Lord Of All Realms

by Stayrr

In ancient times, there existed giant spirits capable of supporting the heavens. With bodies as enormous as stars, they soared across the universe. Great clan leaders with mysterious blood running through their veins shattered the void and created new worlds. Ancient Qi Warriors crossed a river of stars to enlighten numerous mortal beings. For unknown reasons, an era silently came

3. 61

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The Frost Python slowly glided towards Nie Tian.

It examined him silently, yet didn't try to kill him.

Nie Tian's attention was more concentrated than ever as he stared wide-eyed at the Frost Python. He secretly circulated his spiritual power, preparing to react at any moment.

"Scales…!" Nie Tian was shocked inwardly.

As it approached, he noticed that the more than ten-meter-long silver python had actually grown silver, crystalline scales!

Days before, when he was still traveling with Pan Tao and others in the glacier area, searching for the Frost Python, he learned many of its secrets from Pan Tao.

According to Pan Tao, in the second grade, Frost Python should be silver in color from head to tail, but completely lacking in scales.

However, once scales appeared on the Frost Python, it would mean that it had successfully broken through into the third grade.

Third grade spirit beasts could be as powerful as Qi warriors with a Heaven stage cultivation base, their formidable power increasing by several times!

The Frost Python in front of Nie Tian's eyes had already grown dozens of ice-like scales after hiding for a long time, which meant after a period of hiding, it had already become a third grade spirit beast!

If it was still in the second grade, he might still have the audacity to fight it, and perhaps, he could kill it with the rage punch.

However, now that the Frost Python had stepped into the third grade, he knew that he wouldn't even have a ten percent chance to win, even with the rage punch.

With that fist strike, he could only kill Qi warriors of the Lesser Heaven stage, whose strength was far inferior to third grade spirit beasts.

No matter what, it would be impossible for him to kill this third grade Frost Python. Engaging in battle with it meant death!

After having a clear understanding of the situation, Nie Tian didn't dare to hesitate any more, and started fleeing at the fastest speed possible.

SHEW!

He blurred into action, dashing toward the direction of the Ghost sect and the Blood sect people, without wasting one second.

He knew perfectly well that he couldn't possibly contend against the Frost Python alone.

The only possible way to kill the Frost Python would be with the help of the Cloudsoaring sect, the Spiritual Treasure sect, and maybe even the Ghost sect and the Blood sect.

HISSS! HISSS!

The sound of the Frost Python slithering across the sand could be heard from behind him. But then, after only about ten seconds, it surpassed him, and was silently waiting for him on the sand dune in front of him.

After reaching the third grade, it was faster than him by a great margin!

Seeing that the Frost Python had surpassed him and was now waiting there in front of him, staring at him oddly, Nie Tian's scalp began tingling so hard it felt like his head might explode.

Without any further thought, he immediately turned around and dashed in the opposite direction.

SSS! SSS!

After about ten seconds, the Frost Python surpassed him again, and yet again came to a stop in front of him.

Flabbergasted by what was happening, Nie Tian once again turned around, madly drawing power from his spiritual sea and fusing it with the energy roaming within his body to run at full speed.

However, the Frost Python was still much faster than him!

No matter how hard he ran, the Frost Python could always easily surpass him, and wait up ahead for him.

After a few more tries, Nie Tian was still unable to get rid of it, and thus gave up.

He finally understood that there was no way that he could escape from the third grade Frost Python.

"Bring it on!"

After giving up on running, Nie Tian assumed a battling posture, since he had no other option.

To his surprise, despite his battle posture, the Frost Python didn't make a single move.

Its eyes flickered with intelligence, as though it were contemplating some plan it had hatched.

Since it didn't move, Nie Tian also didn't dare to move. All he could do was stare at it with rapt attention, in case it launched an attack.

After a long moment, the Frost Python's eyes suddenly flickered, and it turned and slithered off toward the depths of the desert.

Before long, it stopped and turned around to look at Nie Tian, seemingly waiting for something…

Nie Tian was full of confusion.

HISS! HISS!

The Frost Python kept flickering its forked tongue and making hissing sounds, while simultaneously looking back.

Staring at it, puzzled, Nie Tian suddenly read from its eyes what it wanted to express: follow me.

Nie Tian was stunned.

The Frost Python actually wanted him to follow it?

HISS! HISS!

The Frost Python kept making hissing sounds, which were now filled with impatience, as if it was urging him to get moving.

It took a moment for Nie Tian to react, and followed obediently with a wry smile.

He wasn't sure what trick it was playing, but he knew for sure that if he engaged in battle with it, he would definitely be the one to die.

Having reached the third grade, the Frost Python was definitely not something he could handle. He had already had a clear understanding of that from the way that the Frost Python had easily outrun him.

If he were to run away, he wouldn't be successful. If he were to fight, he would die beyond a shadow of a doubt.

In this situation, behaving obediently was definitely the smartest choice.

Even though he was full of reluctance, in order to survive, he could only follow the Frost Python into the depths of the desert.

Time flew by… it felt as if he had already followed the Frost Python for quite a long time.

During this time, he knew that the Frost Python had been intentionally moving at a speed that he was able to keep up with.

Whenever he stopped or had reservations, the Frost Python would always look back at him.

Under its frightening gaze, he would usually force a smile and continue to move forward, abandoning any plans to escape.

With the Frost Python in the front and Nie Tian behind it, they marched forward silently at a fast pace.

After an unknown period of time, the Frost Python suddenly halted, so Nie Tian also stopped.

He adjusted his breathing, and stealthily observed the surrounding area, wishing to know why the Frost Python had stopped here.

It was a tiny oasis with a small lake, which was filled with mysteriously green-colored water that emitted a fishy smell.

On the perimeter of the oasis, there grew a large number of short plants which were sparsely spread, and from the look of them, they were on the verge of dying.

Soon after the Frost Python stopped, it slowly swam to the center of the lake.

Suddenly, it raised its tail high into the air, and drops of blood seemed to be forced out of the end of its tail.

PLOP! PLOP! PLOP! PLOP!

As soon as its blood dripped into the lake, the pungent, fishy lake water started to ripple.

A misty, green aura then rose above the surface of the lake, which looked quite frightening.

PUFF!

The raised tail pierced violently down towards the bottom of the lake like a sharp awl.

Observing with rapt attention, Nie Tian discovered that the python's tail had pierced through the ground at the center of the lake, and kept going downwards.

Its ten-meter-long body followed its ground-piercing tail, and sunk smoothly into the earth.

When it only had its giant head above the water, it looked over toward Nie Tian, eyes conveying the message same as before: Follow me!

Nie Tian's expression flickered, intending to escape.

However, it seemed that the Frost Python could read his mind as it sprang its mostly submerged body violently out of the earth.

Then, at the bottom of the lake, a giant tunnel leading downwards appeared as the python retracted its body. However, for some reason, the water didn't flow into it.

It moved aside, giving Nie Tian a clearer look at the tunnel, and indicating with its gaze that it wished for him to enter.

Realizing that his intentions had been discovered, Nie Tian smiled wryly and nodded before entering the lake, swimming slowly to the center.

When he reached the center of the lake, he discovered that the water level only reached his chest. He heaved a sigh, and looked at the tunnel leading downwards, before closing his eyes to jump in.

It felt like he was sliding towards the center of the earth, and along the way down, everything was filled with a pungent, fishy smell.

BAAAAAM!

After a long while, he fell heavily into a pool of water.

He quickly opened his eyes.

There was a enormous stone palace in the deep underground region of the desert!

In the middle of the stone palace, there stood numerous giant stone statues of spirit beasts.

Apart from the statues, there were also numerous stone columns, which had life-like stone dragons wrapped around them!

He was in a corner of the stone palace floating inside a crescent-moon-shaped well, observing the ancient stone palace from the mouth of the well.

WHOOSH!

At this very moment, the gigantic Frost Python suddenly fell from the heavens.

He immediately looked up.

He saw a big stone tunnel mouth at the top of the stone palace which seemed to be the link between this place and the lake above it.

When the Frost Python fell, it wiggled in midair and avoided landing on Nie Tian, instead landing in the empty space in the middle of the stone palace.

After hitting ground, the Frost Python took a look at one of the stone columns, and then looked over towards Nie Tian, giving orders with its eyes again.

Following the Frost Python's gaze, Nie Tian also looked over towards the stone column, and immediately noticed that there was a splendid flame dragon coiled around it.

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Nie Tian's eyes flickered when saw the Flame Dragon; he had already guessed to some extent the reason why the Frost Python didn't kill him.

His guess was that there was a hint of the Flame Dragon's aura on him.

Perhaps, his animal bone was originally from a Flame Dragon…

Even though he didn't bring it into the Green Illusion dimension, he had probed the wonders of the dragon bone with his psychic awareness on more than a few occasions. Moreover, his soul had entered the drop of blood inside the bone a few times, traveling into an unknown blazing world.

He had studied it every day in an attempt to further understand its wonders, which perhaps caused him to absorb some of the Flame Dragon's aura.

Nie Tian was also convinced that the reason he possessed such strong psychic power was because of him constantly probing the dragon bone and sending his soul into that mysterious blazing world.

Several days ago, when he feared that the Ghost sect or the Blood sect might send people over again to kill him, he constantly extended his psychic awareness to detect any movement in the surrounding area.

It was very likely that the Frost Python had detected the aura of Flame Dragon in the psychic power that he had released to examine the vicinity.

Having a rough idea of the Frost Python's intentions, Nie Tian climbed out of the crescent-moon-shaped well, and walked towards the central area of this immeasurably wide stone palace.

He soon arrived in the front of a stone column that had a Flame Dragon coiled around it. He examined it closely, before turning around and checking the other nearby columns.

One thing that was immediately noticeable was that every single one of the twelve stone columns had a different dragon coiled around it.

Six of them were blazing Flame Dragons.

The other six stone columns featured life-like dragons whose silver scales were identical to the type sported by the Frost Python.

"Frost Dragons?"

Rubbing his chin, Nie Tian's mind drifted as he pondered what Pan Tao had told him earlier.

According to Pan Tao, the Frost Python was an ancient species, and it was possible that some of them carried the bloodline of ancient Frost Dragons.

As long as a Frost Python possessed the blood of ancient Frost Dragons, no matter how faint, there would be a possibility that the Frost Python could awaken its bloodline and eventually turn into a Frost Dragon.

According to the legends, Frost Dragons were one of the most formidable types of giant dragons in the ancient era, similar to Flame Dragons.

"I have a Flame Dragon's aura on me, and this Frost Python, on the other hand, probably has a Frost Dragon's bloodline within. Furthermore, it must have awakened its bloodline when it reached the third grade.

"It must have brought me here to help it with something, presumably by means of the Flame Dragon's aura.

"Otherwise, it would have killed me long ago, instead of wasting so much energy to bring me here."

Pondering the situation, Nie Tian continued to study his surroundings in search of an answer.

All of a sudden, he noticed that there was a prismatic altar in the middle of the twelve stone columns.

The altar was made out of dark-brown stones that were piled up together. Numerous grooves could be seen on the altar, each of which was filled with sparkling, translucent dragon bones.

The dragon bones emanated rays of bright light, illuminating the central area of the dim stone palace.

Obviously, those dragon bones were completely different from the ones Nie Tian had seen in the past.

He knew very well that only the bones of high level spirit beasts would be translucent like jade and unceasingly emanate bright light, which was due to the abundant energy they carried.

Dragon bones that could emanate light must contain surging waves of energy within, and were thus extremely useful.

The numerous grooves on the altar were aligned in a particular way, with the dragon bones inside radiating light of various colors.

Light implied energy.

"Twelve stone columns, an altar in the middle, and dragon bones brimming with energy…

"This is an inter-spacial teleportation portal!"

Nie Tian had a sudden epiphany: this prismatic altar was actually an inter-spacial teleportation portal.

The twelve stone columns carved with Frost and Flame Dragons, the altar, and the dragon bones brimming with energy, were all part of the inter-spacial teleportation portal!

In the next moment, he guessed the Frost Python's intent: to use this inter-spacial teleportation portal to get out of the Green Illusion dimension!

"Yes, that must be it. All the powerful spirit beasts in the Green Illusion dimension were wiped out by the four sects. The spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth here is also gradually drying up. All of these make this place no longer suitable for any living beings to practice cultivation for long periods of time.

"The Frost Python probably also realized that the only reason why it's still alive is that the four sects deliberately spared its life.

"Lingering on in the Green Illusion dimension, not only will it be impossible for it to continue to evolve, but there is also a possibility that it will be killed by the trial takers of the four sects. This is simply a dead end for it.

"Fully aware that staying in the Green Illusion dimension means death, the Frost Python must wish to leave.

"And this inter-spacial teleportation portal hidden beneath the desert is the key. The reason it had led me here must be that it wants me to activate it.

"Otherwise, it would have escaped from the Green Illusion dimension long ago, and headed off to a new dimension that is more suitable for it to continue evolving."

A series of thoughts popped up in Nie Tian's mind. Following the right direction, he got increasingly closer to the true answer.

HISS! HISS!

At this moment, the Frost Python hissed and shot out rays of ice shards mixed with mist from its mouth.

Six rays of ice shards were shot at the six dragon-coiled stone columns, which instantly froze, becoming as translucent and sparkling as cold jade.

The moment the Frost Dragons on the columns were struck by the ice shards, they all seemed to have been activated.

They began to pulse with a powerful, freezing aura, making Nie Tian, who was standing nearby, cold to the point that his teeth were chattering.

The temperature in the stone palace was plummeting at a frightening speed, making him feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave.

His bones, blood, and even his thoughts seemed to have been affected by the coldness.

In shock, he looked over towards the Frost Python.

It was looking back at him, and in its piercing gaze, he saw nothing but coldness.

From the look of it, if he couldn't come up with a solution, he would be completely frozen and turned into a ice sculpture by the surges of extreme coldness that kept emanating out of the stone columns.

"It's pushing me!"

Nie Tian suddenly understood that the Frost Python was forcing him to release his power in its own way.

The only thing that could resist the frost waves were flames. Without them, he would soon be frozen to death!

