Martial Peak

Chapter 5638: Making the Best of a Bad Situation

Yang Kai felt frustrated. He didn’t mind getting beaten up a bit because his injuries would slowly restore on their own. The key was that he had exposed his ability to borrow strength from the Ancestral Land, which was one of his hidden trump cards.

That was also what he was counting on to battle the Royal Lord. 

On the other hand, he felt lucky that he instinctively borrowed the Ancestral Land’s strength after sensing danger; otherwise, this situation would have ended badly. 

However, there was still doubt in his mind. 

Even though he had borrowed strength from the Ancestral Land, obtaining both favourable conditions and an advantageous position, his opponent was a Royal Lord, so he should have lost long ago. 

After all, a Royal Lord was equivalent to a Ninth-Order Old Ancestor. Also, Yang Kai had previously fought a Royal Lord, so he clearly knew how strong they were. 

Despite the fact that he could kill Innate Territory Lords like he was slaughtering chickens and butchering dogs, he knew he was no match for a Royal Lord. Otherwise, he would have gone straight to the No-Return Pass and destroyed their Black Ink Nests without bothering to try to maintain some random insincere peace treaty.

The environment in the Ancestral Land had a certain degree of restriction on the Royal Lord, but Yang Kai knew he had devoured too much Ancestral Strength these past years and greatly decreased the Ancestral Land’s heritage, which meant that the suppression wouldn’t be too significant. In other words, the Ancestral Land’s restriction on the Royal Lord wouldn’t affect him too much. 

After carefully recalling his battle with the Royal Lord, Yang Kai suddenly realised something. 

Without question, the strength exerted by this Royal Lord was indeed at the level of a Royal Lord, but he seemed quite bad at controlling it. 

He had 100% of the strength of a Royal Lord, but could only exert 70% to 80% of it, making every attack feel like he was holding back. 

On top of that, there was also the suppression from the Ancestral Land’s environment and the protection the Ancestral Strength granted Yang Kai. It was the combination of all these factors that allowed Yang Kai to stay alive until now.

[This guy must be a newly advanced Royal Lord, which is why he can’t perfectly control his strength and why the Humans had never heard of any news about him.] 

Yang Kai thought he had guessed the truth, unaware that the real situation was completely different. If he hadn’t been immersed in his cultivation inside the Ancestral Land, the Black Ink Clan wouldn’t have sacrificed 13 Innate Territory Lords and a High-Rank Black Ink Next to create a Pseudo-Royal Lord like Di Wu. The Black Ink Clan could create such a Master from the start but hadn’t done so until now. 

To the current Black Ink Clan, every Innate Territory Lord and High-Rank Black Ink Nest was indispensable, so considering the overall situation, it just wasn’t cost-effective to create a Pseudo-Royal Lord. 

But if they could use Di Wu’s strength as a Pseudo-Royal Lord to kill Yang Kai, that would definitely be worth it. 

Without mentioning the Black Ink Clan’s plan, Yang Kai was now having a headache about his predicament. 

The Trapping Array had been completely destroyed, so the Royal Lord and four Territory Lords by themselves might not be able to stop him if he wanted to disengage. Of course, it was still impossible to leave the Ancestral Land because this World would still be sealed before the Four Gates Eight Palaces Great Pagoda Array was broken. 

However, Yang Kai didn’t need to leave the Ancestral Land, he only needed to dive deep into it to heal his injuries. If he did so, the Black Ink Clan wouldn’t be able to do anything to him. 

Unfortunately, the idea of retreating now made Yang Kai feel quite reluctant. His trump cards had been exposed one after another, so he would lose the element of surprise in the next battle. Since that was the case, he figured it would be better to just go with the flow and end this debacle once and for all. 

He made the plan to hide deep inside the Ancestral Land after killing the four Territory Lords because he thought he wasn’t the Royal Lord’s opponent, but now that he knew he was up against a Royal Lord who couldn’t exert his full strength… Yang Kai thought that there might be a chance he could kill his enemy here today. 

