This was a war without suspense. Compared to the decade-long Human campaign to capture Returnless Pass, this battle against the Ink Clan reinforcements had been fated to end this way from the very start.
The Ink Clan detachment left behind to pin down the two Giant Gods collapsed first. Every single Pseudo Lord-Rank among them was hunted down and slain, and without Pseudo Lord-Ranks to hold the line, continuing a battle where there was absolutely no hope of victory proved impossible.
The surviving Ink Clan soldiers fled in every direction.
But this vast stretch of the void had been completely sealed off — where could they run? All that awaited them was even more brutal slaughter.
On the main battlefield, after the twelve Human armies had completed their encirclement and blockade, they settled into a steady advance, gnawing away at the Ink Clan's strength one step at a time.
This was supposed to have been the Ink Clan's strategy, yet now the Humans were the ones carrying it out — ironic, to say the least.
Once the balance of power between the two sides was broken, only death awaited the Ink Clan.
Pseudo Lord-Ranks fell one after another. In the end, not a single one was left alive. Next came the Domain Lords, then the Territory Lords…
This grand battle lasted a full half-month before it finally came to an end.
During the lull in the grand battle, the soldiers rested and tended to their wounds, while the losses were tallied.
The Zi Hong Army had been virtually decimated!
This was the greatest loss suffered by the Human Race in this entire war.
Most of the casualties occurred during the period when the Zi Hong Army was blocking the Ink Clan's massive host alone, before the other Human Race legions could complete their encirclement.
Pitting a single legion against an enemy ten times its size inevitably demanded a tremendous price.
But in the end, it was worth it.
Thanks to the meticulous arrangements made before the great battle, the Human Race had managed to hunt down and annihilate every last Ink Clan reinforcement that had escaped from the Primordial Heavens Grand Seal, leaving none alive. This completely eliminated the potential threat posed by those reinforcements.
Only after the battle concluded did Yang Kai undo the great formation sealing the void. The moment the formation was released, the twelve worlds that served as its foundation crumbled to dust, destroyed by the backlash of bearing the formation's power—a force not even Yang Kai could have prevented.
On Pure Yang Pass, all the Ninth-Order Human Race masters gathered. Many bore injuries, with the three Ninth-Order masters of the Zi Hong Army particularly heavily wounded.
From the seat of honor, Mi Jinglun wore a worried expression. "Junior Brother, you are leaving first?"
Just moments ago, Yang Kai had informed everyone that he intended to leave first and head toward the Primordial Grand Barrier.
Yang Kai nodded. "Something must have gone wrong at the Primordial Grand Barrier. I need to go check the situation. Besides, I have no idea how the Ink Repression Army is faring."
The Human Race had far too little intelligence at their disposal. The only thing Yang Kai could be certain of was that the Primordial Grand Barrier hadn't been breached—otherwise, King Lord-level powerhouses would have walked out of it by now.
But the Ink Repression Army's situation was deeply concerning. This elite force had originally been tasked with handling Ink Clan members that escaped from the Barrier, alleviating the pressure it bore.
With tens of millions of Ink Clan pouring out, the Ink Repression Army alone stood no chance of holding them back.
Many of Yang Kai's relatives and Disciples were among the Ink Repression Army's ranks—a fact Mi Jinglun and the others were well aware of, which was why they understood his current state of mind.
In truth, the fact that Yang Kai had continued fighting alongside the Human Race army after learning that an Ink Clan reinforcement force had burst out of the Primordial Grand Barrier—rather than rushing to investigate immediately—was already a remarkable act of selflessness.
Mi Jinglun spoke up. "Since an Ink Clan reinforcement has emerged from the Barrier, things over there certainly won't be calm. If I'm not mistaken, there must be Ink Clan armies stationed outside the Barrier as well. Junior Brother, how could you possibly hold them off alone? Why not wait a while and march with the main army? It won't take long—ten days should suffice!"
Yang Kai shook his head. "We've just come out of a major battle. Even though it wasn't particularly grueling, the soldiers are all exhausted. Ten days isn't enough—they need time to recover. If I go alone, I can stay hidden and act when the moment is right."
Seeing that Mi Jinglun was about to argue further, Yang Kai said, "I'll take a portion of the Void Guard with me. As we advance, I'll set up spatial formation arrays along the way. It's only a few years' journey to the Primordial Grand Barrier at most, and by the time the arrays are laid out, the soldiers should have recovered. Then we can teleport straight there in one go. Senior Brother, this is the best arrangement."
Mi Jinglun opened his mouth, but in the end could only nod. "You're not wrong. It's just that this will likely be hard on you, Junior Brother."
"It's my duty!" He stood up. "I'll go make preparations."
There wasn't much to prepare. He had Li Wuyi select a contingent of Void Guard to accompany him, and beyond that, he needed to seal the Pure Yang Pass and the two Giant Spirit Gods.
After all, whether it was the Pure Yang Pass or the Giant Spirit Gods, all of them were far too massive to be teleported directly. Yang Kai would have to use the method of refining Heaven and Earth Beads—refine them and seal them within a Heaven and Earth Bead.
The twelve earlier Universes had already been ground to dust, but fortunately, dead Universes were hardly scarce in this vast expanse of void. Yang Kai employed his arts to casually relocate one and placed the Pure Yang Pass and the two Giant Spirit Gods upon it.
Then, employing the Dao of Space, he refined that Universe into a Heaven and Earth Bead and handed it to Mi Jinglun for safekeeping.
Once all preparations were complete, Yang Kai collected twenty Void Guard soldiers into his own Minor Universe and vanished deep into the void.
Forward, forward, ever forward...
The emotions he had suppressed for half a year fermented to their peak in this moment. Yang Kai was desperate to reach the Primordial Grand Barrier as quickly as possible, desperate to see for himself what the situation there looked like.
Several days later, he halted his movement, opened the gateway to his Minor Universe, and two Void Guard soldiers stepped out.
"It's in your hands now," Yang Kai said before setting off once more.
The two Void Guard soldiers bowed to see him off, and only after Yang Kai had departed did they begin laying out the spatial formation.
Several more days later, Yang Kai released another two Void Guard soldiers.