Under the watchful eyes of everyone, the Space Grand Dao rippled outward, and before long, the passage entrance that Yang Kai had sealed years ago materialized, transforming into a constantly rotating vortex gate.
From within that gate, an aura of the void exuded.
Yang Kai flashed inside, and the many warriors of the Void Guard followed close behind, vanishing in the blink of an eye.
The entrance to this passage was on the Black Domain side, while its exit lay somewhere in the void of the Biluo Theater, near the territory the Ink Clan had once occupied.
Yang Kai had used this secret passage to travel between the Black Domain and the Ink Battlefield more times than he could count, so he was naturally well acquainted with it.
If only a small number of cultivators needed to pass through, simply advancing forward and unsealing the barrier on the other side would have been the end of it. But this time, the number of people was staggering—all twelve of humanity's great armies, each one boasting two to three million soldiers. Twelve armies, nearly thirty million warriors in total. The original passage was far from sufficient to meet humanity's needs.
To transport the armies to the Biluo Theater in the shortest possible time, they had to find a way to expand and reinforce the passage.
This was not something Yang Kai could accomplish alone, even after advancing to the Ninth Order. Fortunately, he was no longer the only one who had attained mastery of the Space Grand Dao. The one hundred and forty-odd warriors of the Void Guard could lend him a hand.
Deep within the passage, everyone immediately sensed the omnipresent spatial turbulence surrounding them. Strictly speaking, this passage existed in a state between spatial fissures. Anyone who did not comprehend the Dao of Space who entered here would quickly lose their sense of direction under the onslaught of the spatial turbulence, unable to find their way back or out.
Even those who were proficient in the Space Grand Dao had to proceed with great caution in a place like this.
Yang Kai cleared the path at the front, his Space Grand Dao constantly reverberating, while the many Void Guard warriors behind him formed a long column one after another, each channeling the power of their own Grand Dao.
With this coordinated effort, the passage was continuously expanded, and the spatial turbulence was smoothed clean.
Throughout the process, Yang Kai also set down formation after formation along the sides of the passage to reinforce it.
Through everyone's concerted efforts, the reinforced passage extended ever further forward.
With every stretch of ground they covered, one Void Guard warrior would be stationed in place at Yang Kai's command, monitoring the condition of the passage and standing ready to handle any unexpected incidents.
This was something Yang Kai had never done before either. He could not guarantee that the passage would be truly and completely stable, so it was best to prepare for the worst.
They pressed onward until they reached the end of the passage, at which point only about a hundred Void Guard warriors remained. Close to forty had been left behind at various points throughout the passage.
At that end point, Yang Kai planted his feet and turned back for a glance. Seeing that Li Wuyi and the others were following closely behind, he raised his hand and pressed it forward.
The Laws of Space rippled, and the void ahead—sealed shut for years—suddenly trembled with expanding ripples. As the ripples spread, a gateway soon manifested.
Yang Kai flashed through it.
An instant later, the Void Guard warriors surged out as well, led by Li Wuyi.
"You lot, expand the passage at once. Also, send someone back to inform Marshal Mi that everything is ready on this end. I'm going to scout the surroundings." Yang Kai issued his orders.
Li Wuyi acknowledged the command, selecting one person to relay the message and dispatching a group to stand guard in all directions, while the rest set about expanding and reinforcing the passage exit.
Before long, in the Black Domain, Mi Jinglun received the transmission. With a single order from him, squad after squad stowed their warships into their small universes and, led by the senior officers of their respective armies, charged into the passage.
On the other end, Yang Kai's figure shifted and darted through the void, his divine sense sweeping across the surroundings in an instant.
Now at the Ninth Order, his divine sense was incomparably powerful. The slightest disturbance anywhere nearby could not escape his perception.
A squad of more than ten Ink Clan members was patrolling through the void. The squad seemed to have no particular objective—they were simply probing about, meticulously scanning every stretch of void and every floating landmass they encountered.
When they reached a certain area of the void, an abrupt change erupted. The space suddenly shattered like a mirror struck by a hammer, and the Ink Clan squad caught within that shattered void had no time to react whatsoever before being reduced to a pile of mangled limbs and flesh.
An instant later, Yang Kai's figure materialized nearby, his brows tightly furrowed.
Decades ago, at the Unreturnable Pass, he had sat sharing tea and exchanging pleasantries with Monayei, each probing the other without either gaining any useful intelligence.
Yang Kai did not know whether the Primordial Ink had awakened yet at the Great Sealing of Chutian, and Monayei did not know where the entrance and exit of the secret passage were located.
Though Monayei had little understanding of the passage itself, that did not stop him from taking concrete action to investigate.
This was the fifth Ink Clan squad Yang Kai had eliminated. Every one of them had consisted of nothing but low-rank and high-rank Ink Clan—not a single Ink Clan Lord in sight—and each squad had been small in number, ranging from just a handful to a little over a dozen.
It was easy to imagine that Monayei, in his effort to pinpoint the secret passage's location, had dispatched a great many Ink Clan over the years, casting a wide net in his search.