Martial Peak

Chapter 5471: Locating the Opening

Yang Kai was only an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master, but even if a Ninth-Order Old Ancestor came here, they would not be confident about facing off against the Black Ink Giant Spirit God.

All he could do was go all out!

“I’ll stay here with you!” Hong Hu declared.

However, Yang Kai shook his head, “Senior Hong Hu, you heard what Elder Lu said, right? Someone needs to take this information back to the others. There’s no one else here apart from you and me. Who will pass this information along to our allies if we both die here? I’m afraid I’ll have to trouble you to make the trip, Senior.”

Hong Hu wanted to argue, but no words came out.

At first, she wanted to say that Kun Ao was here too, but Lu An and Ye Ming had managed to sneak attack him earlier. Kun Ao was still unconscious from his injuries and it was uncertain whether he would even survive or not, so how could he be the messenger? 

“Before I came, I asked someone from the Dragon Clan to rush over to the Barren Territory battlefield; unfortunately, the situation has changed and we’ve run out of time. You must leave now, Senior!”

Hong Hu clenched her jaw and nodded solemnly, “Be careful.”

Immediately, she turned around and sped out of the Demon Sealing Land. After locating Kun Ao, who was still unconscious, she swiftly left the Divine Spirit Ancestral Land with him.

Meanwhile, Ji Lao San went through the Shattered Heaven’s Territory Gate and finally arrived at the Barren Territory battlefield. Soon, he saw the Ninth-Order Old Ancestor who was overseeing the nearby battlefield.

“Senior, have any of the Eighth-Order Masters on the Barren Territory battlefield been corrupted by Black Ink Strength?” Ji Lao San quickly asked as per Yang Kai’s instructions.

The Old Ancestor did not understand why Ji Lao San was asking about this all of a sudden, but he did know about such a situation, so he nodded, “Many years ago, a Royal Lord managed to sneak into the battlefield and use his Royal Lord Secret Technique to corrupt a few Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters.”

That Royal Lord who used the Royal Lord Secret Technique even sacrificed his life to do so.

This was the reason why the Royal Lords dared not arbitrarily use the Royal Lord Secret Technique. It was incredibly useful as even Eighth-Order Masters could be immediately turned into Black Ink Disciples, but each time it was used, it would also damage the user’s foundation.

A nearby Old Ancestor took advantage of the opportunity to strike the Royal Lord down after he corrupted a few Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters with Black Ink Strength.

Although the Humans lost a handful of Eighth-Order Masters, they managed to kill one of their enemy’s Royal Lords. Generally speaking, it could be said that the Humans came out on top.

This Ninth-Order Old Ancestor could still remember that the Human Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters who were corrupted by Black Ink Strength included Yin-Yang Cave Heaven’s Lu An, Azure Nether Paradise’s Ye Ming, and an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master from Yuan Origin Paradise.

No one could figure out why that Royal Lord had done such a thing. Throughout the past 500 years of war, a significant number of Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters and Royal Lords had died, leaving the top battle strength of both races at around 30% of their peak, with the rest having fallen in battle!

Under these circumstances, Royal Lords and Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters were indispensable forces to the war. Both the Human Race and the Black Ink Clan were now far less inclined to have their top Masters engage in battles as any casualties among them could tip the balance of the war.

“How did you know about this?” The Old Ancestor stared at Ji Lao San in puzzlement. According to what Ji Lao San had said, Yang Kai was the one who brought him back through Black Territory via a hidden Void Corridor on the Black Ink Battlefield before travelling through the Shattered Heaven to arrive at the Barren Territory battlefield.

Shouldn’t this Dragon be clueless as to what happened here?

All the colour drained out of Ji Lao San’s face as his heart filled with dread. It was exactly as Yang Kai deduced.

Ji Lao San hurriedly explained about how he and Yang Kai chased down a Black Ink Disciple in the Shattered Heaven and discovered that two Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples had entered the Shattered Heaven.

The Ninth-Order Old Ancestor’s expression turned extremely grim as he listened to this story.

