Xiang Shan didn't beat around the bush. He spoke straight: "Yang Kai—everyone here should have heard his name."
The crowd's confusion cleared at once.
Someone said, "I heard he had already advanced to the Eighth-Order?"
Mi Jinglun nodded. "That's right. Yang Kai is already at the Eighth-Order. When Ouyang Lie and the others managed to fight their way back from the Ink Battlefield, it was Yang Kai who led the charge."
The speaker pressed on: "Even if he's reached the Eighth-Order, he's still a newly minted one at that. Returnless Pass has a King Master holding the fort, and there are certainly Domain Lords as well. How could he possibly pull off something like that on his own?"
The man knew of Yang Kai and had heard his reputation long ago, but he wasn't familiar with him personally, so such skepticism was only natural.
Inwardly, Mi Jinglun thought, This Eighth-Order of his is no ordinary Eighth-Order. Slaying Domain Lords for him is like slaughtering chickens and dogs. He's stronger than any of us sitting here. He'd heard quite a few staggering pieces of intelligence from Ouyang Lie, but those reports involved matters of considerable weight, so he'd suppressed them. Very few people knew the full picture—including just how powerful Yang Kai truly was!
It was, in its own way, a form of protection, meant to keep Yang Kai from being exposed to the Ink Clan's heavyweights too early and drawing the enemy's attention.
But looking at it now, even if Mi Jinglun wanted to shield the young man, Yang Kai simply wasn't the type to keep a low profile. He'd already made it all the way to Returnless Pass and destroyed a King Master's Ink Nest—would the Ink Clan not now regard him as a thorn in their flesh and a nail in their eye?
After a brief pause, Mi Jinglun said, "He may not have been able to accomplish it alone. But don't forget—even if he truly acted by himself, that doesn't mean he had no help."
One of the Eighth-Orders caught on at once. "The Small Stone Clan army!"
Mi Jinglun nodded. "Exactly. Previously, Yang Kai appeared across various Grand Domains, refining those Universe Worlds one after another, and he provided the cultivators of those domains with large Small Stone Clan armies for protection. Those armies proved enormously helpful. Without them escorting the evacuating cultivators from domain to domain, the casualties would have been far worse. According to our compiled figures, the Small Stone Clan armies he gave away now number as many as thirty million—among them, nearly a hundred Small Stone Clan powerhouses on par with human Eighth-Orders!"
Even though this was already common knowledge, hearing Mi Jinglun lay it out once more still sent a jolt of astonishment through the room.
Thirty million soldiers of the Small Stone Clan…
Nearly a hundred Small Stone Clan powerhouses equivalent to human Eighth-Orders.
And beyond that, even more on par with human Seventh-Orders, Sixth-Orders, Fifth-Orders…
Everyone was deeply curious how Yang Kai had cultivated so many of the Small Stone Clan—how he had, single-handedly, amassed such a formidable fighting force.
They had already investigated the Small Stone Clan's origins. They were peculiar beings born within a Universe World in a Grand Domain neighboring the Star Boundary. In all the vast expanse of the cosmos, only that one small Universe World produced them; the Small Stone Clan's踪迹 could be found nowhere else.
Yet they had sent people to observe those Small Stone Clan before. The creatures had been dull-witted, lacking in intelligence, and feeble in strength—seemingly an entirely different race from the ones Yang Kai had bestowed upon them.
Of the thirty million Small Stone Clan soldiers, fewer than half remained. The rest had perished in clashes against the Ink Clan. Even so, these ten-odd million survivors had become an indispensable fighting force for the human race. They feared no erosion from the power of Ink and fought with reckless, death-defying ferocity—qualities that gave them an enormous advantage in combat against the Ink Clan.
The Small Stone Clan armies had already made a name for themselves on battlefields across the land, and the human race had also discovered methods to command them. The techniques weren't yet fully refined, but they were far better than before.
In the beginning, someone would deploy the Small Stone Clan in hand to fight the enemy, and once the clan had slaughtered all the Ink Clan forces, there was no way to recall them—quite an awkward situation…
The staggering losses among the thirty million-strong army were partly attributable to the humans' early inability to command them properly. Once better methods were found, the attrition rate dropped significantly.
The fact that Yang Kai had given away thirty million Small Stone Clan soldiers meant he certainly still had some remaining. With his own strength bolstered by those troops, it wasn't impossible that he could destroy a few King Master Ink Nests inside Returnless Pass.
The current state of affairs saw the human race barely holding its ground—having pulled back all its forces to fight the Ink Clan across a dozen-odd battlefields, they could do little more than protect themselves. A meaningful counterattack was out of reach.
Yet Yang Kai, all on his own, had thrown Returnless Pass into utter turmoil. Compared to him, these veteran Eighth-Orders couldn't help but feel a twinge of shame.
"What a pity!" someone sighed with regret.
What was a pity was that Yang Kai had advanced to the Fifth-Order Open Heaven all those years ago. Even after consuming a mid-grade World Fruit, the Eighth-Order was now his absolute ceiling. Advancing to the Ninth-Order… would be extraordinarily difficult.
The Universe Furnace drifted through the void, its location unknown. No one knew when it would appear, and even if it did, the appearance would surely spark a bloody free-for-all. The Ink Clan would never let the humans claim it easily.
"If only this kid had been born into a Cavern Heaven Blessed Land," another Eighth-Order remarked with a long sigh.
Back then, Yang Kai had clearly possessed the talent to advance directly to the Seventh-Order, yet he had chosen the Fifth-Order in the end. Everyone knew full well the reason why.
Now, in hindsight, that suppression had been a colossal mistake. But given the unwritten rules of the Cavern Heaven Blessed Lands at the time, it had indeed been something that needed to be done—though of course, some people's selfish motives had played their part as well.