He cast a look at the stone column beside him; he knew that only by activating the Flame Dragon on that stone column, causing it to release surging flames from that stone column, would he be able to survive.

As the frost aura in the stone palace grew increasingly denser, he found that his ability to think even seemed to be compromised.

If he failed to find a solution quickly, he might soon lose the ability to ponder.

He reached out one hand, and thrust it violently towards the stone column.

The psychic awareness, that he had exerted all power to cultivate recently, flowed like a river out of his soul and into the stone column that had a Flame Dragon coiled around it.

The moment his psychic awareness flowed into the stone column, he saw wisps of crimson flames started flashing from within the Flame Dragon on it.

In the next moment, a raging surge of flames exploded from within!

BOOM!

In the blink of an eye, incomparably furious flames were unleashed from within the entire stone column, causing the temperature in the stone palace to rise considerably.

Coiled up by the foot of another stone column not far from him, the Frost Python's eyes shone with the light of incomparable excitement.

Shortly thereafter, however, surges of even more bone-piercing coldness emanated from within the six stone columns that had Frost Dragons coiled around them.

Nie Tian immediately realized that only activating one stone column wouldn't be enough to resist the coldness filling the stone palace.

With no time to think, he sent his psychic awareness charging towards the other five stone columns with Flame Dragons.

His psychic awareness was like a lighter. The moment it made contact with the stone columns, the Flame Dragons on them seemed as if they had come to life.

BOOM! RUUUUUUMMMMBLLLLE!

With a faint tremble, the stone columns also burst into flames.

As such, there were six ice columns that were emanating cold auras, and six fire columns that were emanating blazing flames.

Two drastically different forces, one cold and the other hot, were clashing inside the stone palace, before suddenly merging and pouring into the altar in the middle.

As of that moment, the translucent and sparkling dragon bones placed inside its grooves immediately exploded into fragments!

Countless sparks of flame splashed out from within the dragon bones, which instantly converged back onto the altar.

Soon after, a grotesque and variegated light screen took shape on top of the altar, distorting and changing unceasingly, like a mysterious gate.

HISSS! HISSS!

Only until then did the Frost Python finally slide forward and rush towards the colorful light screen.

Arriving in front of the light screen, the obviously intelligent Frost Python took one final glance at Nie Tian before jumping determinedly into the light screen.

BOOM!

The moment it entered, the strange light screen exploded into pieces, forming a sky full of various colors.

After it exploded, the twelve stone columns that had previously been unleashing the power of flame and frost, also became still again.

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The Frost Python left the Green Illusion dimension through the inter-spatial teleportation portal, ending up in parts unknown.

The light screen exploded, sending millions of sparks flying out in all directions, filling up the entire dome. In the briefest of moments, the twelve stone columns ceased to emit frost and flame.

As Nie Tian stood there underneath the stone pillar, he decided that he might as well explore the secrets of the stone palace.

However, he soon realized that the sparks of light floating in the air might still contain considerable energy.

Eyes lit up, he immediately released his psychic power to probe the air, and discovered that the entire stone palace was filled with unprecedentedly rich power.

He then realized that the power was from the high grade dragon bones, the same power which had been used by the inter-spacial teleportation portal.

The Frost Python must have spent countless hours and incredible effort to amass such a large collection of dragon bones. They were the key to its escape.

Now, although all the dragon bones had been shattered, the energy they had contained still lingered in the stone palace, and was dissipating at a slow speed.

"What a formidable power!"

Nie Tian immediately dismissed the idea of exploring the rest of the stone palace, and sat down cross-legged to practice the Qi Refining Incantation.

His spiritual sea thrummed as it began to madly absorb the ever-fading energy, as if it had transformed into an enormous magnet.

Strands of silver-colored mist, together with sparks of light, started converging onto him from all directions, like a band of moths drawn to a flame.

A moment later he sensed that his spiritual sea was brimming with spiritual power!

There were a total of nine levels in the Qi Refining stage. From the first level to the ninth level, a Qi warrior would only need to unceasingly reform and upgrade their spiritual sea to enter the next level.

However, when a Qi warrior was trying to break through into the Lesser Heaven stage from the ninth level of Qi Refining, merely the accumulation of spiritual power and expansion of their spiritual sea wouldn't be enough.

This was where the bottleneck appeared.

After a period of constant consumption of the Lurker Lizard meat and upgrading of his spiritual sea, Nie Tian was already on the verge of a breakthrough.

If he hadn't run into the Frost Python, he might have been able to enter the eighth level of Qi Refining with a single session of cultivation.

This time, the concentrated energy pouring violently into his spiritual sea pushed him to the brink of his goal: the eighth level of Qi Refining!

Cross-legged, he continue to cultivate with rapt attention.

After an unknown period of time, he suddenly trembled slightly.

Then, he opened his eyes, face full of ecstasy as he yelled, "I've done it!"

He had successfully entered the eighth level of Qi Refining!

Instead of springing to his feet, he once again probed the surrounding area his psychic power, and discovered that the energy inside the stone palace, although having thinned out a bit, was still quite abundant.

He sensed that the energy had only faded by a limited extent.

"This is such a rare opportunity. It's still hard to say if I will come across another second grade spirit beast in the coming days. Without the help of more second grade spirit beast meat, it won't be easy for me to rapidly improve in the eighth level of Qi Refining.

"The energy here is from those high grade dragon bones. Plus, it's quite easy to absorb.

"I need to take this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity and expand my spiritual sea as much as I can before the energy completely dissipates into the heaven and earth!"

With these thoughts, he snapped out of the complacence of reaching the eighth level of Qi Refining, and calmed himself once again.

Then he began to practice the Qi Refining Incantation, and started another session of cultivation.

Before he knew it, several days passed…

Sitting in the center of the stone palace, obsessed with the upgrade of his spiritual sea, Nie Tian had completely lost track of time, and had even forgotten about eating and sleeping.

Only when he could no longer refine power from inside the stone palace did he finally stopp.

He opened his eyes and discovered that there wasn't even the tiniest bit of energy left in the silent stone palace.

He soon realized that the fading energy inside the stone palace, after a period of dissipation, had already completely disappeared.

Even still, he managed to expand his spiritual sea by thirty percent after entering the eighth level of Qi Refining with another session of cultivation.

As a matter of fact, expanding the spiritual sea by thirty percent in the eighth level required an immense amount of energy.

Were it not for the pure energy in the stone palace, he would probably need to cultivate in the Nie clan for half a year or longer to make such an achievement.

The energy in the stone palace had sped up his cultivation by at least ten times, but possibly even more!

Nie Tian knew that the energy had completely vanished and there would be no point in continuing his cultivation. Therefore, he stood up and started to carefully examine the stone palace.

He circled the place three times, discovering nothing but the inter-spacial teleportation portal.

As he looked closer at the walls of the palace, he found many ancient and eccentric engravings on the walls. Some of them were images of spirit beasts, and others were some kind of writing.

From the look of it, those writings were created by high level spirit beasts after they had gained outstanding intellect and wisdom.

Apparently, they carried deep meaning, but unfortunately, he couldn't read the words and could only let out sighs.

With the dragon bones gone, it appeared that the altar in the middle of the twelve stone columns had lost its value.

After a thorough examination, he failed to discover anything else. However, he was fairly sure that the six stone columns that had been carved with Flame Dragons might continue to be of great help to him.

Even though the Flame Dragons on those stone columns were not the skeletons of real dragons, only stone engravings, he could feel that within those six dragons lay terrifyingly rich flame energy.

Evidently, the dragon bone he possessed was also from a Flame Dragon, thus his demand for flame energy was never-ending.

His dragon bone had absorbed all the energy of the entire Flamecloud gem mine before condensing that one drop of blood.

After the blood was fully condensed, the dragon bone seemed to have mutated. On their way back to Black Cloud City, Nie Tian easily used it to burn the two powerful experts into nothing more than ashes.

Furthermore, soon after he returned to the Nie clan, the dragon bone even ripped open space, and took him to a mysterious land.

That was where he saw numerous wondrous things, and comprehended the rage fist strike.

However, the dragon bone needed a massive amount of flame power to transfer him in and out of the mysterious land.

If he wished to use the dragon bone to rip open the space and enter that mysterious land again, he would need to fill it with more flame power.

The six stone columns with Flame Dragons on them were precisely what could provide that tremendous amount of flame power!

"What a pity! I didn't bring the dragon bone with me. Otherwise, it might have been able to drain the flame power that lies within the six stone columns."

Full of regret, Nie Tian made a even more thorough examination of the stone palace, leaving no stone unturned.

After failing to discover anything else, he climbed to the top of the stone column that was the nearest to the mouth of the tunnel. From there he leaped into the tunnel, which was the only connection between the lake and the stone palace.

The tunnel wall was made up of sand from the desert, so when he stabbed his hand into it, he was able to hold on firmly.

Pulling himself up with his hands, he gradually climbed up the tunnel. An hour later, he finally emerged from the hole at the bottom of the lake.

Standing in the middle of the lake, he immediately noticed that the lake surface was shimmering gently with a mysterious light.

Meanwhile, the hole that had been drilled by the Frost Python started to heal, bit by bit.

As soon as he emerged from the water, and looked back towards the center of the lake, he couldn't find any trace of the hole, as if nothing had ever happened.

"The stone palace is right beneath the lake. If I can enter the Green Illusion dimension again in the future, I'll definitely take the dragon bone and drain the flame power in the six stone columns with it."

Narrowing his eyes, he examined and memorized every single detail of that place, including the surrounding terrain and the color of the lake water, hoping that the next time he entered the Green Illusion dimension, he would be able to find this location accurately.

"I must have spent a long time down there. I wonder whether An Ying's group has met up with Zheng Bin's group yet. The Ghost sect and Blood sect probably caught up with them long ago. I hope they are still alive."

He had consumed all the spirit beast meat, and refined all the energy in the underground stone palace.

As of this moment, not only had he successfully broken through to the eighth level, but also expanded his spiritual sea by thirty percent. There was not much left to do.

"I can go find those guys and help them kill disciples from the Ghost sect and Blood sect."

After looking around and getting a hold of his bearings, he headed off towards the direction in which the Frost Python had previously come.

He walked alone in the desert.

About ten hours later, he was starting to get tired. Hence, he stopped and took out a spirit stone from the cloth pouch on his waist to recover some spiritual power.

A moment later, he heard a loud sound. Throwing away the drained spirit stone, he stood up, brow furrowed.

"Hmm? Who might that be?"

He released his psychic awareness.

"There are two of them. One has stronger life fluctuations, while the other seems weaker. Who could they be?" He blurred into action, dashing towards the area where he had sensed the fluctuations of life.

Two gray-garbed men entered his sight. With blood covering their chest areas, they hurried forward, whispering to each other.

"Yuan Feng! Yun Song!"

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Yuan Feng and Yun Song saw Nie Tian the moment he appeared.

"It's you?!"

Yun Song was stunned, and for a moment, he thought he was mistaken. After all, Nie Tian had parted with the group for a long time, and they all believed he should have died already.

"What happened?" Nie Tian asked in confusion. "How come you aren't in the volcanic region with Zheng Bin from the Mystic Mist sect? What are you doing here?"

Upon hearing his words, Yuan Feng's face dropped instantly.

Yun Song gave a wry smile. "We originally planned to go to the volcano area, but that ship has sailed. We ran into disciples from the Ghost sect and Blood sect right before we got out of the desert. They blocked our way forwards and killed several of us, so we could only split up and run.

"Now, we only want to go to return to the Secret Dimension Gate, sit out this trial, and get out of this hellhole at the first possible moment!"

Nie Tian's expression flickered. "A lot of you were killed? How many people did the Ghost sect and Blood sect have?"

"Nine. There were just nine of them." Yun Song's eyes were brimming with fear. "But that witch Yu Tong broke into the Lesser Heaven stage in the middle of the battle! She cast numerous secret magics of the Blood sect. No one could contend against her! She single-handedly dealt with An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, and my cousin at the same time.

"Then a guy named Mo Xi from the Ghost sect swooped in, taking advantage of the opportunity to kill many of the rest of us. We could only flee.

"It's over. The trial in the Green Illusion dimension is over! I just hope that people on the outside will realize what the Ghost sect and the Blood sect have done, and get in here as soon as possible."

Nie Tian was shocked. "Yu Tong had a breakthrough during the battle?"

"Cut the crap!" Yuan Feng snorted coldly, looking at Nie Tian with an unfriendly expression. "Hand over your spirit stones. We need to recover our spiritual power as soon as possible."

"That's right!" Yun Song yelled, flaunting his cousin's power. "Hand them over and we'll let you live, at least as long as we're here in the Green Illusion dimension!"

Surprised, Nie Tian subconsciously looked down at the cloth pouch at his waist before saying with a strange smile, "We're in such a dangerous situation, and you still want to rob my spirit stones? Are you sure?"

"Yes, we are!" Yun Song said coldly. "Do you really think we would have let you off if we hadn't run into the Ghost sect disciples in the glacier area early on? Days ago, when we joined the group with the Spiritual Treasure sect and the Cloudsoaring sect, you dared to made things difficult for us. Do you think you would still be able to leave safe and sound after meeting us here?"

Yuan Feng began to walk toward Nie Tian. "There may be disciples from the Blood sect and Ghost sect chasing after us," he said. "I don't want to waste my energy on you. The trial is over. If you're lucky enough to get out of the Green Illusion dimension alive, I'll kill you outside.

"For now, I'll let you live a bit longer. Now, be a good lad and hand over your pouch!"

After a narrow escape from the Blood sect and Ghost sect, Yuan Feng had fled at full speed for quite some time, causing a substantial consumption of his spiritual power.

He also wasn't sure whether the Blood sect and Ghost sect had sent someone after them.

In that situation, he wasn't willing to waste his last remaining strength on Nie Tian, so he just asked Nie Tian to hand over his spirit stones.

After all, in his eyes, Nie Tian was just a nobody with a poor cultivation base from the Nie clan.

Considering Yuan Feng's status and power, as long as he wished to, he could kill Nie Tian any time in the future.

Nie Tian took the pouch from his waist and held it in his hand.

Looking over quietly at Yuan Feng for a moment, he said, "According to your words, even if I give you the spirit stones, you'll still kill me after the Green Illusion dimension's trial ends?"