Several Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters had been corrupted by Black Ink Strength some years ago, so it could not be a coincidence that two Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples had shown up at the Shattered Heaven now. There was a high possibility that Yang Kai was right. There had to be another passage between the Barren Territory battlefield and the outside world, though it remained to be seen whether the passage connected to the Shattered Heaven.

The Old Ancestor could not afford to waste any more time and quickly passed the message along to the other Old Ancestors.

All at once, flashes of Divine Sense whizzed through the air through all forms of communication devices.

The Human Race learned from the functions of the Black Ink Nest and created a set of artifacts that would make communication and transmitting messages a lot more convenient.

While many of the functions had not been perfected, it was still good enough to use to communicate across the entire Barren Territory battlefield.

Soul Avatars began popping up in that Artifact Space and the news soon reached every single one of the Old Ancestors, whose expressions slowly hardened.

Divine Senses resonated as they communicated, and soon, the Old Ancestors agreed.

The most important task right now was to find the opening that connected the Barren Territory battlefield to the outside world. Once they found where it was, they could address the core of the crisis.

The Barren Territory was naturally formed, but was heavily altered by Human hands. The ancestors of the Human Race mimicked the actions of Cang and the others and isolated the Barren Territory by splitting it from all other Great Territory.

There had originally been more than one Territory Gate that led to this Great Territory, but the ancient Humans had done everything they could to either destroy or seal up the other Territory Gates, leaving just a single one that connected to the Shattered Heaven.

This new opening had to be one of the original Territory Gates, but as they had been sealed up hundreds of thousands of years ago at least, even the Old Ancestors were unclear where the original portals were.

They had no choice but to send messages back to the various Cave Heavens and Paradises’ Master Sects to ask those there to go through the ancient books and records in hopes of finding some clues.

They also sent word to the Phoenix Clan Masters and sought their help as their attainments in the Dao of Space meant they could search for Space Principle fluctuations within the Barren Territory.

If there was indeed an opening somewhere, then there would be faint traces of Space Principle fluctuations emanating from it. The Phoenix Clan was the most adept at investigating this.

In this way, a month passed as the numerous Phoenix Clan Masters searched the entire Barren Territory, but found nothing. However, several Cave Heavens and Paradises sent word that they found records pertaining to the original Territory Gates in the Barren Territory.

The Old Ancestors came together and combed through the records.

According to these ancient records, the Barren Territory originally had four Territory Gates. One connected to the Shattered Heaven, while the other three connected to three other Great Territories.

After comparing the records and confirming the present topography of the Barren Territory, the Old Ancestors soon located the opening!

It was where the first Black Ink Giant Spirit God had died!

The Black Ink Clan had two Black Ink Giant Spirit Gods. The first was the one who came out of the Primordial Heavens Source Grand Restriction, but at the time, Cang had borrowed the strength of Mu and forcefully closed the Grand Restriction, slicing that Black Ink Giant Spirit God’s body in half.

The second Black Ink Giant Spirit God was revived from the Late Ancient Era battlefield.

It was these two Black Ink Giant Spirit Gods who combined their powers and doomed the Crusade Force. The Human Race were forced to retreat to the No-Return Pass, but as they were confronted by the combined strength of two Giant Spirits Gods, they could not defend the No-Return Pass either. In the end, they retreated once more to the Barren Territory.

Once there, the Human Race relied on arrangements they had made over the millennia to finally establish a solid defense line. It was also there that the Humans gained a powerful ally in the form of Ah Er, the Giant Spirit God who flew in and dealt a crushing blow to the enemy.

Ah Er and numerous Old Ancestors joined forces to kill the Black Ink Giant Spirit God whose body had been broken in half by the Primordial Heavens Source Grand Restriction, leaving its corpse to rot in the void.

Yang Kai even encountered that Black Ink Giant Spirit God’s body when he led Ou Yang Lie and the others out of the No-Return Pass and into the Barren Territory.

However, no one had ever imagined that the place where the fallen Black Ink Giant Spirit God’s body had landed was atop one of Barren Territory’s former Territory Gates.

The Phoenix Clan could not detect any sign of Space Principle fluctuations throughout the past month, but that was most likely because they were being hidden by the dense Black Ink Strength that remained after the death of the Black Ink Giant Spirit God.

