were not particularly tight. That was only natural. The Ink Clan was currently invading the Three Thousand Worlds, and humanity had its hands full dealing with the crisis. Who would bother coming all the way out here?
Moreover, reaching this place required passing through the Domain of the Void, where an Ink Colossus still stood guard. Humanity could not easily make it through.
No Ink Clan member could imagine that just outside No-Return Pass, a human Eighth Grade cultivator was watching them with predatory intent.
Yang Kai was not impatient. This operation was critically important, and he had to bide his time.
Months passed in the blink of an eye.
After months of careful observation, Yang Kai had roughly pinpointed which Ink Nest housed the King Lord. Compared to the others, a handful of Ink Nests were consuming vastly disproportionate amounts of resources — nearly every few days, Ink Clan members would deliver huge quantities of supplies into them.
The other Ink Nests also received supply shipments, but in their case, newly born Ink Clan members would emerge from them in roughly equal measure. This was true whether the Ink Nest was a King Lord-grade or a Domain Lord-grade.
Only a small handful of King Lord-grade Ink Nests produced no new Ink Clan members at all.
Massive resource shipments flowing in, yet no new Ink Clan members being born — where could all those resources be going? Obviously they were fueling a powerful Ink Clan member's recovery.
Yang Kai noted the distribution of those specific King Lord-grade Ink Nests, then began selecting his target.
He knew that his opportunities to strike would be limited. The first attack had to deliver maximum impact, because the Ink Clan would never expect a human powerhouse to launch a raid at a time like this.
So for this first strike, he had to destroy as many Ink Nests as possible.
To that end, Yang Kai changed his hiding spot multiple times, observing the Ink Nest distribution from every angle.
Days later, he finally settled on his target.
It was a human fortress roughly thirty thousand li from No-Return Pass. Yang Kai didn't know which specific fortress it was. He chose this one because two King Lord-grade Ink Nests stood upon it.
Other fortresses had at most one King Lord-grade Ink Nest, or perhaps several Domain Lord-grade ones — not worth the effort to attack.
This meant that if he moved fast enough, he could instantly destroy both of those King Lord-grade Ink Nests. And nearby this fortress, there were fragments of Qiankun Worlds, one of which also held a King Lord-grade Ink Nest.
So if luck was on his side, this first attack could destroy three King Lord-grade Ink Nests, along with several Domain Lord-grade ones.
With his target chosen, Yang Kai wasted no time. He needed no preparation, no stealthy infiltration.
The Space Laws rippled, and he was instantly transported from his hiding spot to a position above the fortress. The Azure Dragon Spear was already in his hand, and he thrust it downward.
With his Eighth Grade Open Heaven cultivation, the power behind his strike was tremendous.
Under the force of the Heavenly Dao's might, the sky blotted with spear shadows that engulfed the entire fortress.