Martial Peak

Chapter 5444: Provoking the Enemy

This situation reminded Yang Kai of when he first arrived at the Black Ink Battlefield. 

Back then, he appeared right in the heart of the Black Ink Clan’s territory and had no choice but to pose as a Black Ink Disciple while following behind a High-Rank Black Ink Clansman.

He could vaguely remember the High-Rank Black Ink Clansman was called Nu Yan, a character who was too lazy to memorise his Human name, so he was just called E-5…

Besides him, there were also A-1, B-2, C-3, and D-4.

As he thought back on those days, Yang Kai felt like they were truly distant memories.

Adding on the time he had spent inside the various Temporal Rivers, those events happened some 5,000 years ago.

While he was disguising himself as a Black Ink Disciple beside Nu Yan, Yang Kai was unable to find a way to escape. Luckily for him, the Old Ancestor from Blue Sky Pass led an attack on the Black Ink Clan’s territory. Soon after the chaotic battle, Nu Yan was killed by Feng Ying, and Yang Kai gained his freedom.

Later on, he and Feng Ying gathered a large number of Black Ink Disciples, restored them to their senses, and killed their way out of the Black Ink Clan’s hinterlands as they headed towards Blue Sky Pass.

It was during those days that Yang Kai met Ning Qi Zhi, Qi Tai Chu, Shen Ao, and many others whom he went on to serve with.

Among those three, Qi Tai Chu and Ning Qi Zhi died in battle one after another, while Yang Kai wasn’t sure if Shen Ao was still alive.

Now, he needed to lead Huang Xiong, Lin Qi and the other remnant soldiers to make their way past the No-Return Pass, which largely resembled the situation back then.

The difference was that Blue Sky Pass was in the hands of their fellow Humans, while the No-Return Pass was now in the hands of the Black Ink Clan. Although his strength was many times stronger than back then, the level of danger this time around was even more exaggerated.

Being alone, Yang Kai was able to move rapidly and soon arrived outside the No-Return Pass.

This was the second time he had come here.

As he moved forward, his heart felt heavier because he couldn’t establish a connection with the Dragon Altar.

The Dragon Altar, or more specifically the Dragon Pool which was linked to the Dragon Altar, was the origin of the Dragon Clan, hidden in a mysterious place that others couldn’t find, much less access. Only when the Dragon Clan hosted the ceremony could the entrance to the Dragon Pool be opened for the Dragon Clan’s descendants to head inside and cultivate.

Since he couldn’t connect with the Dragon Pool, it meant that the Dragon Clan was no longer inside the No-Return Pass.

There were Black Ink Clouds all over the void, so Yang Kai used them to conceal his figure and aura as he closed in on his target.

It would be difficult for the Black Ink Clan troops coming to and fro outside to detect his existence.

Looking in the direction of the No-Return Pass, Yang Kai couldn’t see clearly because of the vast distance and numerous Black Ink Clouds impeding his vision; however, the situation was just as Lin Qi had said. The outside of the No-Return Pass was surrounded by Black Ink Strength, and there were numerous dead Universe Worlds moved here by the Black Ink Clan. Above those Universe Worlds were dozens to hundreds of Black Ink Nests, all densely packed in.

There were new Black Ink Clans constantly emerging from these Black Ink Nests and heading towards the No-Return Pass.

Outside the Black Ink Nests were many Black Ink Clansmen transporting resources to them.

The Black Ink Clan was spawning new soldiers in massive quantities, and Yang Kai had discovered many Universe Worlds along their way here that were completely mined out. Previously, there were still many unmined Universe Worlds floating in this stretch of the void, but they were now scarce because everywhere the Black Ink Clan Army passed, they would exploit every resource they came across.

After a moment of silence, Yang Kai raised his finger and gently wiped his left eye.

[Open!]

A golden cross appeared, and Yang Kai’s gaze passed through the dense Black Ink Strength and saw beyond them.

The next moment, he narrowed his eyes.

Right behind the blockade of the Black Ink Strength, he saw many Great Passes, at least 70 to 80 of them.

