On the day the Cosmos Furnace closed, from over a dozen major domain battlefields, the experts of both the human and Mo clans returned one after another.
The humans, well prepared, struck the Mo Clan with devastating force. In the two domains of Qingyang and Langya that had already been reclaimed, virtually every Mo Clan warrior who returned was killed or wounded. Aside from a handful of Pseudo-King Lords who sensed the danger and fled by sheer luck, not a single survivor remained.
In the Xuanming and Xueyan domains, Ouyang Lie and Xiang Shan returned, both having advanced to the Ninth Rank. They caught the Mo Clan completely off guard. The two Ninth Rank powerhouses unleashed a massacre, slaughtering Mo Clan experts until their hearts turned to ice and their livers split with terror. Countless fell.
Soon after, the two great armies, under the command of the two Ninth Rank cultivators, mustered every available force across their respective domains, split into multiple columns, and marched on the Mo Clan's main camp.
The two sides clashed in a brutal engagement, blood and flesh baptizing the endless void.
Though the Mo Clan had Pseudo-King Lords holding the line, their numbers were insufficient. Facing these two newly promoted Ninth Rank powerhouses, they were still outmatched. For a time, the human armies in the Xuanming and Xueyan domains surged like the midday sun. The Mo Clan armies crumbled at first contact, and who knew how many experts fell.
By then, the Qingyang and Langya corps, having already wrapped up their own affairs, also dispatched troops to neighboring domain battlefields under the leadership of Luo Tinghe and Wei Junyang respectively.
Across the many domain battlefields, the situation varied—in some, the humans were at a disadvantage; in others, they held the upper hand; and in still others, the two sides were roughly evenly matched.
Yet no matter what the situation, when fresh human forces arrived, all that awaited the Mo Clan was utter defeat.
Wherever the armies led by the human Ninth Rank powerhouses pointed their spearheads, none could stand against them.
In a mere three years, two more domain battlefields were pacified.
By that time, the wars in the Xuanming and Xueyan domains under Ouyang Lie and Xiang Shan had also reached their final stages. With no King Lord-level Mo Clan experts stepping forward to contest them, the Mo Clan could offer little resistance against the relentless human assault.
Of the over a dozen domain battlefields, six had been reclaimed. News spread through the General Headquarters to all fronts, and the entire human race was buoyed with hope.
During the ongoing war, the Star Realm's human recruitment centers were overflowing. In truth, ever since these centers had been established, human warriors had been constantly arriving to enlist. However, before now, the situation had been unclear and the full-scale war between the two races had not yet erupted, so recruitment had imposed strict limits on the number of new soldiers accepted.
But now the war between the two races had exploded in earnest. This was a war of annihilation that concerned every living soul—its outcome would ultimately mean the extinction of one race. Factor in the need to stretch supply lines as more territory was reclaimed, and the recruitment centers significantly lowered their requirements for new recruits.
A constant stream of fresh personnel flowed through these centers, dispatched to every front to replenish losses.
And after thousands of years of cultivation, the human race had indeed produced many powerful experts. The Star Realm and the Myriad Beast Realm in particular—because of the nourishing effects of the World Tree's sub-trees—regularly gave rise to individuals of exceptional talent. Those newly advanced Fifth and Sixth Rank cultivators might not amount to much in single combat against Mo Clan experts on the battlefield, but when thousands or even tens of thousands of such warriors gathered into a single army, the resulting force was beyond imagination.
At the General Headquarters, Mi Jinglun was continuously reallocating all manner of supplies to the various battlefields, ensuring the armies' logistical needs were met.
Fortunately, in the course of reclaiming those domains, the humans had also seized significant quantities of war spoils. For the time being, though supplies on the human side were somewhat tight, they had not yet reached a critical shortage.
After reclaiming the six domain battlefields, the six armies split up and advanced into the remaining contested zones, joining forces with the original human corps stationed there to jointly resist the Mo Clan.
The fighting grew incredibly intense. The initial momentum of the human advance left the Mo Clan reeling, but soon the Mo Clan found a way to respond.
The reason the humans currently held the advantage was primarily because several Ninth Rank cultivators led their armies from the front—a counter the Mo Clan could barely match.
While some Domain Lords within the Mo Clan possessed the potential to advance to King Lord, that transformation required the passage of time, and for now they could not be relied upon.
But the Mo Clan had Pseudo-King Lords! And creating Pseudo-King Lords required no great time—only the sacrifice of large numbers of Innate Domain Lords and King Lord-level Mo Nests.
Years ago, when the Cosmos Furnace first appeared, in order to destroy the humans' opportunity, Mo Yu of the Mo Clan had reluctantly issued the order, commanding all intact Innate Domain Lords to gather at No-Return Pass and forge dozens of Pseudo-King Lords in a single stroke.
That time, the Mo Clan had paid a heavy price. One could say that nearly all the Innate Domain Lords who had emerged from the Primordial Heaven Great Restriction in the early stages of the war had been lost.
But the sacrifice had been worthwhile. The birth of dozens of Pseudo-King Lords had indeed caused considerable trouble and threat to the human side.
Yet of those dozens of Pseudo-King Lords, fewer than twenty remained. With only these Pseudo-King Lords, the Mo Clan could no longer contend with the humans.
The Mo Clan needed more Pseudo-King Lords!
Fortunately, the Mo Clan now had the capital to do so.
Some years earlier, flaws had appeared in the Primordial Heaven Great Restriction, and close to two thousand Innate Domain Lords had slipped out, one after another. These escaped Innate Domain Lords were all gravely injured and unable to act for the time being. When Yang Kai learned of this, he pursued and killed them along their escape routes. Monaye then used these wounded Innate Domain Lords as bait, setting a trap in an attempt to eliminate Yang Kai as a threat. The plan ultimately failed, resulting in the massive deaths of those Innate Domain Lords.
But a considerable number of Innate Domain Lords had still survived, and for years they had been slumbering in No-Return Pass, recovering from their wounds.
The Mo Clan lacked no resources. With an abundant supply of materials and decades of dormant recuperation, most of these Innate Domain Lords had fully recovered from their injuries.