Martial Peak
chapter-4969

The female Feudal Lord resembled a typical Human in terms of her physical form. She even wore revealing clothing, and the black lines that covered her exposed flesh gave her entire figure a bewitching appearance.

She glanced at Yang Kai with cold eyes and was surprised that he survived her sudden assassination attempt.

Since the two races had been at war for so long, they had a fair understanding of each other’s strengths. While she was hiding in the Black Ink Clan Army, she noticed that Yang Kai was only a Sixth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master, whereas she was a Feudal Lord on par with a Seventh-Order Human Master. It didn’t make sense that he had survived her sneak attack.

However, she soon began to giggle, her long, crimson, forked snake-like tongue licking her lips seductively.

Her figure then flickered and transformed into a black cloud of smoke.

Yang Kai’s heart clenched as he instinctively thrust his spear forward.

Subsequently, the figure of the female Feudal Lord was revealed, avoiding the deadly spear and appearing directly to his left. She patted him lightly with her seemingly soft little hand, but her palm strike contained a Heaven-destroying, Earth-shattering power.

Yang Kai just barely managed to block the blow with his spear.

*Hong hong hong..*

Yang Kai countered three successive palms but was forced to retreat several hundred metres before somehow stabilizing himself. At that moment, he could feel the vitality in his chest roiling and fresh blood threatened to leak from his lips. With nothing more than stubborn will, he forcefully choked back down the metallic liquid.

The female Feudal Lord was now genuinely stunned, to the point where she didn’t use this opening to kill Yang Kai. Rather, she gasped slightly as she stared at him.

[This Human seems different from the others. He’s clearly in the Sixth-Order, but he’s considerably stronger than any other Sixth-Order Human I’ve killed before.]

On the opposite side, Yang Kai brandished his spear, sweeping clean all the Blank Ink Clansman that were charging towards him, reducing them to a cloud Blank Ink Strength. He then aimed his spear at the female Feudal Lord and smirked, “You really are quite weak.”

He had now confirmed his earlier hypothesis. Under the premise that they were in the same relative realm, the Black Ink Clan Masters were indeed weaker than their Human counterparts. Yang Kai had not been certain about this before; after all, he had not faced a Feudal Lord alone before now. It was only after he traded blows with this female Feudal Lord that he was able to verify his speculations.

It was also at this moment that Yang Kai figured out why this odd dichotomy was.

In order to reach the Open Heaven Realm, Humans needed to cultivate for a very long time. There were no shortcuts to this process, even if the person wanted to only make an initial breakthrough to the First Order. What’s more, after reaching the Open Heaven Realm, it required a lot of time and effort to advance to the next Order; therefore, no matter which Order a Human Master was in, their foundation and heritage would be much stronger compared to those from the Black Ink Clan, whose cultivation was fundamentally different. The Black Ink Clan were born from the Black Ink Nests, and their advancement also depended on it. As a result, while they needed less time to develop than Human Masters, their strength was not acquired through personal effort and comprehension, thus it was not as refined.

Unfortunately, Black Ink Strength was incredibly corrosive and a strong deterrent to Humans, restricting them in combat to a great extent, which compensated for the Black Ink Clan’s lack of raw strength.

In that sense, even if there was a one-on-one battle between a Feudal Lord and a Seventh-Order Master, it was impossible to predict who would prevail.

Of course, this was all before Yang Kai appeared.

With his arrival, the Humans possessed the means necessary to purify and disperse Black Ink Strength; thus, it no longer posed as much of a threat to them. It didn’t matter if their Small Universe got unintentionally contaminated as long as they weren’t fully corrupted by the Black Ink Strength. They simply had to return to a Purifying Black Ink Battleship before losing themselves entirely, and the issue would be instantly resolved.

This was also the reason why Zhong Liang and the other Army Commanders put so much importance on Yang Kai’s existence, to the point that they actually re-assigned thousands of Masters just to rescue him and bring him back from the battlefield.

In addition to boosting morale, the ability to purify and dispel Black Ink Strength also increased the battle efficiency of the Human Army, enabling them to go all out without fear.

Regardless, a Feudal Lord was still a Feudal Lord, a Master on par with a Seventh-Order Human. Yang Kai would never lower his guard against such an opponent.

Although his words were provocative, his expression remained solemn.

The provocation proved to be successful. Possibly as a result of her own attack failing twice, the female Feudal Lord was completely furious. Not only did she fail to kill Yang Kai, but there weren’t even any signs she had been able to seriously injure him. She immediately let out a piercing scream and rushed towards him.

The Feudal Lord released a massive cloud of Black Ink Strength, which was so dense it instantly turned into a gigantic Blank Ink Cloud, engulfing Yang Kai inside of it.

She now believed it would be too kind to simply kill this arrogant Human who was looking down on her despite being weaker. Thus, she made the decision to turn him into her own Black Ink Disciple, so she could torture him for a long time to come.

Deep inside the Black Ink Cloud, Yang Kai put on a guileful expression as he instantly understood his enemy’s plan. Unfortunately for her, she had chosen the wrong target.