At last, the Humans figured out the Black Ink Clan’s plan.

There was a high chance that the Black Ink Clan had already decided to sacrifice that first Black Ink Giant Spirit God and use its body to hide the existence of the original Territory Gate. On top of that, the concentrated Black Ink Strength could be used to wear down the seal on the portal and create an opening.

Next, one of their Royal Lords used his Royal Lord Secret Technique to corrupt numerous Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters with Black Ink Strength. In the chaos of the war, the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters who had been corrupted by Black Ink Strength silently snuck out through the opening and headed to the Divine Spirit Ancestral Land in the Shattered Ruins to awaken the Black Ink Giant Spirit God there!

While these were merely conjectures by the Old Ancestors, it was in fact, the reality.

What they did not know was that it was three, not two Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters who left through the opening. While Lu An and Ye Ming travelled to the Shattered Heaven together, the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master from Yuan Origin Paradise had another task assigned to him that the Humans were as of yet unaware of.

Now that they had come to this conclusion, a lot of things became clear to them.

One of the things they now understood was the reason why the constant battles between the Humans and the Black Ink Clan over the past years mainly occurred a great distance away from that fallen Black Ink Giant Spirit God’s body.

Up till now, the Humans never thought much of it since the Black Ink Strength that had spread after the death of that Black Ink Giant Spirit God terrified them and they did not want to get near that area.

Yet, from the looks of it now, the Black Ink Clan had done this on purpose and were pleased that it worked.

Furthermore, even the death of that Black Ink Giant Spirit God was surprising to all, even though Ah Er and numerous Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters had joined forces to kill it.

At the time, the other Black Ink Giant Spirit God from the Late Ancient Era battlefield had not come forward to aid the first one, despite being completely capable of joining the fight and saving the other Black Ink Giant Spirit God. 

At the time, the Humans assumed that Black Ink Giant Spirit Gods did not have a high enough sentience to understand tactics, or what it meant to rescue an ally, but from the looks of it now, the Black Ink Clan was merely taking advantage of the situation.

Even if Giant Spirit God Ah Er did not come to help the Humans, the Black Ink Clan would have probably have found a way to make sure that the first Black Ink Giant Spirit God died in battle at that very spot.

Only with the Black Ink Giant Spirit God’s death could they use the dense Black Ink Strength inside its body to erode the boundary walls while simultaneously concealing what they were doing.

This was all part of the Black Ink Clan’s sinister plot!

Even the Royal Lords could not have plotted this. The only one who had the ability to formulate such a strategy had to be Mo, the ancient Supreme Master.

Since Mo was so ancient, it most likely knew about the original situation of the Barren Territory; thus, it was aware of where the original Territory Gates were. What’s more, this plan involved the sacrifice of a Black Ink Giant Spirit God, the Royal Lords could not possibly have the authority to make such a decision, only their creator, Mo, could do so.

“Where does that Territory Gate lead to?” An Old Ancestor asked.

Another Old Ancestor promptly replied, “Wind Mist Territory!”

Everyone fell silent in thought.

Wind Mist Territory was an unassuming place among the 3,000 Worlds. There were too many Great Territories, so apart from the Great Territories that were well-known due to the Cave Heavens and Paradises having their headquarters there, the most famous ones were now High Heaven Territory where the Star Boundary was located, and Void Territory.

Wind Mist Territory was presided over by Wind Mist Sect. Although the sect had a few Sixth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters among its ranks and could be considered a local hegemon, it was still just a Second-Class great force.

Prior to this, the Ninth-Order Old Ancestors might not have even heard of Wind Mist Territory before, but now, the name of this Great Territory was seared into their minds.

Why were the Humans willing to lay down their lives against the Black Ink Clan Army here in the Barren Territory?

Was it not to hold the Black Ink Clan back and stop them from swarming into the 3,000 Worlds?

Now though, a few Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples had managed to enter Wind Mist Territory through a forgotten portal; was there still any meaning to the efforts and sacrifices made by the Human Army in the Barren Territory?