Martial Peak
chapter-5182

Xiang Shan turned around and dashed towards the Central Hall, where the Hyper Space Array was located. Following behind him was Ding Yao and 9 other Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters, with the 500 Human soldiers further back.

Meanwhile, Yang Kai led Dawn at the front of the pack, followed by Chai Fang and the members of the Old Turtles.

Soon, all the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters and the 500 soldiers arrived at the Hyper Space Array. Fortunately, the Central Hall was spacious enough to hold hundreds of people without being crowded.

An Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master greeted them and cupped his fist to Xiang Shan, “Everything is prepared.”

Xiang Shan nodded, “Many thanks.”

The Eighth-Order Master moved aside, and Xiang Shan led hundreds of soldiers straight to the front of the Space Array. The array’s light glowed brightly while the patterns flashed and the array hummed, obviously indicating that it was already opened and ready to use.

Xiang Shan turned around, looked at the 500 people behind him and ordered, “Get into groups of 50 and spread out!”

The crowd followed the order, and under the leadership of their Squad Leaders, three to four Squads formed groups of 50 each.

Only Dawn and the Old Turtles did not need to move because the total number of members in those two Special Operations Squads was about 50 people.

Xiang Shan turned his head, looked at the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters around him, and nodded lightly. The next moment, the group of Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters moved to a group of soldiers.

The one who arrived before Dawn was Grandmaster Ma Fan. No one could tell if it was pre-arranged, but like the other Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters, Grandmaster Ma Fan activated the power of his Small Universe, opened its portal, and turned it into a channel before he shouted to Yang Kai and the others, “Get in!”

Yang Kai naturally understood what the Eighth-Order Masters had planned, which was to use these 10 Eight-Order Masters to send all 500 soldiers to another Great Pass.

Due to the large distance between the Great Passes, each transmission across the Hyper Space Array consumed a huge amount of materials. The higher the strength of the cultivator being transmitted, the more materials they would have to consume.

Since Blue Sky Pass was sending 500 soldiers, it could still afford to do this one by one because it was rich with materials, but it was an unnecessary waste.

It also consumed a lot of time.

Instead of that, it would be better to use the Eighth-Order Masters’ Small Universes to expedite the process.

In comparison to transmitting 500 people, transmitting 10 Eighth-Order Masters would definitely consume far fewer materials, and it would take less time as well.

As a matter of fact, whenever cultivators moved from one Great Pass to another, they would usually use this method, which was to let lower-order cultivators enter the Small Universe of High-Rank Open Heaven Realm Masters. That way, they could save as many materials as possible.

The Small Universe of an Eighth-Order Master was, if they were only to accommodate Fifth-Order Masters, capable of carrying upwards of 1,000 people. If they were trying to hold Sixth-Order Masters, around 100 people would be the limit. For Seventh-Order Masters, perhaps 10 would be the limit. Any more would add a significant burden to the Eighth-Order Master’s Small Universe and cause unnecessary trouble.

Therefore, after Xiang Shan and others had carefully discussed this matter, they thought that using 10 Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters to transport 500 people would be the best choice.

After Grandmaster Ma Fan’s shout, Yang Kai charged into the portal first, followed by his team members. Then, one after another, each figure disappeared.

Only after everyone had entered the Small Universe did Grandmaster Ma Fan close the portal.

This was not the first time Ma Fan had done something like this; still, this was something that most would avoid doing if possible. Under normal circumstances, even if a High-Rank Open Heaven Realm Master could store someone of a lower Order in their Small Universe, they wouldn’t as the dangers of doing so were too great. It would be extremely difficult to stop their Small Universe from being damaged from the inside if someone they took in had malicious intentions. The High-Rank Masters could use their World Force to suppress such behaviour, but their Small Universe would still inevitably be contaminated with another person’s World Force as long as the other party simply circulated their strength, which was very troublesome to deal with.

Therefore, the cultivators in Yang Kai’s Small Universe had to leave when they were about to break through to the Open Heaven Realm. Another reason was that everyone had different paths of cultivation, and the disciples of the Void Dao Temple would have a low chance of success if they stayed in Yang Kai’s Small Universe when they wanted to break through.

However, the Black Ink Battlefield was a special case. It wasn’t uncommon to see High-Rank Open Heaven Realm Masters using their Small Universe to accommodate lower-order Masters. All Humans here were life-and-death comrades and fought side by side, so trust was not an issue.

After receiving the entire Dawn Squad, Grandmaster Ma Fan turned a little pale despite receiving less than 50 people.

On the other hand, Xiang Shan and others all seemed normal, especially Xiang Shan. He had taken in nearly 60 people yet still seemed like he was perfectly fine.

From that, it was obvious that though the two were in the same Realm, Ma Fan’s heritage was incomparable to those veteran Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters from Blue Sky Pass. After all, the Dao of Artifact Refining consumed a lot of his time and energy, so his foundation was not nearly as rich.

After receiving all 500 people into their Small Universes, the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters did not immediately teleport away through the array but instead stood in place and waited in silence.

That was because Blue Sky Pass wasn’t the only one sending people. As all the Great Passes were deploying some soldiers for the campaign, it was impossible for the receiving Space Array to support them all at once, so they had to wait for the signal from the other side.

It wasn’t a long wait. About half an hour later, the Hyper Space Array suddenly shone out a light that was extremely dazzling but was quickly withdrawn. It happened three times.

That was the signal they and that had been agreed on.