The Humans had 106 Great Passes, corresponding to the 106 Cave Heavens and Paradises other than the Dragon Altar and Phoenix Nest, which were special and unique.

During the crusade, all of these Great Passes gathered outside the Primordial Heavens Source Grand Restriction in the most powerful Human Army to have been assembled since the Late Ancient Era.

However, even this Army couldn’t defeat their enemy in the war outside the Primordial Heavens Source Grand Restriction. While retreating, a few Great Passes sacrificed themselves to divert the enemy’s attention, allowing the others to escape. Without exception, those Great Passes were destroyed far from here.

In the end, less than 80 Great Passes had reached the No-Return Pass.

Now though, every Great Pass was destroyed beyond recognition, while some were so broken that the only fragmented ruins remained.

Although Yang Kai hadn’t participated in that war, he could imagine what kind of earth-shattering battle the No-Return Pass had experienced just by looking at these broken Great Passes.

In such a battle, numerous Old Ancestors and Royal Lords had certainly died.

Now, those destroyed Great Passes were placed outside of the No-Return Pass and had become platforms where the Black Ink Clan placed their Black Ink Nests. Every one of the Great Passes had towering Black Ink Nests planted atop it.

Looking further inside, Yang Kai noticed that the No-Return Pass looked far different from before. There were traces of battle everywhere, and the Immortal Parasol Tree was gone.

It was impossible to tell whether the Immortal Parasol Tree was destroyed, or the Phoenix Clan had simply moved it; however, the latter was more likely as it was the very foundation of the Phoenix Clan. If the Immortal Parasol Tree was destroyed, the Phoenix Clan would be facing extinction, so no matter what, the Phoenix Clan would not allow such a thing to pass.

Behind the No-Return Pass was a massive Territory Gate which led to the 3,000 Worlds. When Yang Kai visited this place the last time, he didn’t pay much attention to this Territory Gate, but even a brief glance was enough to know there were numerous powerful restrictions placed around it, making it difficult to open.

But now, this Territory Gate looked like it had been torn open by an incredible force and transformed into what looked like a giant black hole in the void.

Moreover, Yang Kai could feel Space Principles pulsing from this black hole.

This was the portal through which the Black Ink Clan could invade the 3,000 Worlds!

Yang Kai felt his heart tighten, but he couldn’t see through the hole and investigate the situation at the 3,000 Worlds. They would need to kill their way past this place in order to do that. 

It had only been a bit more than 500 years since the war outside the Primordial Heavens Source Grand Restriction, where the Humans were defeated and forced to retreat to the No-Return Pass. Following that, another huge battle between the Humans and the Black Ink Clans must have occurred at the No-Return Pass before the Humans were defeated and retreated again.

Strictly speaking, it hadn’t been long since the Black Ink Clan began their attack on the 3,000 Worlds. Perhaps their attacks might have started about 200 years ago or even less.

In such a short time, the Black Ink Clan might not have advanced too much, so the Humans might still be able to fight back.

However, there was no use in thinking about such meaningless matters because the most important thing now was to lead Huang Xiong and the others to break through the Black Ink Clan’s blockade.

Also, Yang Kai wanted to gather all the remaining survivors from the Black Ink Battlefield!

After hesitating for a moment, Yang Kai’s eyes brightened. Originally, he was stealthily observing the No-Return Pass while carefully hiding from the Black Ink Clan, but now his gaze suddenly turned aggressive. 

The next moment, a strong Divine Sense suddenly came probing from the No-Return Pass.

It was a Royal Lord’s Divine Sense!

There were bound to be Royal Lords guarding the No-Return Pass, but no one knew exactly how many there were. Yang Kai’s goal right now was to figure that out, even exposing his position to do so.

Using his Eye Secret Technique to aggressively probe the situation at the No-Return Pass was also a type of provocation!

If it was any other Eighth-Order Master who dared to do such a reckless thing, they would simply be courting death; however, Yang Kai was not worried. Back when he was a Seventh-Order Open Heaven Realm Master, he had successfully escaped from the sheep-headed Royal Lord. Now that he had reached the Eighth Order, he had the capital to even fight a Royal Lord, so it wasn’t a big deal to him if a Royal Lord really came to find him.

