He pressed onward, and every few years, Yang Kai would seek out a Cosmos World to examine its condition, using the degree of refinement of the Heavenly Laws born within these Cosmoses to determine his direction.
This way, he could ensure there were no major errors in his course.
This vast realm held far too many wonders unknown to the world. If he weren't in such a hurry to return and join the battle, Yang Kai would have gladly explored them at length.
Time continued to slip by, and another hundred years passed. He should be drawing ever closer to the Three Thousand Worlds, for the Heavenly Laws within the Cosmos Worlds he encountered along the way showed a gradual trend toward greater completeness.
Perhaps the day he found a Cosmos World whose Heavenly Laws were truly complete, the Three Thousand Worlds would not be far off at all.
The Three Thousand Worlds—since the appearance of the Cosmos Furnace and the full eruption of the great war between the two races, roughly three hundred years had elapsed. In those three centuries, one Great Domain after another had been successfully reclaimed.
The human race's rapid progress was partly attributable to the vast foundation accumulated over the preceding thousands of years, and partly to the Ink Race's deliberate withdrawal.
Thus, while the humans had reclaimed many Great Domains over the years, the number of fallen powerhouses on the Ink Race's side was not particularly significant. Even when a Ninth-Rank Open Heaven personally intervened, it was difficult to slay those Pseudo King Lords who had long since prepared countermeasures.
Years of warfare had alerted the human leadership to certain anomalies—the Ink Race was deliberately allowing the human front to stretch, using the reclaimed Great Domains to wear down the human armies while biding their time to strike.
But as Mi Jinglun had once said at the General Office, this was a grand, open stratagem. The Ink Race had cast out the bait, and the humans had no choice but to swallow it!
These Three Thousand Worlds, these vast Great Domains, had originally belonged to the human race. Faced with one easily attainable victory after another, the humans could not afford to remain passive. The ultimate aim of this war, after all, was to drive out the invaders.
For this purpose, the human side had devised numerous countermeasures.
First and foremost, upon reclaiming each Great Domain, the humans would seal all its Domain Gates, leaving only a single essential passage.
Great Domains were connected to one another through Domain Gates. While a minority of domains possessed only a single gate, most had several, linking them to varying numbers of other domains.
These Domain Gates ensured contact with the outside world, but they could also serve as vulnerabilities for the Ink Race to exploit.
To prevent such an occurrence, the humans had no choice but to seal every superfluous Gate.
Fortunately, there were still quite a few martial artists proficient in the Dao of Space. All of them hailed from the Void Dojo—warriors who had inherited Yang Kai's legacy. Coupled with the full assistance of the Phoenix Clan, sealing the Domain Gates was not particularly arduous; it only required expending some resources.
Thus, after reclaiming one Great Domain after another, aside from leaving one Domain Gate for entry and exit, every other Gate was sealed through various methods, ensuring that no Ink Race army could suddenly burst through an unguarded passage.
Furthermore, the powerhouses across the various army corps underwent new rounds of coordination and planning.
At present, while the number of Ninth-Rank cultivators on the human side was not large, there were a full nine of them.
Yang Kai's whereabouts were unknown. Wu Kuang and Yang Xue were stationed at the Initial Heaven Grand Restriction. Xiao Xiao and Wu Qing were pinning down the Ink-Colored Colossal Spirit in the Fenglan Domain. Ouyang Lie commanded the Xuanming Army, Xiang Shan led the Blood Flame Army, Luo Tinghe's forces comprised the Qingyang Army, and Wei Junyang commanded the Wolf Fang Army.
With over a dozen army corps but only four Ninth-Rank cultivators, it was impossible to cover every front.
Under the General Office's coordination, those corps lacking a Ninth-Rank presence had large numbers of powerhouses reassigned to them, including numerous Sacred Spirits, to ensure the combat effectiveness of each army—at minimum, giving every corps the capability to engage Pseudo King Lords on the battlefield.
Large numbers of warships and even Evil-Breaking Divine Spears were deployed to the front lines. Under these various measures, the human side advanced steadily and methodically, never overreaching for quick gains, clearing out Ink Race forces from each Great Domain step by step.
Over these many years, they had not afforded the Ink Race any opening to exploit.
However, as Great Domain after Great Domain was reclaimed, the fighting strength of the human expeditionary armies continued to dwindle.
Someone had to garrison the reclaimed domains, which inevitably meant splitting their forces—there was simply no way around it.
The number of reclaimed domains was not yet too great, and the human side could still bear the strain. But this burden had its limits. Once that limit was breached, no matter how the humans adapted, gaps would inevitably appear along their overstretched front lines.
In truth, solving this problem was straightforward—they simply needed sufficient manpower.
With a large enough human army, no matter how forces were divided, they would always retain the capability to stand against the Ink Race.
Where would those troops come from? Naturally, from the bottom ranks.
In fact, many years ago, the human leadership had already recognized this problem. During the great migration of the past, too many humans had perished in the flames of war. Among the fallen were members of ancient lineages and sects—on some Cosmos Worlds, the human population had been slaughtered to the last by the Ink Race!
Those humans had not been strong, and even converted into Ink Slaves they were of little use, so the Ink Race had shown them no mercy.