Martial Peak
chapter-5336

Xiang Shan explained, “The goal of Great Evolution’s crusade this time is the Royal City and the Royal Lord! In the last war when we retook Great Evolution Pass, the Black Ink Clan suffered heavy casualties, and the Royal Lord was severely injured. Right now, the forces of the Black Ink Clan are basically all holed up in the vicinity of the Royal City, but because of Old Ancestor’s actions these past few years, the Royal City’s defences have become extremely tight, so even the slightest movement will likely alert the Black Ink Clan Army.”

“In this crusade, our Human Race’s chances of victory are quite high. What we need to consider is how to achieve our goal of wiping out the Black Ink Clan with the smallest losses, so we need to catch them off guard.”

“What you need to do is very simple. First, you’ll set out and scout the situation ahead. If you encounter the Black Ink Clan, try not to engage them if possible, but if you do, you must kill them all. Do not let the Black Ink Clan find out about the Great Evolution Army’s movements.”

In this crusade, with Great Evolution Pass being mobilized, it would be difficult to not be discovered. This was not just a single Warship or two that could use some kind of Spirit Array or some kind of artifact to conceal its movements. If Great Evolution Pass moved, it would naturally be quite grand and majestic, and it would quite easily be detected by the Black Ink Clan from a distance. Once the Black Ink Clan discovered Great Evolution Pass’ movements, they would be able to react in advance and the Great Evolution Army would lose the element of surprise.

That was why Yang Kai and the others needed to set out first. Firstly, to spy on the situation, and secondly, to eliminate any possible scouts of the Black Ink Clan on the attack route.

“You don’t need to worry too much about your safety. The Old Ancestor’s actions over the past few years might have caused the Black Ink Clan to go on high alert, but none of the Territory Lords dare to act rashly because the Old Ancestor has gone to bother them from time to time. The Black Ink Clan soldiers patrolling outside the Royal City will at most be led by Feudal Lords, which should be no problem for your Squads to deal with them.”

The three nodded in agreement after hearing this.

The Territory Lords didn’t dare to show their faces, for they had no idea when the Old Ancestor would show up. If they were caught outside the Royal City and ran into the Old Ancestor, they would die truly meaningless deaths. So, although the Black Ink Clan had many teams out patrolling the periphery of the Royal City, none of them were led by Territory Lords.

Without a Territory Lord, the safety of the four Special Operations Squads was guaranteed.

As he spoke, Xiang Shan suddenly raised his head and glanced towards the door before lightly snorting, “Get in here!”

Chai Fang’s head popped in from the outside, swollen and looking extremely miserable. Still, he walked in with an ingratiating smile and bowed low, “Greetings, Senior.”

Xiang Shan ignored him and turned to Yang Kai, “Your Space Beacons will be very useful. You and other Squads can use them to send messages. If there is any danger, you can also quickly rush to support one another.”

“Understood!” Yang Kai replied.

Ever since Xiang Shan came to learn that the Old Ancestor was able to rush to the Royal City so quickly with the help of the Space Beacon, he had asked Yang Kai to refine as many of them as possible. The materials required to refine Space Beacons were fairly common, but only someone with high proficiency in the Dao of Space could make them. In Great Evolution Pass, only Yang Kai was capable of this.

“It’s going to take a long time to reach the Royal City. All of you should rest for the next half a year before setting off.”

Yang Kai and the others nodded in unison.

After thinking about it for a moment, Yang Kai asked, “Sir, I heard from the Old Ancestor that all the Great Passes will set out for the crusade. Did everyone discuss it beforehand?”

Xiang Shan replied, “Naturally. If we want to completely eliminate the Black Ink Clan, all the Theatres will have to act in unison. Just dealing with one or two would be pointless.”

The Black Ink Clan was born from the Black Ink Nest. Their reproductive ability was far greater than the Humans. So long as one or two High-Rank Black Ink Nests remained, the Black Ink Clan would have a chance to rise from the ashes.

To completely eliminate the Black Ink Clan, all Theatres had to act together and eliminate all the High-Rank Black Ink Nests.

There were differences in strength and distance between the Great Passes and the Royal Cities of each Theatre, so the individual crusades would also look quite different from one another.

For instance, in the Great Evolution Theatre, victory was already set in stone. The Royal Lord, who had yet to recover from his injuries, was simply no match for Old Ancestor Xiao Xiao. Even if he borrowed the power of the Black Ink Nest, he could only offer stubborn resistance.

Without the Royal Lord in the picture, even if the Black Ink Clan had many Territory Lords, the Human Race had the Evil Purging Divine Spears.

The Evil Purging Divine Spears were destined to shine in the upcoming war.

However, in other Theatres, the Black Ink Clan was basically at full strength, so some Great Passes were destined to have a tough battle ahead of them.

Many people might die in this crusade, but if their deaths could bring eternal peace to the 3,000 worlds, every Human soldier was willing to make that sacrifice.

Xiang Shan told the four some more details before letting them leave.

Not long after they left the Army Headquarters, the four heard a humming noise coming from the depths of Great Evolution Pass as it began quaking once more.

Immediately after, many Spirit Arrays hidden in the depths of Great Evolution Pass began operating and started radiating with energy.

The next moment, the Pass that had remained motionless for countless years slowly started moving forward as if it was being pushed forward by an invisible force.

Yang Kai and the others glanced at each other and could see the excitement in each other’s eyes.

With Great Evolution Pass moving forward, the crusade had officially begun.

After bidding goodbye to each other, they returned to their respective residences.

Inside Dawn’s courtyard, Yang Kai summoned all the Squad members and informed them of the plan that would commence in half a year. Everyone instantly rolled up their sleeves in anticipation.