"That's right! You're lucky enough that I'm gonna let you live for a while longer." Yuan Feng didn't even try to conceal his intentions.

Nie Tian nodded, and grinning, dropped the cloth pouch by his feet.

With a glance at the pouch, he took one step back, indicating that Yuan Feng and Yun Song should come and get it.

"You're in luck!"

Without the slightest hesitation, Yun Song leaped to Nie Tian's side, and bent over to fetch the pouch.

At that moment, a strong killing intent emanated from Nie Tian's eyes.

"Watch out!" Yuan Feng called out.

Just as Yun Song reached downwards, beams of light suddenly shot out from Nie Tian's fingertips.

"I knew you'd do that!" Yun Song snorted, as if he had been prepared for the attack, and immediately straightened up.

Instead of grabbing the pouch, he unleashed his internal flame power, clenching his fist and punching towards the five light beams.

One after another, numerous clusters of flame shot out of his fist, submerging Nie Tian's light beams.

BANG! BANG!

With a loud clash, the light beams and the flame clusters exploded and vanished together into the air.

After neutralizing Nie Tian's attack, Yun Song's face suddenly turned grim. "Spiritual power breakaway. You have actually broken through to the seventh level of Qi Refining!"

Back when he fought Nie Tian in front of the Spiritual Treasure Pavilion, Nie Tian was only at the fourth level.

And that was how long ago?

After their battle in Black Cloud City, he was well aware of Nie Tian's fierce temperament, and the fact that he would never give in.

But after all, he knew that Nie Tian's cultivation base was poor, so even though he knew that Nie Tian would unleash murderous attacks, he wasn't afraid in the slightest.

Completely contrary to what he had expected, Nie Tian had reached the seventh level, and possessed the ability to release his spiritual power out of his body!

If he hadn't been prepared, Nie Tian's five finger blast probably would have doomed him!

Right as he was rejoicing that he was smart enough to have anticipated Nie Tian's attack, Yuan Feng called out to him again, and immediately began to rush over. "Yun Song! Get back here!! He's now at the eighth level!"

"Too late," Nie Tian said with a cold smile, unleashing his formidable psychic power to attack Yun Song.

Having savored the sweet taste of killing Du Kun, he realized that his unusually strong psychic power was a perfect weapon!

From his point of view, he was single-handedly fighting Yun Song and Yuan Feng. If he couldn't use special tactics to finish one off, once the two of them flanked him, he wouldn't necessarily come out victorious.

Ever since Yuan Feng clearly stated that he would spare no effort to kill him at the first possible moment even if he got out of the Green Illusion dimension alive, he had made up his mind to kill them.

He had to kill both Yuan Feng and Yun Song while in the Green Illusion dimension, otherwise, they would bring him endless trouble in the future!

Furthermore, with the disciples of the Ghost sect and the Blood sect in the picture, he could easily find excuses for the trial takers' deaths: killed by the Ghost sect and Blood sect!

Having figured out an excuse, he brought out his trump card without the slightest scruple.

Facing the unexpected psychic attack, Yun Song felt as if he were being possessed by a demon.

"Ahhhh!!"

Feeling the intolerable stabbing pain in his head, he held his head, wailing in anguish.

Nie Tian took advantage of the opportunity and reached out his hand with the speed of lightning. Clenching Yun Song's neck, he then tightened his grip.

CRUNCH!

The sound of bone cracking rang out from within Yun Song's neck, and simultaneously, his head drooped down in an unnatural way.

Yuan Feng opened his eyes so wide that they almost bled. "You! You killed him! You actually killed him!!"

Everyone who participated in the Green Illusion dimension trial had to abide by the rules and regulations set by the four sects, which included no killing between trial takers.

Even though Yuan Feng held a grudge against Nie Tian, back when he demanded that An Ying hand him over, he only wished to disable him; he didn't have even the slightest intention of killing him.

He had never expected him to unleash murderous attacks towards Yun Song in the Green Illusion dimension.

After all, if he ever got out of the Green Illusion dimension and revealed this matter to others, Nie Tian would inevitably be executed by the four sects!

"If I don't kill him in the Green Illusion dimension, I probably won't have another chance after returning to Black Cloud City." Nie Tian's face was cold and grim. "If I see him causing me trouble in Black Cloud City after we get out, I'll regret that decision every day. So, in order to have no regrets in the future, I can only kill him in the Green Illusion dimension."

"You'll be executed by the four sects!" yelled Yuan Feng.

"No, I won't." Nie Tian grinned cruelly. "I've also planned for your death… As long as you're dead, no one will ever know the truth. I'll tell them that you two were killed by the Ghost sect and the Blood sect, and that I had nothing to do with it."

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After witnessing Yun Song being killed, Yuan Feng, who was in the middle of dashing forward to attack Nie Tian, suddenly stopped in his tracks.

Standing there five meters away from Nie Tian, he probed his true strength with a grim look in his eyes.

However, upon hearing that Nie Tian intended to silence him by killing him, he couldn't suppress his fury.

"You want to kill me, too?" Yuan Feng smiled furiously.

In response to Yuan Feng's question, Nie Tian nodded seriously. When he spoke, it was as if killing Yuan Feng was the most normal thing in the world. "If you leave the Green Illusion dimension alive, won't people know about me killing Yun Song? Well, what's done is done. There's no point in saying anything else. It's either you or me. Of course, I plan to make sure the person who ends up dead is you."

The moment he finished, Nie Tian once again gathered his psychic power, and his eyes turned as cold as a star on a winter night.

Psychic power could move significantly faster than the fleshly body and spiritual power.

In a split second, his psychic power was forged into countless sharp blades which exploded towards Yuan Feng's mind.

BOOM!

Yuan Feng shook violently; his expression distorted and his eyes filled with shock and fear.

"What formidable psychic power!"

As of this moment, he finally understood how Nie Tian managed to kill Yun Song in a second.

Yun Song was at the seventh level of Qi Refining. Normally, with a cultivation base slightly inferior to Nie Tian, he shouldn't have suffered such a quick loss.

The fact that Nie Tian managed to kill Yun Song with just his second attack defied common sense.

It was exactly because he was skeptical about the way Yun Song had died, that Yuan Feng refrained from acting rashly when he approached Nie Tian.

As a matter of fact, he also feared that Nie Tian might have some sort of secret weapon at his disposal.

Only when Nie Tian's formidable psychic power transformed into sharp blades and suddenly pierced towards his mind, did he finally have an epiphany: Nie Tian possessed unusually extraordinary psychic power!

Yuan Feng let out a cold harrumph, and immediately unleashed a secret magic of the Greyvale sect.

"Soul Reinforcement Incantation!"

When Nie Tian's sharp blade of psychic power reached Yuan Feng's mind, he discovered that Yuan Feng's mind had become like an impregnable fortress.

The numerous sharp blades seemed as if they had slammed onto a piece of solid rock, and were unable to inflict any damage on Yuan Feng's soul.

Seeing that his psychic attack had failed, Nie Tian decisively retracted all of his psychic power.

"The Ghost sect disciples were the most skilled at attacking with psychic power. As a member of the Greyvale sect, I fight with the Ghost sect all the time. Do you really believe that I don't have a way to respond to that?"

After learning how Nie Tian had managed to kill Yuan Feng in an instant, Yuan Feng's heart actually settled down a bit.

Defending his soul with the Soul Reinforcement Incantation, he took his time walking towards Nie Tian.

Increasingly strong waves of spiritual power kept emanating from within his body as he got closer and closer.

Nie Tian's face turned especially grim as he realized that Yuan Feng, who had been viewed by the Greyvale sect as a seeded disciple, was indeed different from Yun Song.

Yun Song was only at the seventh level of Qi Refining, far from enough to be accepted by the Greyvale sect. Furthermore, even if Yun Song was officially accepted by the Greyvale sect, with his cultivation talent, he surely wouldn't be picked as a seeded disciple.

Not being able to enter the Greyvale sect meant that he'd never had the chance to learn certain magical incantations, such as the Soul Reinforcement Incantation. Therefore, it was understandable that Yun Song couldn't withstand a single blow of Nie Tian's psychic power.

However, it suddenly came to him that the fact that he was able to kill the Du Kun from the Ghost sect so effortlessly was because he had been injured from the backlash.

If it weren't for the backlash caused by the death of the seven evil ghosts, Nie Tian's attack wouldn't have been able to penetrate Du Kun's defense, and Du Kun wouldn't have suffered such a tragic defeat.

Once he figured out how to launch another round of attack, Nie Tian realized that he couldn't win every time by simply blasting away with his psychic power.

He adjusted his breathing and tried to calm himself. No longer daring to underestimate Yuan Feng, he secretly prepared for a bloody battle.

"Gray Shadow Incantation!"

Yuan Feng let out a ferocious shout, and two gray shadows suddenly flew out from the thrumming spiritual power in his body.

It seemed that those shadows were the manifestation of his spiritual power, which then swooped toward Nie Tian.

Simultaneously, Yuan Feng, smiling, took a gray banner from his pouch.

Instantly, the banner fluttered in the wind, and at the same time, various twisting and bizarre images appeared on its surface, which appeared to be infused with strong spiritual power.

As soon as he waved the banner in his hands, those two originally vague gray shadows immediately became clearer.

"They're two Yuan Fengs!"

Nie Tian's expression flickered as he watched the gray shadows morphing into two Yuan Fengs in front of his eyes.

Moreover, he could clearly sense that the two shadows of Yuan Feng actually emanated fluctuations of spiritual power and life!

Not only did the two shadows have fleshly bodies, but they were also given souls and lives with a wave of the banner. Now it was almost impossible to discern between them and the real Yuan Feng.

"Spiritual tool! He used his spiritual tool!"

Without thinking too much, Nie Tian hurriedly avoided the attacks of the two shadows, declining to engage in a head-on fight with them.

By this point, Yuan Feng had already put his banner away and was dashing towards Nie Tian with a vicious grin on his face.

A moment later, Yuan Feng joined his shadows, and the three of them blurred back and forth until it was impossible to differentiate which one was real.

They all had flesh and blood, were dressed in gray garments, and even had the same expression on their faces. It seemed truly impossible to tell which was the real Yuan Feng.

However, Nie Tian knew perfectly well that the key to winning was determining which of them was the real Yuan Feng!

Once he killed the real Yuan Feng, the other fake ones would instantly disappear, and no longer be able to pose a threat to him.

After joining the two shadows, Yuan Feng shifted positions silently, attacking Nie Tian over and over.

Nie Tian, on the other hand, failed to find the real Yuan Feng with his psychic awareness. Therefore, all he could do was keep dodging, and fight back when he was forced into a corner.

BANG!

He threw a fist strike towards Yuan Feng, hitting him in the chest. However, he felt no sense of counterforce, almost as if he was hitting the air.

He immediately realized that he had struck nothing more than a shadow of Yuan Feng, a shadow created by the Grayvale sect's secret magics.

Just as he was sighing inwardly, and even as his fist sailed through the air, he suddenly experienced an explosion of pain in his back.

He was hit by a punch, and staggered forward from the strong impact.

When he turned around to look, he saw another Yuan Feng bolting toward him, grinning viciously.

He immediately readied his fists to meet the attack.

BANG!

However, right as his fist met Yuan Feng's palm, once again it felt as if he was hitting the air.

Since he received no counterforce, he immediately lost his balance, staggering forward.

At this moment, yet another tremendous force smashed directly into his back.

He immediately coughed up a mouthful of blood.

At the same time, he realized that the moment he turned around earlier, Yuan Feng, who had sneakily attacked him from the back, had already exchanged positions with one of his shadows at the speed of lightning.

Therefore, after turning around, he was always faced by a fake Yuan Feng, while the real Yuan Feng was actually behind him!

After two successful attacks, Yuan Feng and his shadows all backed away to keep a distance from Nie Tian.

This time, the real Yuan Feng stepped closer, shaking his head towards Nie Tian, looking a bit disappointed.

"What a pity! You have such strong psychic power, but no relevant skills, and therefore can't make full use of it or launch any powerful attacks.

"Also, since you haven't formally joined the Cloudsoaring sect, it seems that you don't have any incantations or techniques to fully display your spirit power.

"Worst of all, you don't even have a proper spiritual tool to work with.

"Even though you possesses extraordinary psychic power and decent spiritual power, all you can do now is to wait for death.

"You can only blame yourself for entering the Green Illusion dimension with an insufficient cultivation base, and that you were unlucky enough to run into me too early.

"If you ended up in the Cloudsoaring sect, cultivated some profound incantations and techniques, and were bestowed with a powerful spiritual tool, you might have become a big pain in my neck.

"Whatever… you have to nothing left to do but die."

After these words, Yuan Feng no longer spoke, but instead blurred into three figures, swiftly shifting positions.

At this time, Nie Tian could no longer wrap his head around which was which.

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Yuan Feng and his two shadows had Nie Tian surrounded, and were constantly shifting positions, like ghosts.

Unable to identify the real Yuan Feng, Nie Tian stood there unwavering, pondering his next move.

All of a sudden an idea struck him.

It was only the real Yuan Feng who had inflicted damage on him. Thus, the other two, being shadows, could be ignored.

The shadows could never possess power as strong as the real person!

After realizing that, Nie Tian decided that the smartest move was to remain still and wait for an opportunity.

Once again, a Yuan Feng smashed his fist towards Nie Tian's chest. Nie Tian, on the other hand, didn't even blink, completely ignoring that attack.

BANG!

The punch fell heavily on Nie Tian's chest. He felt the spiritual power contained within it, but after a slight wobble, he remained still, as a pained expression flashed across his face.

Compared to the former two strikes, this punch that Nie Tian had received was many times weaker, completely bearable for his robust physique.

"It's fake!"

After taking the hit, Nie Tian could now easily tell by the difference in the might of the strike that this Yuan Feng was fake.

Squinting and with a calm face, he remained still in his original position, bracing himself for another of Yuan Feng's attacks.

The second attack came from the right side as Yuan Feng's fingers latched onto Nie Tian's shoulder like hooks.

ZZZZZLA!

