These Sacred Spirits had suspicious origins. They belonged neither to the No Return Pass nor to the Sacred Spirits' Ancestral Ground.
After making contact, the Sacred Spirits insisted by name on speaking with a woman from Lingxiao Palace called Hua Qingsi.
Lingxiao Palace didn't dare keep them waiting. Hua Qingsi appeared without delay, and only then did they learn the truth: these Sacred Spirits had all been subdued by Yang Kai within the Tai Xu Realm and sent out by him.
The news spread, and the entire human race was galvanized.
The humans were currently facing a severe shortage of manpower. The sudden appearance of these hundred Sacred Spirits could undoubtedly provide a tremendous boost.
Everyone assumed this was a powerful reinforcement force.
Yet what no one expected was that after arriving at the Star Boundary, these Sacred Spirits had no intention of fighting alongside the human race. Instead, they remained in the Star Boundary, throwing their weight around on the strength of their identities as Sacred Spirits, looking down on everyone with haughty disdain.
In the end, it was Fu Guang—who had been in seclusion recuperating from his injuries—who stepped forward and intimidated them severely, which finally brought them into some measure of order.
Hua Qingsi then mediated between the parties. The hundred or so Sacred Spirits who had emerged from the Tai Xu Realm were made marginally usable, though they refused to obey anyone's commands. Whenever the human race needed them to do something, they had to negotiate well in advance, and whether they actually went or not was entirely up to their own inclination.
Despite all the frustrations, these hundred-odd Sacred Spirits remained an indispensable fighting force.
All the Sacred Spirits had been organized into several squads. They weren't assigned to garrison any particular domain's battlefield, but whenever a domain's front lines came under heavy pressure, the General Office would dispatch them to provide reinforcement. This way, they could be put to their greatest use.
On several prior occasions, the human defensive lines in multiple domains had been on the verge of collapse when the Sacred Spirits charged in at a critical moment and turned the tide. One could say that the human race's ability to barely hold the front lines across these dozen-plus domains owed much to the Sacred Spirits' intervention at crucial junctures.
So when Wei Junyang mentioned that he had already sent word to the General Office requesting Sacred Spirit reinforcement, Ouyang Lie felt considerably relieved.
But soon enough, worry crept back onto his face: "The Sacred Spirits coming to reinforce us—they won't be the batch from the Tai Xu Realm, will they?"
If it was that particular group, they were far less dependable than the Sacred Spirits from the Ancestral Ground or the No Return Pass.
Wei Junyang shook his head. "It's unclear. There aren't many Sacred Spirits overall—just six squads in total. Which squad gets sent to reinforce us is something the General Office will have to decide."
While the two were still talking, the situation on the battlefield suddenly took a turn. The human front line had been precarious but had still managed to hold its own against the Ink Clan. In that instant, however, over a dozen powerful auras erupted across various parts of the battlefield. Caught completely off guard, human warships were destroyed one after another and Open Heaven Realm cultivators were slain. In those dozen-plus directions, the Ink Clan surged forward like a tide.
Wei Junyang and Ouyang Lie, who had been tending to their wounds, sprang to their feet, both wearing grim expressions.
Ouyang Lie cursed aloud: "What the hell are those people at the General Office doing? A dozen Domain Lords came to reinforce and not a single word of warning reached us?"
On the Xuan Ming Domain battlefield, while there was a disparity in numbers between the human Eighth-Order masters and the Ink Clan Domain Lords, it was not a wide gap, and both sides had been able to keep each other in check. But these dozen-plus auras that had suddenly appeared were completely unfamiliar—they were clearly newcomers who had never set foot on this battlefield before.
A dozen-plus Domain Lords might not sound like a great many, but each was a powerful Innate Domain Lord. Their sudden eruption of force risked shattering the human defensive line entirely.
Wei Junyang's expression was equally dark as he spoke in a heavy voice: "They may not have come from reinforcements in other domains. There were Domain Lords who had been severely wounded and then vanished from the front. The General Office theorized they had returned to the No Return Pass to recuperate—after all, there are many King Lord Ink Nests there, making recovery convenient. These Domain Lords most likely came from the No Return Pass."
Across all the various battlefields, the two races' elite forces had been locked in mutual containment. If a dozen Innate Domain Lords had truly been pulled from another domain, the General Office would have caught wind of it.
Since the General Office hadn't sent any warning, it meant they were just as blindsided by these Domain Lords' appearance.
These Domain Lords had most likely come straight from the No Return Pass and were now being thrown into this battle in a single concentrated push—an obvious attempt to crush the Xuan Ming Domain's human forces and seize this entire domain.
The two human Eighth-Order masters had no more time for healing. They shot into the sky, each selecting a target, and charged toward the Domain Lords.
Simultaneously, the auras of human Eighth-Order masters erupted in every direction.
But both Wei Junyang and Ouyang Lie knew in their hearts that this time, the Xuan Ming Domain was likely doomed. The arrival of a dozen powerful Innate Domain Lords was more than enough to overwhelm the Xuan Ming Army's defensive line.
Under the current circumstances, the Xuan Ming Army absolutely could not retreat. Falling back would only lead to even heavier casualties on the road. Their only chance lay in repelling this Ink Clan offensive first, which would then afford them an orderly withdrawal.
Fight to the death!
For the human race, this kind of situation was nothing new. So even though the situation was dire, the morale of the human army did not falter in the slightest.
In the blink of an eye, the powerhouses of both races began to clash and collide. Bolstered by the reinforcement of their elite, the Ink Clan's main army also began pushing its front line forward. Countless dazzling beams of light flickered to life, multicolored and brilliant, painting the vast void in a dazzling array of hues.
In merely half a day, three-tenths of the three hundred thousand human troops stationed here had fallen. Even two Eighth-Order Open Heaven masters were killed.
Though both Eighth-Order masters unleashed explosive power in their final moments, all they managed was to severely wound their opponents.
Not a single Innate Domain Lord had died!
When had the human race ever suffered such a grievous blow? The fall of two Eighth-Order masters drove every last fighter into a frenzy of battle.