Martial Peak

Chapter 5597: Going With the Flow

Li Xing smiled, “It’s inevitable that we get hurt on the battlefield.”

Meanwhile, he thought back to when, back in the Great Evolution Army, just like him, Yang Kai was only a Seventh-Order Master who actually had less experience. However, Li Xing was still a Seventh-Order Master now while Yang Kai was now an Eighth-Order Master who had made a name for himself.

If they looked further back in history, Yang Kai was only a Sixth-Order Master when he arrived at the Black Ink Battlefield for the first time, while at that time, Li Xing was already a Seventh-Order Master.

On top of that, all the Territory Lords feared Yang Kai. The things that had happened over the past few years changed Li Xing’s worldview.

He finally realised that sometimes, just one person was enough to change the status quo.

At the same time, he felt sorry for Yang Kai, who only directly ascended to the Fifth Order back then. As such, he didn’t have a chance to make it to the Ninth Order in his lifetime.

If he was able to ascend to the Ninth Order, the chances of the Humans winning the war would increase by at least 30%.

Just then, Li Xing snapped back to reality and said, “Senior Xiang Shan has ordered that the moment Sir Yang exits seclusion, you must head to the conference hall at once. The higher-ups want to discuss with you.”

Yang Kai nodded, “Understood.”

In the Main Conference Hall, Yang Kai waited for a moment before the other Eighth-Order Masters appeared and greeted him. While they were having some small talk with smiles on their faces, Xiang Shan arrived.

After they were seated, Xiang Shan tossed a jade slip at Yang Kai and said, “Before we begin, I want you to have a look at this. While you were recuperating over the past few years, things have changed a lot on the battlefields.”

Yang Kai’s heart sank, for he thought that something terrible had happened. As such, he quickly went through the jade slip’s content, but his expression soon turned awkward.

He looked up at Xiang Shan and asked, “What is the Black Ink Clan trying to achieve?”

Unlike what he had imagined, things didn’t take a turn for the worse; in fact, the situation had become quite peaceful across all other Great Territories.

Profound Nether Territory remained the same as there was already a peace deal in place, so more and more Human soldiers continued to stream into that place.

Meanwhile, the Black Ink Clan soldiers in Twin Poles Territory had been staying put. They still clashed with the Humans from time to time, but those were minor skirmishes at best.

What made Yang Kai speechless was the situation in all the other Great Territories.

There were a total of 13 Great Territories where the Humans and the Black Ink Clan Armies were fighting. In most of the Great Territories, the Black Ink Clan held the advantage. In some of the Great Territories, the Humans were not doing much better than in Twin Poles Territory three years ago and were on the brink of being forced to withdraw.

However, after Yang Kai reappeared from 300 years of absence, the Black Ink Clansmen in all the Great Territories collectively retreated.

Over the past three years, only a few large-scale battles took place in the various Great Territories. Furthermore, the Humans were the ones who initiated those battles.

What was more, apart from the Profound Nether Territory, the Territory Lords from the other 12 Great Territories subsequently sent some people to the Humans’ camps to convey their intention to hold peace talks. The peace deals were basically copies of the one established in Profound Nether Territory, which stated that the Eighth-Order Masters and Territory Lords would not participate further in the war.

The Eighth-Order Masters were certainly pleased with the Black Ink Clan’s attitude, but they were not sure if they should agree to it. As such, the Eighth-Order Masters from different Great Territories passed the information to the Supreme Headquarters and let the latter make a decision.

Yang Kai was dumbfounded as he went through the information.

After he stopped cultivating in seclusion, he was looking forward to killing some more Territory Lords. Twin Poles Territory was no longer a suitable hunting ground, as after the incident back then, the Territory Lords here would surely have their guards up. With that said, Yang Kai could head to any other Great Territory. For example, Lang Ya Territory would be a good choice.

Nonetheless, he didn’t expect things to turn out this way.

It was no wonder that the Eighth-Order Masters looked at him with meaningful gazes. The changes in these Great Territories naturally had something to do with what he had done three years ago.