The clothing covering Nie Tian's right shoulder was immediately torn into shreds. A moment later scorching pain radiated out from his naked right shoulder.

However, the pain level was bearable.

"This is also a fake one!"

Still calm, he remained as motionless as a statue, waiting to see what was coming next.

BOOM! BANG! BANG!

The two fake Yuan Fengs repeatedly attacked Nie Tian with their fists and claws.

Soon he had endured close to over ten rounds of attacks. The shirt covering his upper body had already been ripped to pieces. Thin wounds criss-crossed his skin.

However, he stood there like an unwavering mountain, his face expressionless.

After hovering around and attacking him for a while, the expressions of the three Yuan Fengs appeared to be increasingly anxious. Other than the criss-crossed wounds, Nie Tian didn't seem to have sustained any major injuries.

Unlike Nie Tian, Yuan Feng had been marching at a fast pace after escaping from the Ghost sect and Blood sect.

In order to lose them, he hadn't dared to stop and rest at all before reaching this point, and thus he never had a chance to replenish his spiritual power.

Moreover, he had long since consumed all of his spirit stones, way back in the glacier area.

Because he had consumed too much energy, and didn't have spirit stones to help recover, when he encountered Nie Tian this time he had only demanded Nie Tian's spirit stones, in order not to waste his strength.

As a matter of fact, Yuan Feng was actually totally exhausted.

If he couldn't finish off Nie Tian in a short time, he wouldn't be able to afford to keep wasting spiritual power on the Gray Shadow Incantation.

Furthermore, he also feared that the Ghost sect and Blood sect might come for them.

Seeing that his shadows were incapable of killing Nie Tian, Yuan Feng could no longer refrain from personally attacking.

After observing for a while, he noticed that Nie Tian had been silently taking blows from his shadows. It was then that Yuan Feng stealthily made his move.

BANG!

Yuan Feng's fist strike landed heavily on Nie Tian's chest!

The power in this punch was so explosive that Nie Tian spit out another mouthful of blood.

However, Nie Tian had long since been prepared. Enduring the piercingly acute pain with much difficulty, he suddenly pounced towards the Yuan Feng who had just attacked him, and knocked him to the ground.

"Here you are!"

He completely ignored the frantic attacks of the two fake Yuan Fengs behind him, as he hooked onto Yuan Feng's neck with both his hands, continuously exerting his power, hoping to crush Yuan Feng's neck.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Muffled sounds of impact continuously rang out from Nie Tian's back as the two fake Yuan Fengs did their utmost to strike him.

"DIE! NOW!"

Jaw clenched and eyes full of killing intent, Nie Tian's hands seemed like a lock, fastening tighter and tighter.

After sensing vigorous fluctuations of spiritual power from Yuan Feng's neck, he realized that he had already concentrated all of his spiritual power on his neck.

Nie Tian was unable to crush Yuan Feng's neck bone!

Knowing that he only had one chance to kill him, Nie Tian concentrated his psychic power and shot it ferociously towards Yuan Feng's mind.

"Psychic attack!"

FIZZ! FIZZ!

As his gaze met Yuan Feng's, the explosive impact of their psychic power caused strange sounds to ring out in the air.

Experiencing difficulties in breathing, a sense of terror gradually rose in Yuan Feng's mind, and at the same time, he found it hard to continue using his Soul Reinforcement Incantation.

From such a short distance, Nie Tian poured all of his tremendous mental strength into Yuan Feng's mind, immediately causing him to fall into a bewildered state.

As Yuan Feng was no longer able to concentrate his attention, the spiritual energy he had gathered in his neck suddenly scattered.

CRUNCH!

Finally, the crisp sound of cracking bone rang from within Yuan Feng's neck.

As soon as Nie Tian heard that sound, his nerves instantly relaxed.

Yuan Feng was dead!

The ceaseless punching and scratching pain on his back also vanished.

Nie Tian rolled off of Yuan Feng's dead body to lie on the ground. As he did, he saw the two shadows of Yuan Feng dissipating like clusters of thick smoke blown away by a gust of wind.

"He's finally dead."

He couldn't stop panting, as he took his time to calm down and examine himself.

He almost didn't consume any spiritual power while fighting Yun Song, considering he had killed him in almost an instant.

However, the process of killing Yuan Feng had been unexpectedly dangerous.

By this point, his exposed upper body was covered in a bloody network of wounds that had been inflicted by Yuan Feng's shadows.

Those bloody wounds were only flesh deep; they looked frightening, but were not actually serious.

The only serious injuries were caused by the three attacks from the real Yuan Feng, each of which had left him vomiting blood. It seemed as though even his internal organs had been knocked out of their original positions.

Staring at the gray, cloudy sky, he sorted out his train of thoughts and concluded his reflections.

"Yuan Feng, Grayvale sect seed disciple, at the ninth level of Qi Refining… when he found me here, his spiritual power was probably not even half of his peak amount. Even so, he almost killed me!

"However, his previous comments about me held water. I haven't been admitted into the Cloudsoaring sect and don't understand how to make full use of my strength. Hence, I'm unable to turn my enormous psychic power into deadly attacks.

"Plus, I don't understand different kinds of exquisite incantations and techniques, nor do I possess a proper spiritual tool. I'm at too much of a disadvantage when fighting.

"After I get out of the Green Illusion dimension, I've got to quickly enter the ninth level of Qi Refining, so that I'll be able to learn profound incantations and techniques, and obtain a spiritual tool of a higher grade."

…

After a long while, when the pain was mostly gone, he got up in an anguished and slow manner, and went over to search the corpses of Yuan Feng and Yun Song.

He didn't find a single spirit stone on Yuan Feng and Yun Song. Yun Song was especially shabby; he didn't have a single item in his possession at all.

Nie Tian found and took the peculiar banner from Yuan Feng. Apart from that, there was also a map of the Green Illusion dimension, which must have been drawn up by someone from the Grayvale sect, in order to facilitate Yuan Feng's search for the second grade spirit beasts.

He didn't know how to make use of the banner, so it wasn't of much help to him for the moment, but that map of the Green Illusion dimension, on the other hand, was extremely helpful.

After storing the banner and map in his pouch, he took out two spirit stones from it, and started to absorb their energy to recover.

Before long, he had fully recovered his spiritual power. However, his injuries still needed time to heal.

It was at this point that an icy voice belonging to a woman caught Nie Tian completely off guard. "Killing your own people?! You really are ruthless. Nie Tian, is it? I remember you."

Yu Tong, dressed in bright red clothes, suddenly emerged from behind a tall sand dune like a ghost.

The truth was that she had been following Yuan Feng and Yun Song with the help of the Blood Searching Compass. When they ran into Nie Tian, she was still more than five kilometers away from the three of them.

As she gradually gained on them, and used her Blood Searching Compass to scan the surroundings, she was surprised to find that there was only one bright blob remaining.

She thought it was someone from the Ghost sect who had beat her to their location, and killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song.

However, when she rushed to this place, the person she found was Nie Tian!

As a trial taker of the four sects, he actually killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song, even though he was perfectly aware that the Ghost sect and Blood sect's disciples were also in the Green Illusion dimension.

She didn't know exactly how unforgivable the hatred between them was. However, since Nie Tian was now alone, she believed that it was time for Nie Tian to pay his debt.

She waved her hand violently towards Yuan Feng and Yun Song's bodies. In the next second, blood flew out of them and swirled up in a hurricane-like motion.

As she continued to cast the spell, the blood soon morphed into two blood shadows.

"Blood Shadows!"

The moment the blood shadows formed, a light flashed across Yu Tong's eyes, and the blood shadows pounced towards Nie Tian.

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In Yun Song's and Yuan Feng's eyes, Nie Tian was nothing. Therefore, they had underestimated him when they started fighting.

However, Yu Tong was different.

Nie Tian had defeated her once, shortly after she entered the Green Illusion dimension. Hence, she had long since come to view Nie Tian as a worthy opponent, every bit as capable as An Ying and Yuan Feng.

That was especially true now, when she found out that Yuan Feng and Yun Song had both died by his hands. As of this moment, she regarded Nie Tian as the most formidable opponent from the four sects in the Green Illusion dimension!

Therefore, her first move was to cast one of the Blood sect's secret magics: Blood Shadows.

The two blood shadows, formed from the blood of Yuan Feng and Yun Song, sent out ear-piercing screams as they swooped toward him like two sinister demons, emanating an overwhelmingly bloody smell.

Nie Tian gave a cold harrumph and said, "I heard that you've broken through to the Lesser Heaven stage, you evil witch. Is that true?"

As he spoke, he secretly released his psychic awareness to examine the two blood shadows.

He could only sense strong Qi and blood, but he didn't find any soul fluctuations. This meant that the two blood shadows had no independent wills, and were pure manifestations of Qi and blood.

As the blood shadows attacked, he swung his arm and punched out toward them with full force.

BANG BANG!

With two loud booms, the blood shadows were reduced to a bloody rain, which fell down onto the sand below. However, Yu Tong's secret blood magic summoned them back, and they reformed again!

WHOOSH!

Two new blood shadows rose up into the air and then dashed towards him again.

However, after the process of being destroyed and reforming, the Qi and blood in the shadows were obviously weaker than before.

Similarly, when they dashed over, their speed was considerably reduced.

BANG BANG!

Grinning, Nie Tian swung his arm, shattering the two blood shadows in quick succession.

After exploding, the blood shadows reformed, and dashed towards him yet again. The process repeated over and over.

However, every time they exploded, the power contained in them would significantly decay.

Despite that, the coquettish Yu Tong remained in place, cold eyes glittering with devilish, bloody light as she continued to form the blood shadows.

Soon, Nie Tian realized that Yu Tong only needed to consume a slight amount of power to manipulate the blood shadows, whereas he was expending significantly more power to shatter them.

Yu Tong's plan was obvious: she wanted to wear him out with the blood of Yuan Feng and Yun Song, forcing him to consume some of his spiritual power before the actual fight began.

When the shattered blood drops once again converged into two blood shadows, Nie Tian finally stopped fighting them.

Instead, he dashed towards Yu Tong!

"Forbidden Blood Technique – Reverse Blood Flow!"

Splendid, gorgeous, blood-colored light suddenly appeared in Yu Tong's dark-red pupils, as strong fluctuations of Qi and blood started to ripple outwards with her as the center.

Nie Tian, who was madly dashing towards her, suddenly felt something like a powerful shockwave slam into his strong and well built body.

At this very moment, Yu Tong, who hadn't moved a bit since the battle started, suddenly turned into a ray of swift and fierce bloody light.

The next moment, Nie Tian saw streams of red bloody light surging towards him one by one, as though they were numerous streams of blood floating in mid air.

A moment later, he was besieged within a world of blood-colored light, and Yu Tong could no longer be seen.

Stream after stream of floating blood rivers twisted in the air and grew longer and longer, looking devilish and yet simultaneously beautiful.

Surrounded by the countless blood streams, Nie Tian, with a grim face, tried with great difficulty to suppress the unusual movements of the blood within himself.

He could keenly sense his blood being affected, as if it yearned to fly out of his body, as though it wished to join the surrounding rivers of blood.

"The Blood sect's secret magic is truly worthy of its fame!" Nie Tian was secretly shocked.

He had a feeling that the reason Yu Tong had been avoiding fighting him head on was that she feared his rage fist strike.

Last time the two of them fought, he had burst seven of Yu Tong's blood shadows with a single blow, and had even injured her.

In Yu Tong's eyes, the might of that fist strike was far beyond ordinary. Even though she had entered the Lesser Heaven stage, she still didn't wish for Nie Tian to use that raging fist against her.

"I won't be able to defeat her with my raging fist if I can't locate her. Meanwhile, the blood in me is getting increasingly violent and aggressive… soon, I'm going to lose control of it."

Nie Tian could only desperately restrain the unusual movements of his blood. When his psychic power was unable to penetrate the barrier created by the blood streams and lock onto Yu Tong, he started to feel somewhat anxious.

PHEW! PHEW!

At that time, the two blood shadows which he had repeatedly shattered, suddenly appeared from within the streams of blood.

Logically, they had been shattered many times and the power in their Qi and blood should be next to none, so it was unlikely that they could hurt him.

This time, however, they were emanating terrifying Qi and blood for unknown reasons.

As he looked over with rapt attention, the numerous blood streams appeared to be merging into those shadows.

The blood shadows were originally the same size as normal humans, but under his gaze, they expanded rapidly, and soon became two gigantic blood demons!

Waves of unparalleled power emitted from the two giant blood demons, causing Nie Tian's heart to tighten with shock.

All of a sudden, one of them reached out its giant, blood-colored arm, and attempted to grab Nie Tian.

At the same time, the other one let out a heaven-shaking, earth-shattering roar, pouncing towards Nie Tian while radiating a raging bloody smell.

Yu Tong, who had vanished for some time, was now sitting on the shoulder of the roaring blood demon, her ripe lips so red that it seemed as if they were about to explode with blood!

Now, her pupils had completely taken on the color of the blood, while her body was emitting an extremely dangerous aura.

In her left hand, she was holding an eyeball-sized bead, which kept giving out blinding blood-colored light.

At first glance, Nie Tian realized that the blood bead in Yu Tong's hand was an extraordinary spiritual tool.

"Spiritual tool!"

He could faintly feel that the forming of the blood streams, the merging of them and the giant blood demons, and even the movements of the two giant blood demons, were all affected by that bead.

Yu Tong must have been using that blood bead to cast the Blood sect's secret magics!

"My blood demons have fully formed, I'm afraid you…" Yu Tong licked her bright red lips with an expression as if she had already won. It seemed she was finally confident enough to insult Nie Tian.

However, before she could finish her words, she abruptly stopped, looking shocked.

The source of her surprise was that Nie Tian's chest suddenly started to echo out with vigorous heartbeats, which were so rapid and loud that she could hear them perfectly clearly from a distance.

Moreover, just as that unbelievably strong heartbeat echoed out from within Nie Tian's body, she suddenly realized that her Forbidden Blood Technique – Reverse Blood Flow was no longer affecting him.

"I'll defeat you with the same method!" Nie Tian bellowed, as he shot straight forward like a sharp arrow.