The female Feudal Lord swam freely through the Black Ink Cloud, believing Yang Kai must be feeling flustered as all Humans so far would struggle to perform well in such a situation.

She didn’t assault Yang Kai immediately; instead, she wanted to enjoy the misery of her enemy, a rare interest she had on the battlefield.

To her astonishment though, what came next was a sharp flying blade. This attack shocked the female Feudal Lord, who quickly dodged to the side as soon as she sensed it approaching.

Followed by a slight pain in the cheek, where it had been injured by the attack, black blood stained the palm of her hand as she reached up to wipe it.

The female Feudal Lord was truly incensed now. How could she have allowed such a weakling to injure her? Unfortunately, the next moment, her fury turned to panic as a storm of attacks flew at her incessantly.

Realizing she had greatly underestimated her opponent, the female Feudal Lord knew that dodging here would only cause her to fall into a disadvantage, losing any opportunity to counterattack.

With no other choice, she clenched her teeth and hurled herself at her attacker, sending out a flurry of palm strikes to meet the enemy head-on.

The Black Ink Cloud roiled turbulently as violent energy fluctuations and deafening rumbling sounds continuously erupted from it.

Yang Kai pushed his Supreme Limitless Spear Art without restraint. Every thrust, sweep, and slash carried with them the essence of his lifetime of cultivation.

Likewise, the female Feudal Lord refused to back down. She found Yang Kai’s behaviour irritating, and she wished for nothing more than to make him submit before her.

Inside the dense Blank Ink Cloud, the pair engaged in a deadly melee.

At some point, Yang Kai was sent tumbling, his eyes reddening as he panted hard and stared at the hazy figure in front of him. His clothes were shredded and fresh blood was dripping from hundreds of wounds that covered his body. Even his face was stained with golden blood, showing how mercilessly he had fought.

The female Feudal Lord’s palms were not her real weapons. After engaging several hundred blows with her, Yang Kai had deeply understood that it was actually her razor-sharp claws that she was using to deal damage. Her nails were so hard and sharp that it really made him wonder how she cultivated them.

At that same time, her claws were imbued with dense Black Ink Strength that acted like a kind of poison. Whenever he was wounded, Black Ink Strength would seep into his body.

If a normal cultivator suffered such injuries, they would quickly be corrupted by Black Ink Strength and degenerate into a Blank Ink Disciple.

Of course, Yang Kai had no such worries. He had a World Spring in his Small Universe that could perfectly suppress and seal Black Ink Strength, making him practically immune to its corrosive effects.

The battle between the two had only lasted a dozen breaths or so, yet Yang Kai was already looking quite ragged.

He wasn’t the only one struggling though, as the female Feudal Lord was not feeling much better than him. She had underestimated Yang Kai’s strength greatly and had fallen into an unfavourable position. Despite the fact that she made a concerted effort to regain control of the battle, the Azure Dragon Spear had left its mark on her, especially on her lower abdomen where the spear had almost pierced right through her, drawing a thick stream of black blood from a grievous wound.

Her clothes, which were originally quite revealing, were now completely torn, leaving her practically naked.

Still, she licked the fresh blood from her lips with her long tongue and glared at Yang Kai with hatred in her eyes. Wiping her hand across the wound on her abdomen, she snarled, “Just you wait, once you’re my Black Ink Disciple, I will make you beg for dea…”

From the thick black cloud, a fist suddenly emerged in front of her eyes and slammed hard into her pretty face. The female Feudal Lord instantly felt as though she had been hit by the entire Universe World, as the immense force sent her flying.

“You talk too much!” Yang Kai ripped off his torn shirt and revealed his chiselled muscles. As he stretched himself slightly, his body made a cracking sound, after which all the cuts he suffered stopped bleeding and closed up.

Contrastingly, flashes of golden stars appeared before the female Feudal Lord’s eyes. That punch left her in a bad state as she felt her nose being broken and tears were now streaming down her face.

If it had been a weaker Black Ink Clansman who took that punch, their head would have exploded on the spot.

Fortunately for her, she had responded quickly when she realised something was off and condensed her Black Ink Strength to defend herself. Even so, she had been badly injured.

The power of that punch genuinely frightened her.

What was more unbelievable was the fact that her Black Ink Strength didn’t seem to have any effect on Yang Kai at all. Forget about corrupting him, he didn’t even seem to notice its existence at all.

Somehow managing to stabilize herself inside the Black Ink Cloud, she gasped to steady herself.

The hazy figure in front of her quickly approached though, as a menacing voice rang in her ears, “Come! This fight is just getting started! I won’t take advantage of you, so bring out all your skills! Today, either you die, or I perish!”

The female Feudal Lord’s brow furiously twitched and she involuntarily took a step backwards. Her instincts were telling her to turn around and flee, but what face would she have left if she really did that? She was only facing a Sixth-Order Human Master, if she ran from such an opponent, she wouldn’t have a place in the Black Ink Clan in the future.