The Bipolar Domain. The war raged on.
Three hundred years ago, the Ink Clan had suffered repeated defeats in the Xuan Ming Domain, losing a great number of Domain Lords. Though they had subsequently negotiated peace with the human Eighth-Order, those Domain Lords were truly dead.
As if desperate to recover face and morale, the Ink Clan had intensified its offensives across several great domains, with the Bipolar Domain bearing the worst of it.
The Ink Clan had clearly made this battlefield their primary target, pouring reinforcements into the domain year after year, leveraging their overwhelming numerical advantage to press the humans.
Under previous circumstances, with the Ink Clan pressing this hard, the Bipolar Domain would have been impossible to hold. But over the years, the continuous production of the Exorcism Divine Lances had given humanity at least some means to fight back.
Spear after spear was forged by the artifact smiths, then sealed with the purifying light of the Sun and Moon Marks by the Sacred Spirits who had mastered them, before being distributed to human powerhouses. In battle after battle, they had proven invaluable.
For this reason, nearly half of the Exorcism Divine Lances produced in the Xuan Ming Domain had been sent to the Bipolar Domain.
After all, the Ink Clan Domain Lords in the Xuan Ming Domain did not dare to act, so the Xuan Ming Domain's demand for the Exorcism Divine Lances was far lower than other great domains.
In every major battle, the brightest thing in the void was the pure radiance of each Exorcism Divine Lance as it detonated—those bursts of light like miniature suns illuminating the endless darkness, sustaining the human armies time and again as they held against the tide.
When Yang Kai arrived at the Bipolar Domain, a massive battle was at its most critical juncture. Ink Clan armies blotted out the void in every direction, their magnificent and domineering presence proclaiming their home-field dominance. The various divisions of the human army could only cling to their pre-built defensive positions and hold fast.
The human forces in the Bipolar Domain had essentially lost the ability to face the Ink Clan head-on. Yet even the most stubborn defense would eventually crumble.
Across the battlefield, human warships wove back and forth, unleashing the power of secret techniques and artifacts. Human Eighth-Order powerhouses fought and bled in desperate combat.
Yang Kai retracted his aura and drifted toward the battlefield like a specter.
He had no particular target. He didn't know a single one of these Ink Clan Domain Lords in the Bipolar Domain. Killing any of them would do.
Three hundred years of seclusion—had the Azure Dragon Spear not tasted blood in all that time? It was time to let the Ink Clan powerhouses of the Bipolar Domain feel what true fear felt like.
Somewhere on the battlefield, a human Eighth-Order was fighting two Domain Lords at once, his situation grim.
But the Eighth-Order had faced this kind of odds countless times, so despite the hardship, he could still hold on. Moreover, he had an Exorcism Divine Lance hidden in reserve, unspent, which kept both Domain Lords wary—they dared not go all out in their attacks, each holding back to guard against a potential ambush.
As they clashed, the power of heaven and earth collided with the Ink Force, shaking the void. Ink Clan soldiers who couldn't dodge in time were swept up by the aftershocks—killed or wounded without exception.
This human Eighth-Order was fully focused on weathering the dual assault, privately debating whether he should risk taking a hit to grievously wound one of them.
In an exchange between an Eighth-Order and Domain Lords where both sides ended up injured, humanity still came out ahead.
Because a wounded human Eighth-Order could take spirit pills to heal and meditate to recover. Domain Lords couldn't—they had to endure minor injuries, but if they were gravely wounded, they had no choice but to enter an Ink Nest to hibernate.
The Bipolar Domain had only a handful of Domain Lord-grade Ink Nest, all currently occupied by gravely wounded Domain Lords convalescing. If more were injured, they would have to travel to the Unreturning Pass, where more Domain Lord-grade Ink Nests existed along with over a hundred King Lord-grade ones.
Over the years, gravely wounded Domain Lords had continuously traveled to the Unreturning Pass to recover, while healed Domain Lords had just as continuously returned from the Unreturning Pass to rejoin the fight.
It was through this strategy of mutual wounding that human Eighth-Orders had been able to effectively suppress the number of Ink Clan Domain Lords participating in battle.
If every Ink Clan Domain Lord threw themselves into the fight, the human Eighth-Orders would not be able to hold—they would have to abandon at least two or three great domain battlefields and consolidate their forces.
But if humanity pulled back, the Ink Clan could concentrate theirs in turn. That was why humanity was unwilling to lightly give up any great domain battlefield.
The human Eighth-Order quickly made up his mind. He would look for an opening, feign an opening, and lure one Domain Lord into overextending so he could trade blows. As long as he didn't die, it would be worth it.
But before he could act, a voice suddenly reached his ear. He paused in surprise, then thrilled.
Outwardly, he revealed nothing. Inwardly, he gathered his strength.
A few breaths later, he suddenly roared: "If we're going down, we're going down together!"
As he spoke, an Exorcism Divine Lance in his hand transformed into a streak of brilliant light and hurtled toward one Domain Lord in an apparent all-or-nothing strike.
The two Ink Clan Domain Lords had been on guard for exactly this. They immediately channeled the Ink Force, condensing dense clouds of Ink energy before themselves in an instant.
This was a countermeasure the Domain Lords had developed specifically against the Exorcism Divine Lances.
The pure purifying light was the Ink Force's natural bane, and once a lance was launched, even a Domain Lord's reaction speed was insufficient to dodge.
Since dodging was out of the question, the answer was to unleash their vast reserves of Ink Force to offset the purifying light's power.
The instant the radiance detonated, whether Eighth-Order or Domain Lord, none could see.
But in that very instant, the battle reached its white-hot peak.
Both sides believed victory was theirs, and killing moves erupted in rapid succession.