In what felt like an instant yet simultaneously an eternity, the two-colored radiance vanished abruptly, and the violent power subsided. The earth-shattering battle had finally reached its end.
Yang Kai coughed up mouthfuls of blood, his complexion haggard and listless. Leaning on his Azure Dragon Spear, he barely managed to stay upright. On his chest, the wound that Di Wu had carved open with a knife-hand strike had originally been sealed by clotted flesh and blood, but now it had burst open once more, blood gushing forth like a pillar.
Not far away, Di Wu stood with his head raised and chest thrust forward, his entire body tattered and riddled with holes. Occasionally, wisps of Ink power would seep from his wounds, but long gone was his previous violent momentum—all that remained was frailty and weakness.
His Pseudo King Lord aura had already deteriorated beyond recognition, and even his life force had nearly burned to its last ember.
With the foundation of a Pseudo King Lord completely collapsed, suffering a violent backlash from that power, how could he possibly survive?
And yet he did not die immediately. His murky gaze fixed upon Yang Kai, his expression somewhat conflicted. After a long while, he finally spoke in a low voice: "The Ink shall be eternal!"
His body crashed to the ground, raising a cloud of dust, and his life force vanished entirely.
Yang Kai was still not at ease. Gritting his teeth and forcing himself to maintain focus, he stumbled over to Di Wu's side. He raised the Azure Dragon Spear and stabbed the corpse several times, confirming that Di Wu was thoroughly and irreversibly dead. Only then did he spit out a mouthful of blood and curse through clenched teeth.
The hell with "the Ink shall be eternal." He had been hearing those words for thousands of years, and the Ink had yet to unify the heavens.
As long as humanity endured, and as long as Yang Kai himself still drew breath, the Ink could forget about eternity.
Leaning on his Azure Dragon Spear, he slowly lowered himself to the ground and began adjusting his somewhat erratic energy, activating his Dragon Vein power to mend his injuries.
His gaze was slightly dazed. For days on end he had been maintaining combat of the highest intensity, all while scheming against the Ink Clan's numerous powerhouses. Both his mind and body had been pushed to their absolute limits.
The damage to his divine soul still lingered, requiring a prolonged period of recuperation before it could heal.
His physical body, after this battle, bore countless additional wounds.
For a moment, he actually could not recall what his original purpose in coming to the Ancestral Land had been.
His thoughts circled several times before he suddenly remembered—he had originally come to the Ancestral Land to investigate clues regarding that beam of light.
Fortunately, the results had been satisfactory.
Regarding that beam of light, while a few mysteries remained, Yang Kai had by and large pieced together the full picture.
On top of that, he had cultivated in the Ancestral Land for three hundred years, achieving tremendous progress in both his Dragon Vein and his Dao of Time. He had also slain eight Innate Domain Lords and one Ink Clan Pseudo King Lord…
No matter how one looked at it, this trip to the Ancestral Land had been an immensely bountiful haul.
If only he hadn't gotten himself into such a wretched state in the process, it would have been even better.
He did not rest for long. Two or three hundred Small Stone Race powerhouses were still pursuing those fleeing Innate Domain Lords. While it was highly unlikely they would catch any, he could not simply turn a blind eye.
Such a formidable force—if he did not keep an eye on them, given the Small Stone Race's temperament, they would very likely wander off and get lost.
He had to round them all up no matter what.
With that, Yang Kai merely meditated briefly to steady himself before rising once again. Dragging his extremely exhausted body along, he activated the Laws of Space and vanished in a flash.
As he had expected, the Small Stone Race powerhouses' pursuit had been largely fruitless. The Innate Domain Lords were formidable in their own right, and once they committed fully to fleeing, the Small Stone Race had little recourse against them.
Yang Kai traversed the void, collecting batch after batch of scattered Small Stone Race powerhouses.
There was even an unexpected bonus.
The twelve Innate Domain Lords who had been maintaining the grand formation had long since fled. The Small Stone Race could not catch them, and Yang Kai had no intention of giving chase—they could dodge for now, but sooner or later there would be a reckoning.
However, several of the seventh-grade Ink Slaves who had accompanied them had not fled quickly enough. Their strength was considerably inferior, and they were being relentlessly pursued by a few Small Stone Race powerhouses.
By the time Yang Kai arrived, these seventh-grade Ink Slaves were all covered in wounds. Had he arrived any later, they very likely would have been beaten to death by the Small Stone Race.
Upon seeing Yang Kai, the Ink Slaves looked as though they had spotted their own kin, each one crying out for the Lord to save them.
In all the heavens, given the current state of affairs, if there was one group that could consider itself safest, it was undoubtedly the Ink Slaves.
To the Ink Clan, the Ink Slaves were their servants. They sometimes needed to borrow the Ink Slaves' strength to accomplish tasks that the Ink Clan itself was ill-suited for, so they naturally would not kill them at random.
To the Human Race, upon encountering an Ink Slave, if they had the ability, they would only capture them alive—likewise without random killing, because humanity now possessed the means to cleanse these Ink Slaves and return them to normal.
Thus, the Ink Slaves occupied a unique position where they could get along with both the Human and Ink Clauses alike—fish in water, so to speak.
These seventh-grade Ink Slaves had been driven to a dead end by the Small Stone Race's pursuit. Had Yang Kai not found them, they had even been prepared to voluntarily return to the Ancestral Land to seek his protection.
Yang Kai did not make things difficult for them. He activated the Solar-Lunar Mark, recalled the Small Stone Race powerhouses, and then channeled the Purifying Light, dispersing the Ink power within the Ink Slaves' bodies.