Since they had withdrawn from the Royal City over 200 years ago, they had not fought with the Black Ink Clan again. During this time, the supply of resources was abundant, allowing everyone in Dawn to improve their strength. Many of the Fifth-Order Masters had regained their Sixth-Order cultivation, so they couldn’t wait to fight with the Black Ink Clan.

Unfortunately, they had been busy overhauling the various parts of Great Evolution Pass over the past many years. After Great Evolution Pass had been repaired and reorganized, they had been mining resources. In other words, there had been no opportunity to fight with the Black Ink Clan.

What was the point of simply increasing their strength if they couldn’t kill the Black Ink Clan?

Now, an opportunity was right before them.

Everyone dispersed to rest and condition themselves.

Yang Kai turned his head towards a certain room as a slight furrow appeared on his brow.

Inside this cultivation room, Feng Ying had been in retreat for many years and had yet to exit; no one knew what her condition was.

Back when Yang Kai was making a soup out of the beef gifted to him by Wind and Cloud Pass’ Old Ancestor at Dawn’s camp, Xu Ling Gong happened to come over and drink a bowl of it. He had heard that it was a gift from an Old Ancestor and suddenly received an epiphany. He used that opportunity to break through to the Eighth Order in one fell swoop.

The beef soup was just an ordinary soup and had no special properties at all; nonetheless, Xu Ling Gong had a preconceived notion in his mind and felt that the soup was something mystical and the opportunity did not come from himself but was thanks to the soup.

While observing Xu Ling Gong breaking through to the Eighth Order, Feng Ying also gained some benefits and went into a retreat. It had been 200 years since then, but there had been no movement.

This was also something that had been bothering Yang Kai recently.

Upon arriving at the Black Ink Battlefield, the first person he encountered was Meng Qi, but to protect the secret of the Void Corridor, Meng Qi had decisively committed suicide.

Feng Ying was the second Human soldier he had run into, and it was thanks to her help that he was able to gather a group of Black Ink Disciples, restore their minds, and slaughter his way back to Blue Sky Pass.

After the creation of Dawn, Feng Ying had fought shoulder to shoulder with him, sharing life and death many times over.

Yang Kai was quite excited about the results of her retreat and hoped that everything would go well.

But by the looks of it, Feng Ying’s retreat did not seem to be going smoothly, otherwise there would not have been no movements for the past two centuries.

Outsiders could not help her in this situation though. Everything would depend on her own fortitude and fortune.

Looking towards the room, Yang Kai heaved a light sigh, “Senior Sister, the crusade has begun. If you don’t come out soon, you’ll miss it.”

…..

Every soldier who had just entered the Black Ink Battlefield learned that the Great Passes were really just giant Mobile Palace Artifacts, but since ancient these Mobile Palace Artifacts had only served as the strongest defensive shields and had never been sent into battle before.

Today, the tens of thousands of soldiers of Great Evolution Pass witnessed this magnificent feat.

It wasn’t just Great Evolution Pass, over 100 Great Passes across the vast Black Ink Battlefield set off on their crusade at almost the same time.

It really wasn’t an easy task to control such a massive Mobile Palace Artifact. At least one Ninth-Order Open Heaven Realm and 30 Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Masters had to be stationed at the Core in order to just move it.

It also needed 30 Eighth-Order Masters to remain on standby.

Its initial speed was very slow, almost as slow as a turtle’s crawl, but the speed of Great Evolution Pass gradually increased with time.

A month later, it had already reached the speed of an ordinary Dao Source Realm Master.

Another month later, it was comparable to an Emperor Realm Master.

Another month later, its speed was no worse than a Low-Rank Open Heaven Realm Master.

Such a colossus object could be said to be unstoppable when it started moving. Whether it was a big asteroid or an entire Universe World, the Great Pass would smash through it like rotten wood.

Another month later, the speed of Great Evolution Pass had reached its limit, about on par with a Fourth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master. This was still far slower than the Army’s normal marching speed, but that could not be helped.

At this speed, it would take at least half a year to reach the Royal City.

They had not encountered a single Black Ink Clansman along the way. Just as Xiang Shan had said, the Black Ink Clan in Great Evolution Theatre had been completely defeated and were now too scared to move out, concentrating almost all their forces near the Royal City.

When the speed of Great Evolution Pass had reached its limit, the Old Ancestor and the Eighth-Order Masters were finally able to have a bit of respite and restore their energy. They did not need to constantly use their strength to drive Great Evolution Pass’ Core to accelerate the massive Mobile Palace Artifact.

Meanwhile, the tens of thousands of Great Evolution soldiers did not remain idle either. Many of the Universe Worlds in Great Evolution Pass’ way had been smashed to pieces, and the resources in those Universe Worlds could not be wasted. In other words, the soldiers left Great Evolution Pass one after another to collect the resources from these shattered Universe Worlds under Xiang Shan’s command.

After collecting them, they only needed to activate the Universe Transference Law to return to Great Evolution Pass.

Like this, they picked up a lot of materials along the way.

It wasn’t that Xiang Shan was managing things economically and methodically, but rather that everyone had seriously underestimated just how much Great Evolution Pass consumed to keep moving. Great Evolution Pass had accumulated a massive amount of resources over the past few centuries, but now that it had truly started moving, everyone realized that the consumption of resources was too intense.

Since there was a chance to collect more resources, Xiang Shan would naturally not let this opportunity go. Because once they reached the Royal City, they would not be able to collect them.

A few months later…

The four Special Operations Squads were assembled at Great Evolution Pass’ eastern gate, comprised of a total of 200 Open Heaven Realm Masters, with nearly 40 in the Seventh Order, making up 20% of the total.

This was quite a magnificent lineup.

Although there were many people here, no one was making even a single noise; all of them were just silently waiting.