More King Lords stepped through the gap in the Grand Barrier, their earth-shaking figures converging until the very void twisted under their presence.
Every King Lord's gaze turned toward the human army's position, their faces twisted with cruelty and bloodlust.
At Pure Yang Pass, Mi Jinglun watched the scene with cold eyes, raised his hand, and hurled an object forward with a thunderous shout: "Go!"
It was a small, round bead.
Empowered by the strength of a Ninth-Order master, the tiny bead quickly broke through the Ink Clan army's heavy blockade and shot toward the King Lords.
The King Lords' eyes were drawn to the bead. After a brief examination, they found the object somewhat peculiar but nothing worth worrying about.
One of the King Lords threw a punch that shattered the bead into pieces.
What happened next caught every King Lord completely off guard. The moment the bead shattered, vast floating continents materialized out of thin air, as if those landmasses were the bead's fragments.
Powerful spatial law fluctuations rippled outward, and two colossal figures—large enough to blot out the sky and cover the earth—appeared, obscuring every King Lord's field of vision.
Every King Lord's expression turned to shock.
A Da and A Er, who had been prepared in advance, gave them no time to react. The instant they appeared, they began a slaughter.
Towering, terrifying palms crashed down. King Lord after King Lord was swept up in the devastating force, coughing up blood amid the sickening sounds of cracking bones.
The King Lords screamed. No one had expected two Giant Spirits to charge onto the battlefield in this manner. Caught completely off guard, they suffered devastating losses.
Several King Lords were pounded into dust on the spot, their life force extinguished, while the survivors scattered in every direction.
This was the human race's trump card.
In the great battle at the Return Pass, A Da and A Er had been pinned down by two Ink-colored Giant Spirits, unable to play a decisive role. It wasn't until Yang Kai joined forces with A Da to slay one of the Ink-colored Giant Spirits that the tide began to turn.
But here, with no Ink-colored Giant Spirits to hold them back, the full terror of the two Giant Spirits was unleashed.
The Ink Clan had nothing that could stand against such beings. Their very presence represented unstoppable destruction.
Before the Heaven and Earth Beads they had been hiding in were deployed, A Da and A Er must have received prior instructions from Mi Jinglun, because upon seeing the fleeing King Lords, A Da immediately gave chase while A Er stayed behind, its enormous form serving as a barrier that blocked the gap in the Grand Barrier.
Inside the gap, more King Lords gathered upon receiving word, but they dared not step out. Each one eyed the towering figure with wary caution.
Though the Giant Spirits possessed boundless strength, their colossal size made them less than nimble. A Da pursued the fleeing King Lords for a while but failed to finish them off. Frustrated, it charged directly into the Ink Clan army.
This was a tiger among sheep. No matter how desperately the Ink Clan fought back, their attacks were nothing more than tickling A Da.
The massive army formation was thrown into chaos. A Da carved through them like dragging an invisible line—everywhere it passed, sections of the battlefield were carved away and isolated.
The Ink Clan army, whose formation had already been loose, became riddled with even more openings.
Mi Jinglun saw this and was overjoyed. He immediately issued the command for a full-scale assault.
The human army, which had already reformed its battle lines, charged back into the Ink Clan tide. But this time was different from before—earlier, the humans had to contend with billions of Ink Clan warriors, but now they only needed to deal with those isolated pockets that had been cut off.
The pressure was reduced many times over.
Just as the human army launched its second assault, over a dozen figures on the Anti-Ink Platform shot into the sky. They didn't rush toward the battlefield—instead, they streaked away from it.
In the midst of such a critical battle, such behavior would normally earn them the label of deserters.
But everyone turned a blind eye, considering it perfectly natural.
The reason was simple: these dozen or so individuals had fluctuating auras, showing clear signs of being on the verge of breaking through their own shackles.
Among the ten were Zhao Yebai, Xu Yi, and Zhao Ya.
When Mi Jinglun had originally selected members for the Anti-Ink Army from the various corps, he had adhered to a principle of quality over quantity. At that time, guarding the Grand Barrier had not been particularly dangerous—with the Holy Dragon Fuguang leading and Wu Kuang, who controlled the Grand Barrier, providing support, all the Anti-Ink Army needed to do was intercept the scattered Ink Clan stragglers fleeing through the gap.
Out of a desire to nurture talent, Mi Jinglun had placed many promising candidates who were qualified to advance to the Ninth-Order into the army, keeping them away from the brutal battlefields of the various great domains and allowing them to cultivate peacefully outside the Grand Barrier, with hopes that they would advance to the Ninth-Order as soon as possible.
However, the subsequent upheavals at the Grand Barrier had drastically increased the dangers outside.
Though Mi Jinglun was a master strategist with limitless cleverness, even he could not have predicted the changes that unfolded over two thousand years.
But regardless, no one could deny that the Anti-Ink Army was an elite force.
Just look at the present—of the mere several thousand members of the Anti-Ink Army, ten were on the verge of breaking through their shackles and advancing to the Ninth-Order. Such a ratio would be impossible to replicate in any other corps.
These ten were currently only at the Eighth-Order Open Heaven stage. Even if they threw their lives into the fray, the impact they could make would be limited—the human race had no shortage of Eighth-Order cultivators, and they didn't need these ten.
But if they successfully advanced and returned as Ninth-Order masters—even if only half of them succeeded—the human side would gain five additional Ninth-Order powerhouses.
Moreover, judging by the events of recent years, the success rate of these up-and-coming prodigies of the human race who had received nourishment from the World Tree's subsidiary trees was remarkably high—far exceeding that of the fallen predecessors who had perished in battle.