Yang Kai was secretly even hoping for the Royal Lord to lose his patience and use his Royal Lord Secret Technique…

Back outside the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon, Yang Kai had killed a Royal Lord shortly after breaking through to the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm not because he was strong, but because many coincidences came together.  

His biggest opportunity was when the Royal Lord used the Royal Lord Secret Technique on him, wanting to corrupt him with Black Ink Strength!

The Royal Lord Secret Technique was something only a Royal Lord could use. When performed, it was silent but had an incredible impact. Even Eighth-Order Masters couldn’t resist and would immediately become corrupted. On the Barren Territory Battlefield, a single Royal Lord had corrupted three Eighth-Order Masters, converting them into Black Ink Disciples. It was those three Black Ink Disciples who resurrected the Black Ink Giant Spirit Got in the Divine Spirit Ancestral Land, triggering the collapse of the entire Human battlefront.

It could be said that the Royal Lord had made a huge contribution to today’s situation where the Black Ink Clan could fully suppress the Humans. 

Without the Royal Lord who corrupted those three Eighth-Order Black Ink Disciples, it would have been impossible to resurrect the Black Ink Giant Spirit God, and the Human Race Army would still have been able to bottle up the Black Ink Clan on the Barren Territory Battlefield.

Although it didn’t end well for that Royal Lord, the Black Ink Clan had achieved their goal. 

A Royal Lord wouldn’t easily use the Royal Lord Secret Technique though because they would have to pay a high price. Not only would their strength suffer an immediate and substantial drop, they would also have to endure a long period of weakness. On the battlefield, such a situation would give the enemy a great chance to kill them. 

Outside the Great Sea Celestial Phenomenon, that Royal Lord had used the Royal Lord Secret Technique on Yang Kai, causing himself to become weak and lose a huge portion of his strength. Then, he suffered a direct hit from Yang Kai’s Sun and Moon Divine Wheel while having his Soul torn apart by four Soul Rending Thorns. Under such circumstances, his chances of surviving decreased greatly. 

Even so, Yang Kai also lost consciousness and started a mad killing spree before winning. 

Back then, he was only a newly advanced Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm Master. 

Now, he was almost at the peak of the Eighth-Order Open Heaven Realm and had help from the Ancestral Land, so his strength was several times higher than back then. If this Royal Lord couldn’t hold back and used the Royal Lord Secret Technique, Yang Kai could easily kill him with his spear. By then, the Heaven Sealing Earth Locking Grand Array would become useless. 

However, Yang Kai’s anticipations were in vain because a Royal Lord wouldn’t use the Royal Lord Secret Technique unless they were certain of success or it was their last resort. 

According to what the Black Ink Clan had learned over the years, Yang Kai was fully resistant to Black Ink Strength’s corruption, so Di Wu wouldn’t be so stupid as to use the Royal Lord Secret Technique to deal with him. 

Moreover, a Pseudo-Royal Lord like Di Wu couldn’t use the Royal Lord Secret Technique. 

But Yang Kai didn’t know that. 

Realizing that hoping his enemy would make a fatal mistake wasn’t plausible, Yang Kai figured he could only create his own opportunity; after all, the Ancestral Land wasn’t his only trump card!

Yang Kai’s consciousness had recovered quite a bit now, but he still pretended to be muddled. Faced with attacks coming at him from all directions, he roared in an aggrieved manner at Di Wu, “You called for help? I can call for help too! Come out, my servants!”

The way he was acting was like a kid kicking up a fuss after getting beaten up.

However, in the next breath, the Black Ink Clan Masters suddenly became gloomy. 

That was because Small Stone Race Soldiers suddenly appeared one by one beside Yang Kai, transforming into a huge army in the blink of an eye. They were densely packed, making it impossible to count how many of them there were. 

The Black Ink Clan naturally recognised the Small Stone Race. 