“First of all, I guess they must be wary of you. Secondly, they must have seen through our intentions,” Xiang Shan explained, “While we need to train our soldiers, they do too. As such, they’ve decided to just go with the flow.”

Yang Kai nodded, “Did those from the Supreme Headquarters say anything about it?”

Instead of answering his question, Xiang Shan asked, “What do you have to say?”

Yang Kai had single-handedly changed the status quo of the entire war; as such, those from the Supreme Headquarters had to respect his opinion. Otherwise, they could’ve made a decision on their own instead of waiting for Yang Kai to stop cultivating in seclusion.

After giving it some thought, Yang Kai replied, “Even though they’ve seen through our intentions, there’s nothing we can do about it. It’s not like we could have hidden it forever. We can’t possibly give up on our plan just to stop the Black Ink Clan from training their soldiers. We have to strike some sort of agreement with them.”

“Do you think we should agree to it?” Xiang Shan asked.

“Yes, but we still need to negotiate with them. Since they’re the ones proposing peace talks this time, they should send a representative from each of the Great Territories over. Twin Poles Territory is as good a place as any for the talks, so we just need to set a time. Both sides will put their cards on the table and hammer out an agreement. In any case, we can’t make a deal without all the Great Territories being included in the negotiations.”

The reason the Humans had to train their soldiers was primarily to let the young talents of the next generation experience life-and-death struggles, which would stimulate their potential and allow them to reach greater heights sooner.

However, once a Seventh-Order Master ascended to the Eighth Order, they wouldn’t be allowed to take part in the war anymore if every Great Territory was included in this peace deal.

The Eighth Order wasn’t the ultimate goal of the Humans training their soldiers, the Ninth Order was.

As such, they needed a stage where Eighth-Order Masters could shine.

In fact, those from the Supreme Headquarters had considered all this without the need for Yang Kai to say anything. Since they had confirmed their agenda, they needed to decide how many Great Territories the Eighth-Order Masters and Territory Lords couldn’t have a hand in the war and how many Great Territories where things would go on as usual out of the remaining 12 Great Territories, including Twin Poles Territory.

To the Humans, they naturally wanted things to go on as usual in the Great Territories where they had an advantage while obviously the Black Ink Clan would want the opposite.

It was expected that there were bound to be disagreements over the details of this peace deal. These arguments were not only between the Humans and Black Ink Clan though, perhaps there would be some disagreement within the Black Ink Clan as well.

After all, none of the Territory Lords hoped that the situation in the Great Territories they were responsible for would go on as usual.

Knowing what Yang Kai meant, Xiang Shan nodded, “We’ll assemble representatives from our side and hold the conference in two months, then.”

“Those from the Supreme Headquarters can just make the arrangements. I’m fine with anything.”

“You mustn’t go anywhere else these two months. We’ll need you to be there during the peace talk,” Xiang Shan reminded him. He was worried that Yang Kai would disappear when he wasn’t paying attention. Yang Kai was an expert in the Dao of Space and was always elusive. If he wasn’t present during the peace talks though, the Humans would be far less intimidating to their enemies.

“I know,” Yang Kai replied. Certainly, he understood the matter’s importance.

Then, the Eighth-Order Masters discussed the agenda that would be brought up during the peace talk. Although the details weren’t confirmed, they soon had a general idea of what would be discussed.

To the Humans, it was necessary to gain several battlefields that were relatively safe.

The Black Ink Clan must have realised the Humans’ intention, which was why they proposed having a peace talk. While they were forced to do it, they were also pushing a sailing boat along at this point. To them, by killing the Open Heaven Realm Masters on the battlefields, they could strengthen their powers by absorbing the World Force from the Human corpses. They were able to directly grow stronger in battle, which was an advantage that the Humans didn’t have.

Both parties seemed to pin their hopes on the growth of their respective rising Stars, who were the key to their success or failure in this war. The Black Ink Clan had the advantage of having a larger population, so given enough time, there would be a lot of new Feudal Lords, Territory Lords, and even Royal Lords.