After the light around the array stabilised Xiang Shan took the lead, stepping onto the array, followed by the other Open Heaven Realm Masters.

“Activate the array!” The Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master who was monitoring the Central Hall ordered. Then, the many already prepared soldiers around the array each formed a set of seals and started the array.

A dazzling light shone out from the edge of the Grand Array and gradually diffused towards the centre. It soon enveloped Xiang Shan and the other 10 Eighth-Order Masters.

The array hummed, and the hall shook.

A dozen breaths later, the dazzling light disappeared, and the array became dark. Xiang Shan and others who had been standing there were gone along with it.

The crystals placed in the seven Array Nodes around the Grand Array also dimmed.

Those seven Array Nodes corresponded to the Seven Elements. These crystals were originally arranged here, created by a special technique that gathered Energy from different materials. Even a crystal the size of a fingernail consumed a set of materials that could help create a Fifth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master.

If the crystals used up in this one transfer were gathered together, they could fill up an entire washbasin. One could imagine how many materials this teleportation had consumed.

Meanwhile, inside Ma Fan’s Small Universe, Yang Kai and others sat down cross-legged, calmed their powers, and tried to remain motionless.

This was the self-awareness every Open Heaven Realm Master that had been invited into a Small Universe should have.

Perhaps because he had cultivated the Dao of Artifact Refining too, Yang Kai noticed that there were a lot of Artifact Refining Dao Essences in this Small Universe as soon as he entered.

They were inside Grandmaster Ma Fan’s Small Universe after all, and as an Artifact Refining Great Grandmaster, it was normal to have such a dense Dao Essence.

If Grandmaster Ma Fan’s Small Universe could rear living beings like Yang Kai’s Small Universe, there would certainly be a lot of Artifact Refining prodigies to emerge from here.

In fact, because of the special characteristic of the Open Heaven Realm Master’s Small Universe, whenever a cultivator’s strength reached the Seventh Order, their Small Universe would turn from immaterial to material. By then, it wouldn’t be difficult to find a Legacy Disciple because they could raise a batch of living beings themselves, and following the subtle influence of their own Grand Dao Essence, there would eventually be a perfect candidate to inherit their legacy.

Under normal circumstances, however, High-Rank Open Heaven Realm Masters would not do such a thing because their Small Universe would easily become unstable when fighting fierce battles, and the living creatures inside would be killed or injured. There was a possibility that hundreds of years of hard work would be lost in a single clash.

According to Yang Kai’s knowledge of this place, only those High-Rank Open Heaven from Cave-Heavens and Paradises who were about to die would do such a thing.

They knew they didn’t have long to live, and there was no hope for them in the future; therefore, the only thing they could do before their lives came to an end was to contribute to the continuation of their Sect.

That was the reason why there was no shortage of Alchemists and Artifact Refiners in the Cave Heavens and Paradises, and why special Sects like Divine Cauldron Heaven and Divine Medicine Heaven could ensure the continuation of their inheritance from generation to generation.

Actually, Yang Kai could have taken the chance to cultivate in this environment and perhaps gain something.

But he did not care much about Dao of Artifact Refining, and the reason why he practised it was simply because it was related to a mission.

Now that his mission was long over, he hadn’t actively cultivated the Dao of Artifact Refining for a long time.

After waiting for almost an hour or so, the Small Universe suddenly buzzed, and a portal to the outside world opened.

The members of Dawn got up and exited the portal under Yang Kai’s lead, leaving Grandmaster Ma Fan’s Small Universe.

When the world suddenly changed, they found themselves in the middle of a huge open area.

Before the crowd could even stand firm, a vague buzzing noise entered their ears as they felt energy fluctuations coming at them from all directions.

These signs were all very familiar as all of them had encountered such scenes many times in their lives.

Shen Ao, who was standing beside Yang Kai, raised a brow and asked what everyone was thinking, “Is the Black Ink Clan attacking?”

Yang Kai nodded lightly.

He didn’t know which Great Pass this was, but it must be one of the two adjacent to Great Evolution Pass; after all, in order to recover Great Evolution Pass, starting from the two adjacent Great Passes would be the shortest route.

However, they didn’t anticipate that they would bump into the Black Ink Clan attacking the Great Passes. Also, Yang Kai couldn’t figure out whether this attack was a coincidence or a situation planned out by the Humans.

He guessed that it was most likely the latter. The Black Ink Clan’s sieges would generally last for many years, but there would be an equally long period of rest in between, so if the Humans were willing to, they could easily avoid such incidents.

In this case, it seemed like the higher-ups had decided to inflict serious damage on the Black Ink Clan forces in the neighbouring Theatres before retaking Great Evolution Pass so that the enemy wouldn’t be able to send reinforcements.

That was also a very natural choice.

Turning his head to look at the 10 Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters from Blue Sky Pass, Yang Kai guessed that the Black Ink Clan in this Theatre were about to suffer a heavy toll.

Dawn’s members were whispering to each other, just like in the other Squads. They seemed to have noticed the special situation here.

However, they were all still confused about which Great Pass they were in.

The Universe Chart they brought over from Blue Sky Pass was useless because each Theatre had its own Universe Chart. Although the chart had details about some nearby Theatres, the Universe Chart showed nothing of Great Passes that were further away.

While the members of Dawn were talking amongst themselves, an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master suddenly came in from not far away and cupped his fist at Xiang Shan, “Senior Brother Xiang!”

Xiang Shan returned the greeting, “Junior Brother Hong.”