Between 2,000 and 3,000 years ago, this strange race was very active on every Great Territory Battlefield. They seemed like they didn’t have much sentience and had no concept of strategy or tactics, but they weren’t afraid of death or being corrupted by Black Ink Strength. Their presence had brought the Black Ink Clan quite a lot of trouble during wars. 

Numerous Black Ink Clansmen had died at the Small Stone Races’ hands. 

Following the continuous killings of the Small Stone Race over the years though, their numbers decreased until they more or less disappeared. Occasionally, some cultivators would bring out some Small Stone Race Soldiers leftover from the various battles, but there would only be a dozen of them at most.

From what the Black Ink Clan gathered from the Black Ink Disciple, Yang Kai was the source of the Small Stone Race. 

In addition, Yang Kai had also used the Small Stone Race when he attacked the No-Return Pass back then. 

The Black Ink Clan initially thought that those strange beings had been essentially wiped out, so they never anticipated seeing such a huge bunch of them be summoned in the Ancestral Land!

At that instant, the Black Ink Clansmen stopped attacking while Di Wu’s expression became as gloomy as a rain cloud. 

This couldn’t be helped because back when Yang Kai attacked the No-Return Pass, Di Wu had personally witnessed the attack this killing star had executed with a similar Small Stone Race Army’s help.

Back then, Yang Kai seemed to have used some kind of technique and instantly sacrificed 2 million Small Stone Race Soldiers to form a terrifying explosion of Purifying Light that even seriously injured the Royal Lord, giving Yang Kai a chance to escape!

Therefore, in Di Wu’s memory, while these Small Stone Race members weren’t that terrifying, the means they gave Yang Kai access to was frightening!

“Kill him quickly!”

Seeing that the Small Stone Race Army was growing larger and larger, Di Wu immediately roared while retreating to put some distance between himself and Yang Kai. 

The four Territory Lords didn’t need Di Wu’s order for them to go all out as they fired their Secret Techniques at Yang Kai. 

But by now, the space around Yang Kai had become densely packed with Small Stone Race. Although those attacks killed and injured a large patch of Small Stone Race Soldiers, Yang Kai remained untouched. 

*Hong long long…* 

Thunder came down from the sky, and another fight started. The Territory Lords and Seventh-Order Black Ink Disciples operating the Grand Array had reactivated the Killing Array to target the Small Stone Race Army. 

Not only that, the Black Ink Clan Army, which had retreated far away while Yang Kai was fighting Di Wu and the Territory Lords, came forward once again and surrounded the Small Stone Race from all directions. 

In an instant, the battle between Masters had become a violent war between two Armies, further heating up the atmosphere in the Ancestral Land. 

The Small Stone Race roared and pounded their chests as their desire to kill the enemy had been raging since they were summoned by Yang Kai. Since the third time he visited the Chaotic Dead Territory, Yang Kai had discovered that the Small Stone Race nurtured by Big Brother Huang and Big Sister Lan were extremely sensitive to Black Ink Strength, probably because they were opposites of each other. Therefore, on the battlefield, the Small Stone Race would charge fearlessly whenever they sensed Black Ink Strength and either kill their enemy ruthlessly or die trying. 

In the beginning, the Humans didn’t have a method to control them because of these characteristics. Once the Small Stone Race were sent to the battlefield, they became like unleashed wild horses, which caused the Humans to lose many more of them than necessary. 

Later, the Humans began using a beast-taming method and an Artifact refining method to control the Small Stone Race. The situation had improved quite a lot. At the very least, the Humans could now issue the Small Stone Race simple instructions. 

The Small Stone Race Soldiers Yang Kai summoned just now obviously hadn’t undergone any such taming or refinement. After he gained these Small Stone Race members from Big Brother Huang and Big Sister Lan, Yang Kai just kept them inside his Small Universe and ignored them.

That was why these fellows began running around after being let out, charging in the direction where they sensed Black Ink Strength. 

At that moment, the scene was a chaotic mess, but Yang Kai just laughed like a madman, “Die! All of you must die! Hahaha!”