A surge of unlimited rage suddenly generated in his heart and spread throughout his body, filling every drop of his blood and every pore with burning wrath!

"What is that!?" Yu Tong looked shocked.

At this moment, she vaguely sensed that an invisible figure, huge enough to support the sky, rose up above Nie Tian's head!

She immediately closed her eyes, and unleashed her psychic awareness to discover that Nie Tian's raging anger appeared to have summoned a terrifying giant, which was currently floating above his head!

She also felt that the giant devil, which could only be felt by her soul, was emitting an overwhelming anger that seemed mighty enough to destroy the entire Green Illusion dimension!

In comparison, Yu Tong's two giant blood demons seemed like powerless little worms, not even worth mentioning.

Yu Tong was shocked to her core.

However, she also discovered that the giant figure only existed for a moment before vanishing into thin air. It seemed as if it were from a space far far away, projecting itself into the Green Illusion dimension for only a second.

ROOOOAR!

In the next moment, the blood demon Yu Tong had been riding, together with the other one of its kind, fell to the ground, wailing out of control.

Just as she sensed that something was wrong, Nie Tian's raging fist strike arrived!

"Blood Shield!" Nie Tian shrieked.

Instantly, the wailing blood demons morphed into two streams of blood, swirling up from the ground, and in the next moment, forged into a gigantic blood-colored shield.

BOOM!

The moment Nie Tian's fist made contact with the freshly formed blood shield, his fist actually drilled through the shield, and smashed vigorously onto Yu Tong's ample chest!

POOH!

Coughing up a mouthful of blood, Yu Tong's curvaceous body fell from midair, and landed heavily onto the ground.

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BANG!

Nie Tian landed heavily onto the ground as the burning rage in his eyes faded away.

With a cold face, he glared at Yu Tong, who stood ten meters away from him, while adjusting his breathing and secretly assessing his current condition.

"Oh, no…" After a brief examination, Nie Tian gave a bitter, inward laugh as he realized that the situation was anything but good.

Just as he had expected, the raging fist strike had completely drained the spiritual power in his spiritual sea.

By this point, there was not even a smidgen left for him to use!

Not only that, but the single, full-strength punch that he had unleashed had also consumed a considerable amount of his mental fortitude, leaving him in an extremely terrible mental state.

He stretched his arm, and quickly found that it had become immeasurably heavy. That one punch just now seemed to have exhausted all of his physical strength, which was completely different from the last time he used that style of punching!

Last time he struck with it, only his spiritual energy had been drained, accompanied by minor discomfort, but his psychic power had remained plentiful.

However, after throwing the punch this time, his body seemed to be completely drained of power of all sorts, leaving practically nothing behind.

Now, even the simple act of walking was incomparably difficult for him.

He knew perfectly well that he currently had zero power to engage in battle; in such a poor state, even an ordinary person who didn't understand a thing about cultivation could hurt him right now.

He should have immediately sat down cross-legged to recover his strength with the help of the spirit stones in his pouch.

However, he didn't.

After all, Yu Tong, who had just taken a hit from him, was still standing right there in front of him.

He knew that she must have sustained injuries, but was unsure about her condition. If she were to discover his poor state, as long as she still had some residual strength, she would definitely take the opportunity to kill him.

Yu Tong must not find out about his true condition and that he was actually weaker than ever!

"How does it feel, bitch?" he said, laughing loudly as he stepped toward Yu Tong.

He was absolutely sure that as long as he put on a show of being strong and domineering, Yu Tong wouldn't dare to act rashly!

The ten meter distance between them felt unbelievably vast. When he finally arrived in front of Yu Tong, all he wanted to do was to drop to the ground and rest.

However, he chose not to. Instead, he stood in front of Yu Tong, looking down upon her despite the exhaustion and discomfort which gripped him.

His eyes were filled with a cold, fierce look.

Weak and limp, Yu Tong lay on the ground, her face pale, and the bloody glow fading away from her eyes. The corner of her scarlet lips still had specks of blood on them.

They were the size of grains of rice, like tiny flower petals glistening with dew as they stretched from her lips down her pure white neck. Overall, they made her look completely pitiful and helpless.

Yu Tong clenched her lips and calmly looked Nie Tian in the eye, not saying a single word.

Lying on the ground, a faint blood-colored aura surrounded her, seemingly protecting her from any further harm.

The truth was that her current state wasn't any better than Nie Tian's.

The huge, mysterious shadow that resulted when Nie Tian abruptly struck her frightened her all the way down into her heart and soul.

Even though she hastily condensed a blood shield, it failed to stop Nie Tian's attack. His fist went through the blood shield, and finally smashed violently onto her chest.

The mighty fist strike inflicted serious damage on her fleshy body. Even her psychic awareness, which enabled her to detect that huge, mysterious shadow, had taken a huge blow and then dispersed.

The blood shield had been forged with her spiritual power and blood. Therefore, when it shattered, her spiritual power and blood also sustained serious injuries. Under such desperate circumstances, she could only cast another of the Blood sect's secret magics: the Blood Cocoon Incantation.

It could not only stabilize the disturbed Qi and blood in her body, enabling her to slowly recover, but it could also protect her to a certain extent.

However, while using it to recuperate, she was incapable of moving or talking. The only thing she could do was look Nie Tian in the eye.

She did her utmost to appear calm, not revealing a hint of fear, hoping that Nie Tian couldn't see through her act, that he wouldn't discover the urgent sense of concern buried in her heart.

With a cold and fierce gaze, Nie Tian looked down at her and laughed. "How come you're not talking? I heard that you wanted to drain me and refine my blood? Now that I'm here, come and take it."

Waves of fury began to surge out from Yu Tong's eyes, yet she still didn't speak.

Nie Tian's eyebrows furrowed slightly as he secretly sized Yu Tong up. After a moment, his gaze left her face and swept over the rest of her body.

The blood aura that covered her delicate and curvaceous frame seemed like a thin, crimson colored layer, which protected her from any further harm.

However, considering Nie Tian's current condition, even if she didn't have that blood aura to protect her, it would still be almost impossible for him to kill her.

He knew perfectly well that even if he recovered a bit of spiritual power, it would still be impossible for him to break through that layer of protection and kill Yu Tong.

After silently examining her for a while, Nie Tian rubbed his chin in thought, and said, "Is it that you don't want to talk? Or that you can't? You haven't even moved your finger once. Does it mean that… you're injured so badly that you can't move at all? Well, if that's the case, I can do whatever I want with you. Am I right?"

With these words, Nie Tian finally saw fear in Yu Tong's bright eyes.

"Ha ha!" Relieved, he grinned and slowly crouched down next to her.

Looking her in the eyes, he reached out his right index finger towards her elegant chin.

Panic and indignation filled Yu Tong's eyes.

As his finger carefully approached her chin, the first thing that he touched was actually that thin layer of blood aura, which felt like a layer of soft skin.

Nie Tian, who was secretly on guard, realized that nothing strange had happened to it, nor did it burn his finger.

He didn't know that the blood aura that had been formed by the Blood Cocoon Incantation would only generate a counterforce when it detected fluctuations of spiritual power.

At this moment, Nie Tian had already drained his spiritual power. The finger he used to touch Yu Tong's chin didn't carry a smidgen of spiritual energy, and thus didn't cause the blood cocoon to fight back.

"Wow, interesting."

Laughing, Nie Tian pressed his finger harder downward. As his finger went downward, the thin layer of blood aura gradually gave in and he finally made contact with Yu Tong's chin.

Even though she was isolated by the layer of blood aura, his finger had actually landed on Yu Tong's chin.

When he realized that it wasn't harmful, he gently pressed his palm onto her face.

Sneering broadly he looked into her eyes and gently stroked her cheek with his palm.

Yu Tong's eyes emanated a light of bone-piercing hatred. She was so angry that she was on the verge of going mad. If she weren't in the cocoon, she would tear Nie Tian into pieces at all costs.

Nie Tian put away his smile, and put on a grim face. "What? Are you angry? Yuan Feng told me that those trial takers from the Cloudsoaring sect and Spiritual Treasure sect all died by your hand. Amongst them were good friends of mine and also possibly… my clansman.

"You killed them. Yet, I am only touching your face. What right do you have to be angry?"

With these words, his hand that had stroked Yu Tong's cheek suddenly trailed along Yu Tong's slender, long neck and moved downwards.

Yu Tong's wide eyes were now filled with shock and terror. Lying on the sandy ground, her alluring body seemed to be trembling with terror.

Nie Tian gazed into her eyes as his hand slowly roamed onto her firm breasts, then he squeezed them vigorously a few times.

Yu Tong finally could no longer bear the humiliation, and snapped her eyes shut.

A devilish yet beautiful blood-colored flush gradually appeared on her snow-white cheeks.

However, Nie Tian, who was inches away from her, suddenly felt somewhat uneasy when he discovered that Yu Tong was going through a change that he didn't understand.

Therefore, he suddenly removed his hand from Yu Tong's breasts, and moved downwards before ripping a leather pouch away from her waist.

He opened it and saw several kilograms of dried meat, along with a bottle of drinking water.

"Thank you."

With a final look at Yu Tong, he took out the dried meat and started gulping down huge mouthfuls of it, along with the water.

Knowing that the blood aura ensured that it was impossible to actually kill Yu Tong, he simply humiliated her to the fullest extent and then left, leaving her with nothing more than the wave of a hand.

Four hours after Nie Tian left, the blood aura that had been covering Yu Tong suddenly exploded.

Yu Tong's hysterical scream resounded throughout the desert, as if the burning hatred it contained could fill up the entire universe.

"Nie Tian!"

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Soon after leaving Yu Tong, Nie Tian felt warm currents being gradually surging out from his stomach. Yet, he had only consumed several kilograms worth of dried meat from Yu Tong's leather pouch!

"Wow, such strong surges of power! This must be second grade spirit beast meat!"

Only the meat of a second grade spirit beast would be able to produce such copious amounts of energy. Perhaps, this second grade spirit beast was even more formidable than the Lurker Lizard!"

He suddenly came to a realization.

When they first arrived in the Green Illusion dimension, there had been four second grade spirit beasts. The Frost Python had been the most powerful, and had recently reached the third grade, whereupon it teleported out of the dimension.

As for the rest of them, the Lurker Lizard had already been slaughtered by Jiang Lingzhu's group, and Zheng Bin's group had probably killed another one in the volcano area.

If he guessed right, the dried meat inside Yu Tong's leather pouch should be from the last of the second grade spirit beasts.

At that moment, currents of warmth started to disperse to every corner of Nie Tian's body. Under the nourishment and replenishment of the energy, his exhausted body rapidly recovered.

Since he had been marching on at a fast pace, he didn't have a chance to sit down and quietly channel the energy into his spiritual sea.

However, the energy that had dissipated into his blood and muscles filled him with vigor to the point where he no longer felt the heaviness in his steps.

He knew very well that once Yu Tong recovered the ability to move, she would hunt him down at all costs. Therefore, he didn't dare to stop and replenish his dried up spiritual sea with spirit stones.

Every once in awhile, he would take out the map he had obtained from Yuan Feng, set a direction, and rush forward, regardless of anything else.

He had already given up on heading towards the border between the desert and volcano area to meet An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, and the others. He only wished to return to the entrance of the Green Illusion dimension.

He knew that it was very possible that the disciples of the Ghost sect and Blood sect were still frantically chasing and killing survivors from the Cloudsoaring sect and Spiritual Treasure sect in the depths of the desert. If he headed in that same direction, it was very likely that he would encounter the Ghost sect and Blood sect disciples.

After forcibly using the rage punch, he was still in a poor condition. His spiritual sea was empty, and he feared that if he were to run into people from the Ghost sect and Blood sect, he would easily be slaughtered.

Furthermore, Yu Tong would also go all out in pursuing him once her condition stabilized and she recovered the ability to move.

He would definitely not choose the path of certain death.

Relying on the scant amount of dried meat that he had obtained from Yu Tong, Nie Tian gradually recovered his physical strength, but he didn't dare to stop and rest, and kept marching on.

After an unknown period of time, he saw numerous glaciers in the distance, and knew that he would be leaving the desert soon.

"I'm almost there," he thought to himself. "I'll recover my power with the spirit stones when I enter the glacier area!"

Two hours later…

He finally dragged his depleted body out of the desert and into the bitterly cold glacier area.

As soon as he arrived at the bottom of the first glacier, he found a secluded valley and covered himself with a pile of snow, before starting to recover his strength with spirit stones.

Without the spirit stones, and only relying on the faint spiritual Qi in the Green Illusion dimension, it would probably take Nie Tian quite a few days to fully recover the spiritual power that he had consumed.

But spirit stones, even the low grade variety, carried pure and refined spiritual power.

Therefore, with their help, the process of recuperation could be sped up by a great extent!

Strands of pure and refined spiritual power were channeled from the spirit spirit stones into his spiritual sea. That pleasant feeling almost made Nie Tian cheer out loud.

"No wonder those guys all had spirit stones with them when they entered the Green Illusion dimension. Cultivating with the spirit stones' help truly is so much smoother and more relaxing!"

Before long, one spirit stone was drained of its spiritual power, and cracked as it was reduced to an ordinary stone.

He immediately took out another.

In only an hour, he drained seven spirit stones, and his formerly dried up spiritual sea once again brimmed with spiritual power.

As soon as he completely recovered, he regained his confidence, knowing that he would no longer fall prey to anyone.

However, he didn't dare to return to where he had come from, mainly because he didn't wish to face Yu Tong again.

After a few minor adjustments, he crawled out of the pile of snow, and marched on forward.

He only wished to return to the gate of the Green Illusion dimension, and wait for other survivors there.

With the Frost Python gone, the glacier area was no longer dangerous. The scattered first grade spirit beasts had been killed by the disciples from the Spiritual Treasure sect and Grayvale sect.

Originally, he planned to capture a first grade spirit beast, and expand his spiritual sea with its meat, but as it turned out, he couldn't find a single spirit beast along his way.

Time flew…

One day, Nie Tian finally passed through the glacier area and returned to the entrance, thanks to the guidance provided by Yuan Feng's map.

At the foot of the unknown mountain, ash-colored bones sat in the midst of a pile of rubble.