Since he had attracted the Royal Lord’s attention, Yang Kai no longer bothered hiding himself and charged out of the Black Ink Cloud before heading in the direction of the No-Return Pass.

The Royal Lord seemed to have noticed this and the aura surged from his Divine Sense, clearly showing that he was enraged. If the distance between them hadn’t been so great, the Royal Lord would have used his Divine Sense to directly teach Yang Kai a lesson.

But across such a vast distance, while the Royal Lord could sense Yang Kai’s rough position, he couldn’t do anything about it.

Therefore, the Royal Lord directly withdrew his Divine Sense.

On the other hand, Yang Kai was vigorously moving forward and continuously increasing his aura, soon reaching a peak. Then, everywhere he passed, space shook, creating a massive disturbance that could be felt from extremely far away.

If he wanted to gather the other remnant soldiers, he would have to cause a commotion. Other than doing this, he didn’t have any means to contact the others.

Following the flaring of his aura, Yang Kai almost entirely turned into a bright shooting star that was openly charging towards the No-Return Pass.

From afar, a large Black Ink Cloud around the No-Return Pass churned as a troop of Black Ink Clansmen appeared with two Innate Territory Lords leading them. 

An Eighth-Order Human wasn’t an easy foe to deal with, which was why the Black Ink Clan decided to deploy two Territory Lords. In addition, there were thousands of Black Ink Clansmen, including quite a few Feudal Lords. Such a lineup was enough to deal with any known Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master.

Yang Kai’s actions angered the two Territory Lords, but also confused them.

They naturally knew that there were Humans still lurking on the Black Ink Battlefield, but after being hunted down by the Black Ink Clan for so many years, all of them acted stealthily, afraid of being discovered. None of the Black Ink Clansmen here had expected that there would be such a crazy Human.

The strange situation caused the two Territory Lords to act cautiously, carefully checking their surroundings in case other Humans were hiding nearby. These two continued to observe while instructing the thousands of Black Ink Clan soldiers under them to attack the enemy.

A moment later, sounds of battle echoed through the void. Sweeping out with his spear, Yang Kai killed a large number of Black Ink Clan soldiers. Even the Feudal Lords were slaughtered like helpless chickens by him.

The fight had only been going for a moment, but nearly 1,000 Black Ink Clansmen had been killed.

After making sure that there wasn’t an ambush nearby, the two Territory Lords couldn’t hold back their anger anymore and attacked Yang Kai from both sides. 

In an instant, Yang Kai was overwhelmed and was soon beaten to the point of spitting out blood. His aura had also dimmed greatly.

Seemingly not wanting to continue fighting, he found a chance to escape the Black Ink Clan’s siege and flew away from the battlefield.

The two Territory Lords naturally wouldn’t give up that easily, so they led their subordinates to chase after Yang Kai, but how could they have caught up with a Master of the Dao of Space? Less than an hour later, they had completely lost track of Yang Kai and had to return unhappily. 

After they reported everything to the Royal Lord, the latter frowned slightly.

The Black Ink Clan knew there were remnant Human soldiers around and had even killed off many of them throughout these few years, so they were certain that there weren’t many Eighth-Order Masters left.

The Territory Lords and Eighth-Order Masters were the backbone of the two Races Armies; after all, though Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters and Royal Lords were far stronger, there weren’t many of them. Thus, the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters and Territory Lords were the real mainstays of their respective forces.

That was why the Black Ink Clan would go all out to kill an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master whenever they appeared alone in order to weaken the Humans’ overall strength.

It was difficult for the Humans to produce new Eighth-Order Masters, so the more the Black Ink Clan killed, the weaker the Human Race would be. 

Therefore, besides the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters that had retreated to the 3,000 Worlds with the main Human Army, there weren’t many Eighth-Order Masters scattered around the Black Ink Battlefield as most had already been killed.