Martial Peak
chapter-5233

The East-West Army’s fleet was rapidly getting closer to the Royal City.

Certainly, the Black Ink Clansmen wouldn’t sit back and do nothing. Che Kong ordered half of the one million Black Ink soldiers to head to the left side of the city and prepare to intercept the enemy.

This was the right move as well as the only solution.

With that said, Che Kong wasn’t a fool, so he didn’t send all his soldiers to the left side of the city. He had to be wary of a potential sneak attack from the Humans.

The Humans’ fleet was indeed coming at them from the left, but it was just a fleet of Warships after all, no one could guarantee that all the Humans were on those Warships. If all the Black Ink Clan soldiers gathered together on the left flank, they would be powerless to deal with the Humans if the latter launched an attack from the right.

Che Kong was confident that the fleet was only meant to harass them while the Humans’ target was the right side of the Royal City; otherwise, they wouldn’t have openly circled around the Royal City to attract their attention.

Therefore, while sending some Black Ink Clan soldiers to the left, Che Kong also told the remaining Black Ink Clansmen to keep an eye on any anomaly on the right side.

As time passed, an austere atmosphere pervaded the void.

Half a day later, the two groups were only 5 million kilometres away from each other. At such a distance, the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters and the Territory Lords could start exchanging moves; however, both parties restrained themselves as none of them decided to make a move first.

At this point, what was going on with the Human Warships could clearly be seen.

What surprised Che Kong was that the Warships were indeed full of Human cultivators.

This made him feel perplexed. He initially thought that the fleet only served as a pretence to attract their attention while a massive amount of Human soldiers would secretly gather together on the right side of the Royal City and launch a sneak attack on them.

However, that didn’t seem to be the case now.

The Warships were full of Humans. In other words, all the Humans had gathered together in this fleet. There wasn’t another group of soldiers.

[Why did they intentionally make a detour? If they’re not trying to fool us, what’s the point of them circling around the Royal City? Could they be avoiding something? Wait, avoiding…]

All of a sudden, Che Kong’s expression changed drastically as he stared off into the depths of the void, recalling the events from one year ago.

The three Universe Worlds that flew in a straight line had come at them from that direction back then.

The Human fleet had perfectly avoided that direction by making a detour.

In the meantime, Yang Kai, who was giving a lesson in the classroom in his Small Universe, looked up all of a sudden. He saw through the barrier of his Small Universe and gazed at the depths of the void.

He was in a position where he could detect the anomalies coming from a certain region of the void before the Black Ink Clan could do so.

[They’re coming again!]

Yang Kai had seen the same scene a year ago. There were some Universe Worlds coming over from the depths of the void at the speed of lightning as they hurtled towards the Royal City.

The last time he saw such a sight, the Universe Worlds radiated a dazzling glow as the arrays around them operated at full capacity.

The Universe Worlds were not so eye-catching this time; in fact, they were rather furtive. Apparently, the Array Masters had restricted the light from the arrays so that the Universe Worlds could remain hidden.

They were trying to catch the Black Ink Clan off guard; however, the three Universe Worlds were unable to harm the Black Ink Clan previously, so what about this time?

“What are you looking at, Sir?” Xiao Xiao asked curiously. She followed Yang Kai’s gaze and saw that there was an insect that was trying to struggle out of the spider web on the ceiling.

“Nothing,” Yang Kai lowered his head with a smile and continued with the lesson.

Meanwhile, the Universe Worlds, which were equipped with various arrays, skirted past the forward base and flew towards the Royal City.

Cha Pu, who was watching everything from the mountain, widened his eyes in disbelief and exclaimed, “Is that the trump card all of you have prepared?”

Li Xing, who was beside him, replied, “Yes.”

As Cha Pu gazed at the Universe Worlds and the place where the East-West Army was located, he gasped, “The soldiers and the Universe Worlds are flanking the enemy. The Black Ink Clan can’t possibly deal with both sides at the same time. That’s indeed an ingenious plan.”

It was no wonder that Mi Jing Lun regarded Xiang Shan highly. It seemed that the man indeed lived up to his fame.

The Universe Worlds were equipped with various arrays, so even an Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master like Cha Pu could feel the dangerous auras exuding from them. It could be expected that if these things smashed into the Black Ink Clan’s lines, many of them would lose their lives.

The only way to deal with these Universe Worlds was to destroy them before they could get close, which required the powerful Masters from the Black Ink Clan to make a move. But when they did so, the East-West Army could launch an attack and hit the Black Ink Clan’s exposed flank.

However, faced with this situation, could the Masters from the Black Ink Clan sit back and do nothing? That was impossible.

Furthermore, the timing was immaculate. The East-West Army was only 5 million kilometres away from the Royal City, so they could launch an attack at any moment, and there was no way the Black Ink Clan could ignore them.

They would have their hands full as they had to deal with an attack from two sides.

An idea suddenly sprang into Cha Pu’s mind. Since the East-West Army could use such a method to deal with the Black Ink Clan here, could the North-South Army imitate them?