Next to a smooth stone wall sat nine white-garbed young men and women, who were gathered in a huddle, munching on spirit beast meat while simultaneously talking and laughing with one another.

"White clothes… The Mystic Mist sect…"

With a single glance from afar, Nie Tian was sure that those nine people were trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect.

However, seeing them made Nie Tian both elated and worried.

He was elated because, with those nine to help him, even if Yu Tong were to follow him here, he wouldn't fear her.

With Zheng Bin and his group as his backup, Nie Tian, who had recovered his strength, would definitely be able to beat Yu Tong if she were to come to this place by herself.

He no longer needed to worry about his own safety.

However, them showing up here meant that An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, and their group must have failed to meet with them at the border of the desert and volcano area.

With only An Ying and Jiang Lingzhu's power, he feared that they wouldn't be able to match up to the Ghost sect and the Blood sect. He didn't know how many of them had already been killed.

While he was deep in thought, a pretty girl from the Mystic Mist sect spotted him.

"Yee?!"

To this point, he still remained unclothed from waist up, and there were also numerous thin wounds crisscrossed across his body, which had long since formed into scabs.

Moreover, he had been on the run, and thus didn't have the chance to take care of his appearance. His ash-covered face, together with the wounds, that after forming into scabs resembled thin snakes, gave him a sinister look.

Zheng Bin sprung to his feet and stared coldly at him from afar. "Who's there?"

The white-garbed Zheng Bin was born with a handsome face and had grown into a composed young man, who now, compared to the bedraggled Nie Tian, seemed to be radiating rays of sunlight.

Three girls in the group had their beautiful eyes fixed on Zheng Bin the entire time he talked, their eyes filled with adoration.

However, when they shifted their gazes onto Nie Tian, their faces suddenly turned grim, and the adoration in their eyes was immediately replaced by aversion.

Nie Tian walked relaxedly towards them as he answered, "I'm also a trial taker. I entered the Green Illusion dimension with An Ying."

A girl with an oval-shaped face suddenly became interested. Eyes glittering, she said, "Are you from the Spiritual Treasure sect? Did you guys slaughter the Frost Python in the glacier area?"

Upon hearing her words, the other trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect also grew intrigued.

The glacier area, the desert, and the volcano area weren't located in a straight line.

That was why the Mystic Mist sect's disciples didn't pass the desert and glacier region to return to this place after killing their target spirit beast in the volcano area.

They had taken a different route to return.

Months had passed, and they knew that even if they had gone to the glacier area and the desert to kill the Frost Python and Lurker Lizard, they wouldn't be successful, so they gave up long ago.

However, the Green Illusion dimension's rules only prohibited killing, but not battles among themselves. The reason they came back early was to replenish their power and snatch the spirit beast head from the other three sects.

The way they saw it, since Nie Tian was with the Spiritual Treasure sect, he had just served himself up as prey by coming alone.

"No, we didn't."

Nie Tian frowned. Just as he was about to tell them about the Ghost sect and Blood sect's disciples, Zheng Bin snorted coldly and said with an indifferent face, "Tie him up and search him. We don't want him to join the Spiritual Treasure sect's force to fight us when they arrive."

The girl with the oval-shaped face agreed. "Okay, let's do it as we planned."

After that, two white-garbed boys of the Mystic Mist sect sprung to their feet excitedly, and dashed forward to capture Nie Tian without saying a word.

They assumed that since Nie Tian had shown up, An Ying and others from the Spiritual Treasure sect must be right behind him.

They wanted to capture Nie Tian at the first possible moment, so that he wouldn't be able to assist An Ying in the future.

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"Surrender immediately! As long as you behave, we won't give you a hard time."

The first to arrive in front of Nie Tian was a robust teenager. He didn't have any killing intent; all he wanted to do was to tie Nie Tian up, and prevent him from helping An Ying and her group.

From his point of view, since Nie Tian had appeared, An Ying and others from the Spiritual Treasure sect must be right behind him.

"Ignorant fools!" Nie Tian cursed. He had approached with the desire to explain the Ghost sect and Blood sect's appearance to them. However, he was now infuriated, and thus wanted to teach them a lesson first.

"Hand over your belongings, and let us tie you up," the other boy said loudly. "Then everything will be fine."

They were both from subordinate clans of the Mystic Mist sect, in the eighth level of Qi Refining, with strength by no means weak.

However, seeing Nie Tian's bedraggled state, and that he came alone, they didn't even bother to bring their spiritual tools out when they stepped forward.

Approaching Nie Tian on the right and left, they reached out to grab his arms and restrain him.

The other trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect were laughing as they enjoyed the show, completely unaware of the fact that the Ghost sect and Blood sect had already entered the Green Illusion dimension and slaughtered many other trial takers.

Clearly, they weren't in the same mental state as Nie Tian, who had engaged in several fierce battles with the Ghost sect and Blood sect starting from almost the very moment he entered the Green Illusion dimension.

Later, he fought with Yuan Feng, Yun Song, and Du Kun, and even had a bloody battle with Yu Tong.

At this moment, a cold expression appeared on Nie Tian's face, and the murderous aura in his eyes suddenly became prominent.

"Li Xi, Jian Xuan, be careful!" yelled Zheng Bin.

He sensed danger from the change in Nie Tian's expression, and suddenly had the feeling that Nie Tian wasn't as ordinary as he seemed.

However, his warnings came too late!

Before Li Xi and Jian Xuan could join forces in offense, Nie Tian let out a cold harrumph, and shot out, whooshing towards Li Xi like a sharp arrow.

Then, he raised his hand and smacked Li Xi's shoulder.

BANG!

Before Li Xi realized what was happening, he was struck and then was sent staggering backwards.

After launching a lightning-quick attack, Nie Tian turned to face Jian Xuan, who was only inches away from him.

BOOM!

Nie Tian's fist pounded onto Jian Xuan's upraised arm.

Jian Xuan, who was about to use his spiritual technique, felt a sudden pain and soreness coming from his arm, as his arm suddenly lost support and dropped down.

Eyes filled with rage, he intended to mobilize his spiritual power and launch a violent counterattack.

At this very moment, Nie Tian moved like a ghostly shadow, ramming into Jian Xuan's chest with a loud bang.

Jian Xuan felt like he was hit by a raging war chariot. With a muffled groan, he staggered several steps backwards.

Nie Tian, on the other hand, took advantage of Jian Xuan's unbalanced body and attacked again, hooking his neck with one hand.

Nie Tian was considerably taller and stronger than his peers. Although Jian Xuan was two years older, he was still shorter than Nie Tian by a few inches.

After hooking onto Jian Xuan's neck, Nie Tian exerted his strength, and actually raised Jian Xuan high up in the air.

Jian Xuan, with his feet dangling half a meter above the ground, had difficulty breathing, and due to that, his whole face turned completely red.

Jian Xuan grabbed Nie Tian's hand with both hands, exerting all of his strength, attempting to pry Nie Tian's hand away from his neck and break away from this humiliating position.

"Urgh! Grrr!"

He kept struggling as his legs unceasingly kicked about.

However, Nie Tian's hand was locked onto his neck as tightly as an iron vice. No matter how violently Jian Xuan struggled, he was still unable to break free.

With cruel and fierce look in his eyes, Nie Tian glared at Jian Xuan. "Behave! Otherwise, I'll snap your neck!"

He even tightened his grip a bit.

As he did, Jian Xuan couldn't even groan any more. Staring at Nie Tian, fear suddenly mounted within Jian Xuan's heart.

Even though he knew that killing wasn't allowed in the Green Illusion dimension, he felt that if he didn't behave, Nie Tian was really going to snap his neck.

Having understood the situation, he immediately quieted down, and no longer dared to struggle about, fearing that he might anger Nie Tian.

At this moment, Li Xi charged towards Nie Tian with torrential waves of anger, holding an axe that glittered with silvery light in his hands.

"Let Jian Xuan go!"

Nie Tian turned around to face him, while still holding Jian Xuan up, and said calmly, "Do you want him dead?"

Li Xi suddenly discovered that Jian Xuan, with his face dark-red, was speaking with his eyes, telling Li Xi not to act rashly.

He immediately stopped.

"Stay your hand!" Zheng Bin called out.

With a cold snort, Nie Tian slightly loosened his hand, so that Jian Xuan could finally start breathing again. "Moments ago, I wanted you to stay your hand, but you guys didn't give me a chance, and immediately rushed over to attack me."

However, he didn't release Jian Xuan, but still held him high up in the air and said, "Can we have a proper talk now?"

Zheng Bin replied in a hurry, "Let go of Jian Xuan, and we'll talk."

The girl with the oval-shaped face glowered at Nie Tian as she berated him angrily, "Are you nuts? You almost killed him! We only wanted to capture you so that you can't help An Ying. We weren't going to hurt you. Is it necessary for you to react so violently?"

Then, the other boys and girls joined her, pointing at Nie Tian and loudly cursing him for attacking too harshly.

Nie Tian didn't talk back. Instead, he swept his ice-cold gaze through every one of them.

One after another, they shut their mouths.

At this moment, Nie Tian was still holding Jian Xuan up in the air. Due to his exertion of power, Nie Tian's contracted muscles made the scars on his bare upper-body seem especially malevolent.

The interwoven wounds, together with his stern face, made Nie Tian seem as though he had turned into a man-eating beast, his entire body emitting a suffocating aura.

BANG!

When everyone quieted down, Nie Tian nodded and dropped Jian Xuan to the side.

Relieved, Jian Xuan doubled over, inhaling large gulps of air, not daring to attack Nie Tian again.

However, Li Xi's eyes glittered with the desire to attack Nie Tian again after seeing that Jian Xuan was safe.

"Let it be, Li Xi," said Zheng Bin, frowning.

"Since he let Jian Xuan go, we'll give him face and attack when the Spiritual Treasure sect guys arrive."

Li Xi said anxiously, "This guy is by no means ordinary. He'll be a great assistance to the Spiritual Treasure sect. If we don't…"

Zheng Bin stopped him from finishing his sentence, and stared coldly at Nie Tian while saying, "One person can't change much. I have my principles. Since you released Jian Xuan, I'll let you off the hook for now. However, your actions just now have already angered me! I'll make a move on you and seek justice for Jian Xuan when your allies from the Spiritual Treasure sect arrive!"

The other teenagers also urged Zheng Bin to bring Nie Tian under control.

"Elder Brother Bin, you're being too aboveboard!!"

"A guy like him doesn't deserve it. We should capture him now. He's too dangerous. We can't let him join hands with those from the Spiritual Treasure sect!"

"He's right, Elder Brother Bin. Don't be so pedantic. The Spiritual Treasure sect went to the glacier area. They might have already slaughtered the Frost Python! Only the Frost Python's head can be traded for the Heaven Comprehending Pill. Isn't that your ultimate goal for this trial?"

"Be quiet!" Zheng Bin shouted impatiently.

Seeing that he had grown angry, the trial takers finally sealed their lips, glowering at Nie Tian.

The way the three girls who adored Zheng Bin glared at Nie Tian was especially unfriendly.

Despite being glared at by the crowd, Nie Tian appeared surprisingly calm. He first sat down, and then pointed at the cooked spirit beast meat behind them, saying, "I'm hungry. Get me something to eat first. We'll talk while we eat."

"How shameless are you!? You've just injured Jian Xuan. As soon as your people from the Spiritual Treasure sect come, you'll become our enemy. We're not on the same side, okay? How dare you ask us for food?!" The girl with the oval-shaped face was taken back for a moment, after which she immediately pointed towards Nie Tian and started scolding him, as though she had never seen such a shameless person before in her entire life.

"Enemy?" Nie Tian shook his head. "If I treated you as enemies…"

He looked back at Jian Xuan, and then continued, "He wouldn't have gotten off so easily. Even though I wouldn't have killed him because of the rules, I would have surely left him crippled for a few months."

Upon hearing his words, the girl's expression flickered.

Zheng Bin looked deeply at him, and after a moment of pondering, he said, "What do you want to talk about?"

Finally, Nie Tian was given the chance to talk. He put on a wry smile and sighed. "I really envy your luck. Only one of you is dead, and you've hunted down and killed that second grade spirit beast from the volcano area."

He had long since spotted the gigantic wolf head behind the crowd, which apparently belonged to the Ghostly Fire Wolf.

Zheng Bin's face turned grim, as heartache flashed in his eyes. "Are you making fun of us? During our fight with the Ghostly Fire Wolf, a brother died for being too sloppy. It was only one second grade spirit beast. With our strength, we should have finished it off easily. There shouldn't have been any casualties.

"I know that if there are no mishaps, with Yuan Feng and An Ying's strength, they're definitely able to kill their respective targets with no casualties.

"Unlike us, suffering one death. I don't even know how to report to the sect elders after we get out."

Nie Tian noticed that while he was speaking, the other teenagers from the Mystic Mist sect all seemed sad and grim, as if they were secretly blaming themselves.

He suddenly realized the relationships among the Mystic Mist sect disciples were probably the most harmonious of the four sects.

However, he had to reveal the cruel reality to them.

"You should consider yourselves lucky." He said coldly. "The Grayvale sect's disciples have been wiped out. None of them survived."

Upon hearing these words, everyone's expression flickered, and couldn't refrain from exclaiming. "It's impossible!!"

Nie Tian continued, "The Grayvale sect wasn't the only one. The Spiritual Treasure sect and Cloudsoaring sect have also suffered great casualties. I don't know how many of them are still alive, and when they'll be able to get here.

"It's also possible that they've all died, and none of them will show up here.

"This is all because disciples of the Ghost sect and Blood sect have also entered the Green Illusion dimension!

"They're also here for a trial. Only their mission was slightly different from ours. We're here to kill spirit beasts. They're here to kill us." Nie Tian said in a solemn and powerful tone.

Every boy and girl from the Mystic Mist sect was taken aback by his words, as their faces suddenly turned pale.

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Every trial taker from the Mystic Mist sect was silenced, and not a single voice could be heard.

None of them questioned the truthfulness of Nie Tian's words.

If Nie Tian hadn't captured Jian Xuan in such violent fashion, perhaps they would have thought that he was making it up to frighten them, in order to avoid being captured.

