Since the human army began its assault on No Return Pass, it had essentially maintained a frequency of launching one major battle every two years.
The first two large-scale battles, aided by the Heaven and Earth charge tactic and the Small Stone Clan as a surprise force, yielded considerable gains for the humans. They slew vast numbers of the Ink Clan, each engagement claiming at least twenty or thirty Pseudo Sovereigns.
Though the humans suffered some losses among their Eighth-Order masters, the cost was well worth it relative to the gains.
If this situation could continue, the human side was confident that within ten years they could launch a general offensive and take No Return Pass.
But in a war of such immense scale, involving billions of lives, how could everything go exactly as one wished?
After the third battle began, the Ink Clan changed its approach dramatically, pulling back its defensive lines and adopting an entirely defensive strategy — like a turtle retracting its head and limbs into its shell. No matter how many tricks the humans had, they found little they could do against such a posture.
Over the following years, the fourth and fifth battles followed the same pattern.
On many occasions, the human army deliberately created openings on certain local fronts, hoping to lure the Ink Clan into sallying forth for an encirclement. Yet despite these once-in-a-lifetime opportunities, the Ink Clan remained as steady as a mountain, utterly unmoved, treating each seemingly attainable victory as if it didn't exist.
The humans could, of course, launch a direct assault, but doing so under these circumstances would inevitably cause casualties far beyond acceptable limits — something the human high command could not accept.
With no other choice, since the Ink Clan had adopted a stance of defending to the bitter end, the human army could only slowly grind away at the enemy's strength over time.
The sole advantage was that in a war where the humans held complete initiative, their casualties could be kept comfortably within an extremely low range.
Of course, setting aside that vague undercurrent of worry, this was exactly the sort of situation Yang Kai welcomed.
The longer the war dragged on, the more time he had to cultivate and grow stronger. Within his personal River of Time, the flow of time was thirty times faster than the outside world. After each battle, he could spend a full sixty years cultivating within the river, refining massive amounts of resources as his strength steadily increased.
In the tenth year of the human army's campaign against No Return Pass, following the sixth battle, Yang Kai was in the Empty Domain, refining resources within the River of Time just as he always did, when a sudden tremor reached him from above the river, jolting him awake.
This was the prearranged signal from the Colossal Spirit Ah Er. Because Yang Kai focused entirely on cultivation within the River of Time, he had no awareness of what was happening in the outside world, and Ah Er had to alert him personally. In every previous battle, Ah Er had awakened him in exactly this way.
Sensing the familiar signal, Yang Kai immediately ceased his cultivation and shot out of the river.
Ah Er was right there, extending a hand and pointing toward the Domain Gate. Yang Kai turned to look. Through the gate, he could faintly make out the traces of a great battle on the other side.
He had seen this scene many times before. Every time the humans launched a major assault, he would charge through from the Empty Domain into No Return Pass, single-handedly tying down numerous Ink Clan powerhouses.
But this time, his brow furrowed — because the timing was wrong.
Even though he was absorbed in cultivation within the River of Time, he still had a sense of time's passage. Normally, he could cultivate for around sixty years in the river before the humans launched another attack. This time, however, only about ten years should have passed.
In other words, the last battle had been only about four months ago...
Only four months since the last battle, and the humans had attacked again. This had never happened before.
Yang Kai's expression turned grave, realizing that something unusual must have occurred, or the humans would not have abruptly altered their established strategy and war plan.
He flashed toward the Domain Gate, and before his figure disappeared, he called back to Ah Er: "Keep a close watch on those two enormous black ones. If they try to leave, you charge in!"
Ah Er nodded heavily and rumbled: "Good!"
Ah Da was also nearby, chiming in with agreement, though Yang Kai was fairly certain he didn't understand nine-tenths of what was said...
Just like the previous encounters, the moment Yang Kai stepped through the Domain Gate, more than a dozen powerful auras locked onto him. Led by Dialo, over a dozen Pseudo Sovereigns had surrounded the area in a tight formation, fully prepared.
Every major battle required Yang Kai to fight these opponents. Since he had to conceal his true strength, he had never been able to do much to them, but after so many rounds of tactical sparring, he had managed to take down a few Pseudo Sovereigns — not without some gain.
Previously, these Ink Clan powerhouses led by Dialo had one main task: to restrain Yang Kai and prevent him from launching surprise attacks on other Pseudo Sovereigns. Moreover, because they feared Yang Kai's ability to sacrifice the Small Stone Clan, they rarely engaged him in direct confrontation, relying instead on aura disruption and energy tremors combined with long-range strikes as their primary methods.
This time, however, things were different. The instant Yang Kai appeared, Dialo bellowed: "Kill!"
He charged at Yang Kai first, and the dozen-plus Pseudo Sovereigns, despite their wariness of Yang Kai's various abilities, gritted their teeth and followed.
The reason for this change lay entirely in the humans' unusual movements. Over the past ten years, the humans had launched a battle roughly every two years, without exception. But this time, a mere four months after the last engagement, they had come to attack No Return Pass once more.