However, he soon dismissed the idea and let out a sigh.

The North-South Army couldn’t do the same because Great Evolution Pass was different from the Royal City. Although the Royal City was the most important place for the Black Ink Clan in the Great Evolution Theatre, it didn’t have powerful defences or fortifications set up. Therefore, faced with the Universe Worlds, the Black Ink Clan couldn’t ignore them.

Great Evolution Pass was different as it was extremely sturdy. If the North-South Army wanted to do the same by leveraging Universe Worlds to attack the enemy, the Black Ink Clan in Great Evolution Pass could simply ignore them. Even if the Universe Worlds smashed into Great Evolution Pass, it was questionable if it would suffer any damage at all.

To the side, Li Xing explained, “In fact, we sent three Universe Worlds over one year ago.”

“Oh?” Cha Pu arched his brow, “What was the outcome?”

Li Xing replied, “It wasn’t effective. There are many Masters on the Black Ink Clan’s side. Before the Universe Worlds could get close to the Royal City, they were shattered.”

Upon hearing that, Cha Pu said, “Ineffectiveness was the outcome you all wanted to see, right?”

Li Xing nodded, “You’re indeed intelligent, Martial Uncle Cha.”

Cha Pu chuckled, “I’m afraid I don’t deserve your compliment. It seems that Senior Brother Xiang is indeed a far-sighted person.”

As they spoke, the Black Ink Clansmen from the Royal City had descended into chaos.

Although the lights and outward traces of the arrays were concealed, the Territory Lords could certainly detect the dangerous auras that were rapidly approaching.

They looked over intently and saw a number of Universe Worlds flying right at the Royal City.

Unlike the previous time, these Universe Worlds were not positioned in a straight line so they could already see three Universe Worlds with their bare eyes, and they believed there were even more would appear soon.

Che Kong gnashed his teeth, but after giving it a quick thought, he passed down a new order.

The next instant, more than 10 Territory Lords and over 20 Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples shot into the sky and charged towards the Universe Worlds.

They had gone through the same incident one year ago, so they knew how to deal with these Universe Worlds; after all, they already had some experiences.

As long as they could shatter these Universe Worlds before they could get close, the Royal City wouldn’t be impacted one bit; however, back then, all the Masters from the Black Ink Clan had joined forces to easily ward off the three Universe Worlds.

This time, they could only utilise 30% of the manpower they previously had.

This couldn’t be helped, as the Humans’ fleet was too close to the Royal City and they appeared determined to launch an attack. There was no way Che Kong could ignore this threat. He had to keep 60% to 70% of his forces to deal with the Humans to ensure that they could keep the Royal City safe.

Violent energy fluctuations burst forth as different Secret Techniques and Divine Abilities burst forth. The moment these Territory Lords and Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples made a move, they easily shattered the surrounding space.

None of them were fools, so they did not disperse their powers and instead focused on the Universe World at the front to destroy it first.

Based on their previous experience, they could easily turn a Universe World into dust by joining forces.

Nevertheless, after they made a move, they realised that this Universe World was different from the ones they had dealt with back then. It was far sturdier. Apparently, the Array Masters had reinforced the Universe World with arrays.

Therefore, after the first round of attacks, even though the Universe had broken into pieces, it didn’t explode into dust as they had expected.

Furthermore, the moment the Universe World came apart, rays of horrifying light were shot from the universe fragments towards the Royal City.

This was obviously a prearranged effect of these Spirit Arrays. Once the Universe World was attacked, the arrays would start running on their own.

It was very unlike what had happened previously.

The Territory Lords and the Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples were caught off-guard, and although they had promptly made a move, they still couldn’t stop the universe fragments from raining down on the Royal City.

What’s more, there were still two complete Universe Worlds behind these fragments.

The Territory Lords roared and fully activated their powers. The Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples wouldn’t dare to hold back either and cast all the Divine Abilities and Secret Techniques they could use.

Seeing that, the Feudal Lords, who were the second layer of defence, quickly rose into the sky to assist them.

In just a cup of tea’s time, the Universe Worlds coming from the depths of the void were all shattered. What astonished the Black Ink Clan was that there were 10 Universe Worlds this time, which was more than three times as many Universe Worlds as a year ago.

Although they had destroyed all 10 Universe Worlds, they still couldn’t rest easy, for after every Universe World was shattered, the pre-set arrays on it would explode.

In order to fend off the powers of those arrays and falling universe fragments, several Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples became wounded while many Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciples and Feudal Lords lost their lives. As for the High-Rank and Low-Rank Black Ink Clansmen, the losses there were even more significant. Upon receiving the order, they had to do their best to intercept the universe fragments that were falling towards the Royal City.

More and more of them lost their lives as their auras continuously withered.

Despite the Black Ink Clan’s best efforts though, they couldn’t possibly block or deflect all the universe fragments. Finally, there came a moment when a universe fragment crashed into the Universe World where the Royal City was located. The moment of impact, all the remaining Spirit Arrays on the universe fragment detonated and turned into a dazzling light that engulfed all the Black Ink Clansmen around it.