However, Zheng Bin had already made clear his intentions with Nie Tian, that they would temporarily ignore him and start the battle when the others from the Spiritual Treasure sect arrived.

That meant Nie Tian was momentarily safe.

In such a situation, it was absolutely unnecessary for Nie Tian to lie to them or attempt to frighten them.

Upon hearing the news that the Ghost sect and Blood sect were also in the Green Illusion dimension, those teenagers clearly grew distressed and helpless.

"The Ghost sect, the Blood sect…"

The Ghost sect and the Blood sect were like two immense mountains that were placed on their chests, making it almost impossible for them to breathe, especially when they learned that everyone from the Grayvale sect had been killed.

They knew that Yuan Feng from the Grayvale sect was extremely hard to deal with, and the Grayvale sect's trial takers were by no means weaker than them.

Even they had been wiped out. If it weren't for the fact that they were lucky enough to have not encountered any Ghost sect and Blood sect disciples in the volcano area, it would be hard to say how many of them could have survived to this day…

They didn't even have the courage to think further.

A long moment passed, after which Zheng Bin was the first to snap back to reality. He took a deep breath and ordered, "Go get him some spirit beast meat."

Li Xi was compliant this time. He walked back to their camp wordlessly and picked up a sizable piece of cooked spirit beast meat, before walking back to Nie Tian with a complicated expression and handing him the meat.

Nie Tian nodded, but didn't say anything. He took it and started tearing it apart with his teeth and gulping down large chunks.

The trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect looked silently at him as he ate, and the atmosphere grew exceptionally grim.

They automatically gathered together by Nie Tian's side, waiting quietly.

The pretty girl who had been the first to spot Nie Tian, looked at his unclothed upper body, and after a moment of hesitation, took a white garment from a bag beside the Ghostly Fire Wolf's head and threw it gently to Nie Tian.

Moments later, Nie Tian had devoured the five kilograms worth of spirit beast meat. The only reason he didn't ask for more was that he didn't want to scare the trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect.

He picked the white garment up and put it on. Only then did he say, "What do you guys want to know?"

"Everything you've been through!" Zheng Bin said in a deep voice.

"Okay." Nie Tian nodded, and without holding anything back, relayed the few, small-scale battles that he had fought against the disciples from the Ghost sect and Blood sect, not leaving a single detail.

As for Yuan Feng and Yun Song's deaths, he naturally blamed them on the Blood sect's Yu Tong.

He believed that even if Yu Tong showed up and pointed out that it was him who had killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song, given Yu Tong's status as a Blood sect disciple, it would be impossible for the trial takers to believe her.

Actually, he even doubted that Yu Tong would bother to refute the assertation.

If the fact that he had killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song was exposed, Nie Tian would inevitably have to bear the wrath of the four sects.

However, to Yu Tong, it was her very mission to kill Yuan Feng and other trial takers. It was unforgivable for Nie Tian, but honorable for Yu Tong.

Actually, Yu Tong might even be willing to take the blame.

After he had told them everything, the girl with the oval-shaped face stared at him with disbelief. "You've killed a Ghost sect disciple, and escaped from Yu Tong? And Yu Tong… broke into the Lesser Heaven stage?"

"Liar…" Li Xi muttered.

The other trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect also seemed to be doubting the authenticity of his words, suspecting that he was merely bragging.

In their eyes, if Yu Tong had truly broken into the Lesser Heaven stage, she would have possessed unparalleled strength in the Green Illusion dimension.

Even Yuan Feng died by her hands. How could a nobody like Nie Tian be able to escape from her?

They would never have expected that not only was Nie Tian able to escape Yu Tong's pursuit, but he also managed to inflict serious damage on her twice.

Nie Tian continued with a firm expression, "Oh, perhaps I wasn't clear enough. After Yu Tong killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song, she sustained injuries, and consumed most of her power. Only because of that was I able to escape from her pursuit and flee here."

He only wanted for the Mystic Mist sect's trial takers to believe that it was Yu Tong who killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song.

However, from the look of it, they didn't buy the first version of his explanation. Thus, he made a supplementary explanation which made his story more reasonable.

Sure enough, the trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect believed him after hearing the additional details.

They assumed that there had been something wrong with Yu Tong. Otherwise, with Yu Tong's Lesser Heaven stage cultivation base, she wouldn't possibly spare Nie Tian's life.

Face grim, Zheng Bin turned to his team members and said, "Even if Yu Tong was injured, and wore out her strength, the fact that you've survived from her pursuit is enough evidence that you're no ordinary individual. Many of you might not have heard of Yu Tong of the Blood sect, and you don't know how frightening that woman is.

"Let me put it this way. Even if she was at the Qi Refining stage, I would still be no match for her.

"If she has indeed entered the Lesser Heaven stage, and I fought her, I wouldn't have even the hope of escaping alive, let alone winning."

With a solemn expression on his face, Zheng Bin didn't exaggerate his strength in front of everyone, but rather stated what he believed was true.

"Then we're screwed, aren't we, Elder Brother Bin?" Li Xi said with a sour face.

Apparently, the girl with the oval-shaped face was quite rattled. "What should we do? The Blood sect and the Ghost sect are so powerful. Perhaps they have already targeted us, and they could appear at any moment!" She subconsciously glanced around as she spoke, as if the Ghost sect and the Blood sect's disciples would rush out in the next second.

Zheng Bin also couldn't come up with a solution. "I suppose now we can only cross that bridge when we get to it. I just hope that An Ying and Jiang Lingzhu survived, and can get here as soon as possible."

While they were talking, Nie Tian felt those warm currents gradually rising up from within his stomach.

He realized that the spirit beast meat that he had just consumed was now releasing energy after a period of digestion.

"I've marched long and fast. I'm exhausted, and need to recover. I'll leave you guys alone." After notifying Zheng Bin, he closed his eyes, and started to use the Qi Refining Incantation to channel the energy to expand his spiritual sea, as well as restore his physical strength.

Zheng Bin nodded. "Alright, let me know if you need anything. We'll do our best to accommodate your needs."

Nie Tian immediately said, "If you don't mind, can I have some more spirit beast meat? I've been starving for a very, very long time. I need more food to recover my strength."

"No problem." Zheng Bin was very straightforward as he prompted Li Xi to fetch more cooked spirit beast meat for Nie Tian.

After wolfing down the meat, Nie Tian expressed his gratitude to Zheng Bin in a low voice, and immediately after, he closed his eyes and started cultivating.

In the following few days, he practically didn't move an inch away from his spot. Every time he finished cultivating, he would then request for more food from the Mystic Mist sect disciples.

After devouring large quantities of spirit beast meat, he would immediately close his eyes and start his cultivation, not conversing with any of the trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect.

At the beginning, Zheng Bin and the others thought he ate a lot because he was incomparably hungry.

However, as Nie Tian requested for more and more spirit beast meat, they gradually realized a fact: Nie Tian's appetite was shockingly large all the time!

They had already started to call Nie Tian a "bottomless pit" behind his back.

However, since they had more than enough spirit beast meat lying around, no one bothered to say anything. Every time, they would satisfy Nie Tian's request by offering enough meat for ten people to eat.

Nie Tian, on the other hand, knew that Yu Tong would never let him off so easily, and thus always had his guard up. Now that he had the Mystic Mist sect disciples to protect him while he was cultivating, as well as a sufficient spirit beast meat supply, he surely wouldn't miss such an exceptionally good opportunity.

He kept consuming the spirit beast meat, and using the power within to expand his spiritual sea, so as to prepare himself for possible future battles.

One day, he woke up from his cultivation and examined his spiritual sea, discovering that after days of painstaking practice, his spiritual sea had only expanded by fifteen percent.

"It's a shame that the energy first grade spirit beasts can provide is quite limited."

The energy stored in second grade spirit beast meat was seven times more than that of first grade spirit beasts, which meant if he used first grade spirit beast meat to cultivate, the speed of his improvement would be seven times slower.

Unsatisfied with his speed of improvement, Nie Tian cast a glance at the Ghostly Fire Wolf's head. "The Ghostly Fire Wolf is also a second grade spirit beast. I wonder if they brought its meat with them to this place."

Just as he was about to inquire about the wolf meat, a sound rang out from the distance. Before long, Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian appeared from behind a pile of rubble.

"It's been five days." Li Xi said excitedly. "Finally, someone has come!"

"Jiang Lingzhu!" Zheng Bin suddenly became enlivened.

As Jiang Lingzhu approached, she spotted Zheng Bin at first glance, and looking extremely excited, she said, "Zheng Bin! I can't believe that you are here! This is great!! We thought we were doomed!"

She sounded like a drowning person who had just caught sight of a rescue boat. With the newly found hope to survive, she instantly became full of spirit.

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Seeing that Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian had arrived, Nie Tian temporarily abandoned any notions of asking about the Ghostly Fire Wolf meat.

He rose to his feet after sitting quietly for a long time, looking at the two from afar.

The green-garbed Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian seemed distinctively thinner than before.

Jiang Lingzhu's eyes were still bright and flickering, but she was covered in dirt, and her green robe was in tatters. From the holes he could see at the corners, Nie Tian could tell they had been caused by sharp weapons.

Meanwhile, Nie Xian, who was also from the Nie clan, looked even worse. His sect-issued green robe seemed as if it had been torn to pieces and then sewn back together.

At first glance, he looked like a beggar from the gutters of Black Cloud City, extremely dirty and disordered.

"Zheng Bin, water!" Jiang Lingzhu shouted as she approached, "Get us some water! How come you guys are here? Did you run into the Hell sect's disciples in the volcano area?"

After coming closer, she suddenly caught sight of Nie Tian, and couldn't help but exclaim, "Ah! Nie Tian!"

"Nie Tian!" An incredible expression appeared on Nie Xian's face. "You're… you're still alive?!?!"

As far as Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian were concerned, Nie Tian should have been dead already.

Wandering around in the desert by himself, how could he possibly escape from the Ghost sect and Blood sect?

When Yu Tong and Mo Xi had caught up to them, Yu Tong had told them about the Blood Searching Compass and that wherever they escaped to, she would be able to ferret them out.

It would be impossible for Nie Tian to hide all traces of himself from Yu Tong's Blood Searching Compass.

When they found him, how could he possibly escape from the Blood sect and Ghost sect disciples, much less single-handedly defeat them?

Therefore, both of them believed that Nie Tian had long since died, and had never expected to meet him here.

"Long time no see," Nie Tian said with a smile. "I can finally rest at ease now that I know the two of you are alive."

"Jian Xuan!" Zheng Bin barked. "What are you waiting for? Go get them some water!"

Jian Xuan, who was still in a near-daze after the near-death experience from several days ago, snapped back to reality and quickly grabbed two water canteens, then ran over and handed them to Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian.

Casting away her usual lady-like manners, Jiang Lingzhu gulped down water as fast as she could, resulting in her straight, elegant neck being covered in sparkling drops of water.

Nie Xian virtually inhaled the water, and it wasn't until he finished the entire canteen that he finally stopped and sat down weakly on the ground. Puzzled, he asked, "Nie Tian, did the Ghost sect and Blood sect find you?"

"A Ghost sect disciple found me, but I killed him," Nie Tian explained in a low voice.

Nie Xian stared deeply at him for a moment, then nodded. "Well done."

Ever since Nie Tian showed up and fought off Yu Tong, saving them from a perilous situation, he started to have a new level of respect for this clan brother of his.

He had a vague feeling that some sort of incomprehensible miracle must have happened to Nie Tian, making his true strength unfathomable.

Therefore, he had come to believe that Nie Tian, who had previously forced Yu Tong to retreat, would have the ability to kill him, if he had only encountered one Ghost sect disciple.

After finishing her canteen of fresh water, Jiang Lingzhu began to describe the fight between them and the Ghost sect and Blood sect, under the inquisitive gazes of Zheng Bin and the others.

Just as they had been about to emerge from the desert and enter the volcanic region, the Ghost sect and Blood sect's disciples had caught up with them. A battle immediately broke out.

During the battle, Yu Tong from the Blood sect stepped into the Lesser Heaven stage, causing her strength to skyrocket. With numerous powerful forbidden techniques, her unparalleled, godly strength wasn't something they could match.

They hadn't been able to see even a shred of hope of victory.

Their only option was to spread out and run, so that Yu Tong and the others wouldn't be able to trap everyone in one spot and kill them all.

After escaping from the battlefield, Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian exerted all effort to lose Mo Xi, who had been chasing them persistently, until they finally arrived at this place, looking completely bedraggled.

Ever since splitting up, they never saw Ye Gumo from the Cloudsoaring sect again, and had no idea what happened to him.

Neither did they encounter An Ying and her people, and were thus unsure about their fate as well.

After listening to their encounters, Nie Tian felt relieved, "If Mo Xi chased after you, then there should be quite a few survivors from the Spiritual Treasure sect."

Jiang Lingzhu looked confused. "What do you mean?" she asked. "Since Mo Xi went after us, An Ying and her group should have been targeted by Yu Tong. She's even more terrifying than Mo Xi. How can you be sure that An Ying will make it here alive?"

"Because Yu Tong went after Yuan Feng and Yun Song," Nie Tian said with a calm and relaxed tone. "After killing them, that witch… targeted me next. Without her in the picture, those handful of Blood sect disciples couldn't have possibly killed An Ying and Pan Tao all by themselves."

"What? Yu Tong tried to kill you?!" Jiang Lingzhu was greatly shocked. "How did you make it here alive?"

Nie Xian was also taken aback, his expression flickering as he looked over at Nie Tian.

Unlike the Mystic Mist sect disciples, they had personally witnessed Yu Tong's formidable power. Even to this day, they would still tremble with fear upon hearing her name.

It was safe to say that it was because of Yu Tong stepping into the Lesser Heaven stage that they had no other choice but to split up and flee the battlefield.

Yu Tong had crushed their defenses practically single-handedly!

If such a frightening Yu Tong had locked her gaze onto Nie Tian, it was practically impossible for him to survive.

At that time, Li Xi explained on Nie Tian's behalf, "It was only because Yu Tong had sustained injuries and lost her battle prowess after killing Yuan Feng and Yun Song that he managed to survive."