On the other hand, the Humans had the advantage of having the Star Boundary, Myriad Monsters World, and Yang Kai’s Small Universe. As time passed, there would be quite a number of Eighth-Order and Ninth-Order Masters rising up from these places.

Perhaps the Black Ink Clan was also trying to avoid a thorny issue.

To the Black Ink Clan presently, Yang Kai was the most difficult problem to deal with as he had managed to kill several dozen Territory Lords. However, once more and more Royal Lords were born, Yang Kai, regardless of how powerful he was, would no longer be a deciding factor in the war.

Naturally, the Black Ink Clan wanted to see the Humans giving up on their biggest trump card.

Despite it being called a peace talk on the surface, both sides were secretly waging a battle of wits. Both parties were preparing for the deciding clashes in the future where one party would emerge as the inheritors of the Universe.

For the next two months, Yang Kai focused on cultivating and did nothing else. He refined sets of cultivation resources and gulped down Open Heaven Pills by the handful.

To him, the most important thing now was to increase his strength and reach the peak of the Eighth Order as soon as possible.

If he wanted to have an impact on the war in the future, he had to strengthen himself first. Given his heritage, it wouldn’t be difficult for Yang Kai to reach the peak of the Eighth Order. At that point, even if he couldn’t make it to the Ninth Order, he wouldn’t be powerless when he came across a Royal Lord.

It was his forte to defeat enemies above his Realm after all.

During this period, many Eighth-Order Masters and Territory Lords from the other Great Territories arrived at Twin Poles Territory.

They had already chosen Twin Poles Territory to be the place where the peace talk would be held, which was because Yang Kai was there. To the Black Ink Clan, what they wanted to restrict the most was Yang Kai; as such, he had to be present during the peace talks.

As the date of the peace talks was just around the corner, both parties frequently mobilised their soldiers in Twin Poles Territory. Although they believed that there wouldn’t be any problem with the conference, they still had to be prepared.

If the discussion fell apart, a war might break out. 

Meanwhile, Yang Kai didn’t cultivate in absolute seclusion this time. In other words, he could exit at any time.

One day, while he was refining resources in his room, Yang Kai realised that the restriction outside had been triggered. When he looked up, he saw a curvy figure stepping towards him.

“Ahem…” The corners of Yang Kai’s brow twitched, “I’m cultivating.”

The person guffawed, “I know, so I was just giving it a try. I didn’t expect that I could really just walk in like this.”

[That’s because I didn’t turn on all the restrictions so that people outside could contact me at any moment, or else I might have missed the peace talks.]

“Do you need something, Senior Sister Luo?” Yang Kai asked.

The person was none other than Luo Ting He, who was an Eighth-Order Master from Yin-Yang Heaven. Now, she was the Army Commander of Azure Sun Territory.

Out of all 13 Armies in the Great Territories, she was the only female Army Commander.

She and Yang Kai could be considered close friends. When he went to Yin-Yang Heaven to look for Qu Hua Shang in the past, the latter had entered the Samsara Pavilion to avoid pressure from the higher-ups of her Sect. Yang Kai entered the Samsara Pavilion and went through nine reincarnations with her before he managed to restore her memory. After that, he brought Qu Hua Shang out.

Thousands of years before then, Luo Ting He had been trapped in the Samsara Pavilion as well, and there was no word on whether she was dead or alive.

In the process of saving Qu Hua Shang, Yang Kai also managed to restore Luo Ting He’s memories and allowed her to leave the Samsara Pavilion.

Luo Ting He was a rare talent who had directly ascended to the Seventh Order and was now a longtime veteran Eighth Order Master with hopes of breaking through to the Ninth Order soon.

Although there were many Eighth-Order Masters now, only a small number of them had a chance to rise to the Ninth-Order. Out of the people that Yang Kai knew, Xiang Shan and Wei Jun Yang had the potential to do so. Meanwhile, Mi Jing Lun, Ou Yang Lie, and the others had already reached their limits and there was no way they could make further advancements.