A full month of brutal warfare raged through the void, blood cascading like rain.
The tide of the human army surged ceaselessly across the battlefield, reaping the lives of the Mo. In the early stages, the human offensive had swept forward unimpeded, but as more and more King Lords emerged from the Grand Barrier, the pressure on humanity grew ever greater.
Though Ah Da and Ah Er continued to hold the breach in the Grand Barrier, they could not block every last Mo from slipping through. When dozens of King Lords joined forces to besiege them, their defenses inevitably had gaps—and whenever that happened, torrents of Mo warriors poured out from the Grand Barrier.
Many Mo who couldn't avoid the crossfire were annihilated without a trace, but even more managed to escape unscathed and reinforce the battlefield.
The entire void was saturated with dense Mo energy and the stench of blood and flesh. Such an environment may have posed little issue for the Mo, but for the human warriors, the combat conditions were nightmarish.
Because the soldiers had been continuously consuming Mo-Expelling Pills, the drug's effectiveness was steadily diminishing. Under normal circumstances, a single Mo-Expelling Pill could sustain its effects for several days. But after a full month of high-intensity warfare, the pills now lasted less than three shichen.
The human army's stockpile of Mo-Expelling Pills, though considerable, had its limits.
The same was true of the Purifying Light.
Once the Mo-Expelling Pills and Purifying Light were fully depleted, the human side would be unable to sustain this war no matter how great its advantage.
After a month of fierce combat, the human army could no longer maintain full-strength engagements. At present, when the army charged, only half the soldiers could take the field, while the other half seized whatever time they could to rest and recover.
Mi Jinglun could only resort to this approach to maintain the army's fighting capacity.
But this was ultimately no long-term solution. As the number of Mo King Lords continued to grow, the pressure on humanity mounted, and casualties climbed at an alarming rate.
The only consolation was that eight of the ten rising prodigies from the Mo-Repelling Army had advanced to Ninth-Order.
Adding those to humanity's existing Ninth-Order cultivators, the total number of Ninth-Order experts had now broken past forty!
And this was likely the final number of humanity's Ninth-Order forces. No one else would safely ascend before this war concluded.
Among the eight newly promoted Ninth-Order cultivators, Yang Kai's three Personal Disciples stood out the most brilliantly.
The three had combined to unleash a secret technique unique to Yang Kai—the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel—and across their repeated battles, they had slain over a dozen King Lords!
It was worth noting that all three of them were now Ninth-Order cultivators. Working together, the Sun and Moon Divine Wheel they projected was even more powerful than when Yang Kai had wielded it himself. Moreover, Yang Kai's version had channeled only the power of space and time, whereas theirs additionally incorporated Zhao Ya's spear dao power—a devastating, unstoppable killing force.
Thus, despite having only just ascended, this secret technique was something the Mo King Lords could not withstand.
The unfortunate part was that the technique consumed enormous amounts of energy for the three of them. They could typically only activate it once per day, and each activation invariably claimed a King Lord's life.
The three had been marked by the Mo King Lords. Whenever they took the field, numerous King Lords moved to intercept them, and every engagement turned into a brutal stalemate.
Across the ceaseless maneuvering and combat, the Mo's dead and wounded were beyond counting, and humanity's losses were equally staggering.
It felt like a war that would never end.
Even though the human army had achieved results far exceeding those of any previous battle, Mi Jinglun aboard Pure Yang Gate could not find any joy in it—because to this day, he still saw no path to victory.
Two Giant Gods still stood guard at the breach in the Grand Barrier. Though they had drawn the attention of dozens of King Lords and even managed to kill a few, they were covered in wounds, and no one knew how much longer they could hold. If they collapsed and the breach was thrown wide open, the Mo powerhouses pouring through would spell humanity's doom.
Every single Ninth-Order cultivator was heavily depleted. Over forty Ninth-Order experts had given their all, and not one remained unscathed. One Ninth-Order cultivator had been critically wounded by a Mo powerhouse and had nearly fallen.
The Eighth-Order cultivators' formations could no longer be sustained either. While forming formations allowed Eighth-Order cultivators to channel greater power, the formations themselves imposed a burden—particularly on those who served as formation cores, who bore far more strain than the other Eighth-Order members.
Maintaining a formation for a short time was manageable, but once the duration stretched too long, even Eighth-Order cultivators could not endure.
At the war's outset, the Eighth-Order cultivators had been able to form the Seven Star Six Harmony Formation. But now, the Six Harmony Formation had all but vanished from the battlefield. The strongest formation still in use was the Five Elements Formation, while most Eighth-Order cultivators could only sustain the most basic Three Powers Formation to fight the enemy.
It wasn't that they didn't want to form more powerful formations—they simply didn't have the strength.
Below the Eighth-Order, soldiers fell in great numbers, and warships suffered extensive damage.
Mo-Expelling Pills and Purifying Light were being consumed at a relentless pace, and the accumulated reserves were inevitably nearing their end.
Even the Little Stone Clan that Yang Kai had loaned to the human army had been virtually wiped out.
The terrain on the battlefield worked against the human army as well. The ever-thickening Mo clouds and the pervasive Mo energy blanketed the entire void, as if threatening to transform the battlefield into a pool of ink.
The Mo thrived in such an environment, but humanity found itself hamstrung at every turn.
The Sacred Spirits roared with fury, but even they could not alter the course of this war.