Jiang Lingzhu glanced at him, furrowed her beautiful brow, and said, "What do you know?!"

Li Xi looked confused.

Jiang Lingzhu looked over at Nie Tian, the suspicion clear on her face. "When we split up and fled, both Yuan Feng and Yun Song had sustained different degrees of injuries and consumed even more power than Yu Tong. They didn't have the slightest bit of fighting spirit. However, when Yu Tong started to chase after everyone, she was at her peak. Considering Yu Tong's strength, I don't think that killing them would consume much of her energy."

"As for injuring Yu Tong…" She shook her head and said. "They wouldn't have a chance."

"Did you lie to us?" Zheng Bin's face turned grim as he asked Nie Tian. "Did you or did you not run into Yu Tong? Did she really chase after you?"

"Liar!" cried Han Xin, the girl with the oval-shaped face.

The other Mystic Mist sect disciples also started to cast unpleasant glances towards Nie Tian.

After a moment of hesitation, Jiang Lingzhu continued in a low voice, "Nie Tian, I really can't fathom your strength… I do believe that you would have been able to run away from Yu Tong if she hadn't broken through into the Lesser Heaven stage. But after stepping into the Lesser Heaven stage, she was indeed extremely deadly! It would be almost impossible for you to escape from her control and make it here alive."

Nie Tian smiled bitterly at heart, thinking to himself that it was indeed hard to cover up a lie without leaving the faintest trace.

There was no way that he would tell Jiang Lingzhu about how powerful the raging fist strike that he had picked up from the mysterious land was.

Therefore, after remaining silent for a while, he laughed somewhat embarrassedly and said, "Well, I did run into Yu Tong. However, she actually came across the Frost Python after she killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song. The Frost Python is the strongest spirit beast in the Green Illusion dimension, and during her fight with it she accidentally got injured."

He knew that the Frost Python had gotten out of the Green Illusion dimension and would probably never show up again. As a second grade spirit beast, it also possessed formidable power. Hence, blaming Yu Tong's injuries on it seemed the most reasonable.

"Oh, the Frost Python showed up. It makes sense then." It seemed that Jiang Lingzhu finally bought his story. "That Frost Python was really something. It somehow possessed exceptional intelligence. From the look of it, it won't be long before it enters the next level. It would be impossible for Yu Tong to single-handedly slaughter it without paying a heavy price."

"You should have told us the truth," Zheng Bin said coldly.

Voice full of disdain, Han Xin said, "So the real reason that you're alive is because Yu Tong consumed considerable energy after killing Yuan Feng and the Frost Python successively. I really believed that … you possessed outstanding power."

Li Xi joined the criticism. "By not telling us about the Frost Python, he hoped to fool us into thinking that he was capable and beyond ordinary."

Nie Tian, on the other hand, stroked his nose, and ignored their comments.

After that, Zheng Bin continuously inquired Jiang Lingzhu about the details of their battle with the Ghost sect and the Blood sect, wishing to get a full understanding of their strength, and at the same time, perhaps find a way to handle them.

After being mocked by the Mystic Mist sect disciples, Nie Tian didn't think it was a good time for him to ask about the Ghostly Fire Wolf's meat. Therefore, he just sat beside Nie Xian.

Although Nie Xian was full of questions, he chose not to ask Nie Tian at that time. Instead, he took out the spirit stone that the Cloudsoaring sect had bestowed upon him, and started recovering.

Before long, Jiang Lingzhu finished her conversation with Zheng Bin. She didn't immediately start recuperation, but rather pointed towards Nie Tian and said, "Come with me. I've got something to say to you."

Confused, Nie Tian froze for a moment. Seeing that Jiang Lingzhu was already headed towards the other side of the stone wall, he could only rise to his feet and silently catch up to her.

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Before long, Jiang Lingzhu stopped at a secluded location, and turned around to look at Nie Tian.

Hydrated, Jiang Lingzhu had finally restored most of her strength, and her bright eyes glittered with rays of intimidating light again.

Nie Tian was completely confused by the way she stared at him; it seemed that she was examining him from head to toe.

Nie Tian stopped and looked over his shoulder. He quickly realized that they had already reached the other side of the mountain, and that the trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect had disappeared from his sight.

"Well…" she said, then hesitated for a moment. "You killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song, didn't you?"

Nie Tian's heart skipped a beat, but his face didn't change a bit, then he asked in a surprised tone, "You're frightening me a bit, senior martial sister. Why would I possibly kill Yuan Feng and Yun Song?"

Jiang Lingzhu was the precious daughter of the Cloudsoaring sectmaster Jiang Zhisu, and a core disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect. Nie Tian, on the other hand, was from a subordinate clan, and might only possibly be accepted into the Cloudsoaring sect in the future. Therefore, due to seniority, he had to address Jiang Lingzhu as senior martial sister.

He had the confidence to become a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect by the age of 15, and thus he addressed her as such in advance.

"How could you dare to do such a thing?!" Jiang Lingzhu said with a glare. "It wouldn't be so bad if you only killed Yun Song, since he wasn't a big deal. But that Yuan Feng was viewed as a seeded disciple of the Grayvale sect. Many elders from the Grayvale sect believed he'd have a promising future. Once they find out about you killing him, even the Cloudsoaring sect won't be able to protect you."

Nie Tian looked hurt. "I didn't do it."

"You can fool Zheng Bin, but you can't fool me!" Jiang Lingzhu said, looking even more irritated.

"What proof do you have?" Nie Tian said with a composed expression.

Jiang Lingzhu stared meaningfully at him for a moment before bursting into laughter. "You… I can't believe you can still act composed. Nevertheless, I do admire you for being able to kill Yuan Feng and Yun Song with a inferior cultivation base, whether they were injured or not."

Nie Tian continued to quibble. "I really didn't."

"You still won't admit it!?" Jiang Lingzhu said with a snort. "Yuan Feng had a banner on him which is now in your pouch, right?"

Flabbergasted, Nie Tian was struck speechless.

"That banner is of the fourth level of Medium grade. When we were besieged by the Blood sect and Ghost sect, he fought with it. To this day, I still have a deep impression of the spiritual power fluctuations that banner emanates. I can't be wrong." Eyes wide, Jiang Lingzhu cursed in a low voice, "Idiot… a spiritual tool at that grade is by no means ordinary. Even if they're not activated by spiritual power, if not stored in special containers they will still give out faint fluctuations.

"I can cast a special incantation which allows me to perceive even the slightest fluctuations of spiritual power. It was when I got near you after my conversation with Zheng Bin that I was able to detect the faint fluctuations that came from the banner."

Without giving Nie Tian time to explain, Jiang Lingzhu continued analyzing, "According to you, it was Yu Tong who killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song. If that was the case, it would have been impossible for you to obtain Yuan Feng's banner. Furthermore, if you obtained it before Yu Tong arrived, Yuan Feng should have been alive, and how on earth would he be willing to give you that fourth level Medium grade spirit weapon?

"Only if he was already dead before Yu Tong appeared would you have been able to obtain that banner from him.

"So, you must have killed him before she showed up, and looted everything he owned and placed it into your pouch."

With these words, Jiang Lingzhu looked at him with a complacent smile on her face, as if to say, Let's see how you argue with that.

Realizing that Jiang Lingzhu had seen through his lies, Nie Tian put on a bitter smile. With a shrug, he said, "You're good, senior martial sister."

Jiang Lingzhu threw her head back. "Of course!"

Nie Tian tried to explain. "When Yuan Feng and Yun Song met me, they were like mad dogs, insistent on killing me. I had no other choice, so…"

"Alright, alright!" Jiang Lingzhu waved her hand to stop him and said, "I'm not interested in why you did it. I'm also tired of those two. You killed them. So be it. But you need to be careful and don't expose it. Remember, you have to insist that it was Yu Tong from the Blood sect who killed them."

Nie Tian nodded. "Oh, okay."

Jiang Lingzhu reached out her hand and said, "Gimme that banner and all of Yuan Feng's belongings. You can't carry them on you."

After knowing that the banner would release faint fluctuations and that it would probably put him in danger, Nie Tian unhesitatingly handed her the banner, as well as the map that he had looted from Yuan Feng.

Jiang Lingzhu took the banner and the map and pressed them against the jade bracelet on her wrist. In a split second, they both vanished.

Nie Tian's eyes suddenly lit up.

Jiang Lingzhu explained casually, "This is an item of a much higher grade than that cloth pouch of yours. If not for my father, I also wouldn't be able to have access to a bracelet of holding. The cloth pouch you used to store the banner and the map can't seal off the minute energy fluctuations of the banner. When you emerged from the Green Illusion dimension, the disciples of the Greyvale sect would have instantly detected the banner in your cloth pouch. If that happened, you wouldn't be able to talk your way out of the situation no matter what lies you came up with"

Nie Tian's expression flickered as he earnestly said, "Many thanks, senior martial sister."

"Sooner or later, you're going to be a member of the Cloudsoaring sect. It's a given that I help you." Jiang Lingzhu narrowed her eyes, and with a smile she said, "Also, you actually managed to kill Yuan Feng! Seriously, how many secrets do you have? Tell me, now."

Nie Tian quickly shook his head. "I really don't have any secrets."

"Hmm! Do you take me for an idiot or something?" Jiang Lingzhu glanced at him out of the corner of her eye. Huffing, she said, "The other day, my father came back from the Nie clan and said an extremely audacious kid dared to lie to his face. Later, I found out from Uncle Li Fan that it was you!"

Nie Tian bowed his head. "I'm being serious. How could I dare to lie to the sectmaster? I was only scared to the point that I couldn't remember much!"

"Save it. I've seen through you. You're the worst among the entire Nie clan!" Jiang Lingzhu seemed angry, but actually she wasn't. From her point of view, since Nie Tian was a member of the Nie clan, he would naturally become a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect in the future.

Such an audacious, fierce, and resourceful young man, who was currently only ten years old, could turn out to be a great fortune for the Cloudsoaring sect in the future.

She had already decided that if they could both make it out of the Green Illusion dimension alive, she would plead for her father to immediately accept him into the sect, even if it meant that they would have to break the rules.

She had the feeling that the Spiritual Treasure sect's An Shiyi, as well as An Ying and Pan Tao, also had high opinions of Nie Tian.

She feared that the Spiritual Treasure sect might beat her to it.

In that moment, Han Xin's voice echoed out from the other side of the mountain. "People from the Spiritual Treasure sect! People from the Spiritual Treasure sect are here!"

"Alright, that's all I have to say," Jiang Lingzhu said in a low voice. "I'll return the banner to you when you come to the Cloudsoaring sect."

"Thank you, senior martial sister," Nie Tian said sincerely.

He understood that if it weren't for Jiang Lingzhu keeping that banner in her bracelet of holding, then when he left the Green Illusion dimension later on, it was very likely that the Grayvale sect would expose his lies, and subsequently, bring fatal disaster upon him.

He was quite smart, however, he knew nothing about high grade spiritual tools and special containers, and because of that, almost fell into a huge trap.

After unveiling the truth, Jiang Lingzhu didn't blame him for killing Yuan Feng and Yun Song. Instead, she actually helped him to cover it up. He would take that to heart.

"Let's go and see who's returned," said Jiang Lingzhu.

Nie Tian nodded. Without further ado, they returned to the campsite where everyone else was waiting.

"Nie Tian! You're still alive!" Upon catching sight of him, Pan Tao immediately rushed forward gave him an amiable thump on the chest. "I thought you were dead!" Redness could be seen in Pan Tao's eyes. Clearly, he was in a very emotional state.

No one in the Spiritual Treasure sect admired Nie Tian more than he did. He knew about Nie Tian's exceptional abilities, and considered him as a fellow fighter.

When Nie Tian left despite everything, Pan Tao was the one who had exerted all means to persuade him to stay, and after failing, he hoped that nothing would happen to Nie Tian.

After finding that Pan Tao, An Ying, Zheng Rui, and Jiang Miao were all safe and sound, Nie Tian gave a heartfelt smile. "Hahaha, it's nice that everyone is fine."

"Not everyone." An Ying's eyes dimmed. "The four of us are the only survivors. Tong Hao, Guo Qi, and the others are all dead."

Upon hearing the bad news, Nie Tian heaved a sigh and fell into silence.

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The trial takers from the three sects waited silently by the Secret Dimension Gate.

Unfortunately, no other survivors arrived in the following days.

It was only half a month away from the conclusion of the Green Illusion dimension trial. Logically speaking, if there were other survivors, they would have arrived already.

Even though no one said anything, everyone was sure that those who hadn't arrived had most likely been killed by the Ghost sect and the Blood sect.

During that period of time, Nie Tian couldn't obtain enough spirit beast meat to cultivate at a high speed.

His daily allotted portion of spirit beast meat wasn't even one tenth of what he had gotten in the past. He wasn't even able to get enough to sate his hunger.

Han Xin took small bites of the spirit beast meat in her hand as she glared at Nie Tian. "It's all because of that Nie Tian," she said. "If he hadn't eaten so much earlier, we wouldn't be left with so little rations of food now."

The other trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect also glowered at Nie Tian while roasting the spirit beast meat.

Sitting beside Pan Tao, Jiang Lingzhu, and their group, Nie Tian pretended that he hadn't heard their whispers.

The spirit beast meat the Mystic Mist sect had brought to this place was originally more than enough to support them until the gate reopened, so when Nie Tian had requested spirit beast meat earlier, Zheng Bin wasn't stingy at all and had accommodated his need as much as possible.

However, with the arrival of Jiang Lingzhu, Nie Xian, An Ying, and the others, food stores immediately ran low.

Due to the pursuit of the Ghost sect and the Blood sect, Jiang Lingzhu, An Ying, and the others were forced to travel light, and as a result most of their spirit beast meat had been discarded along the way.

Although Jiang Lingzhu possessed a bracelet of holding, due to her lack of experience, she hadn't thought to stock up on food.

The food that they had been carrying had been consumed long before they arrived at the gate.

Furthermore, there weren't any spirit beasts near the Secret Dimension Gate, and they didn't dare to travel too far to hunt, for fear the Blood sect and the Ghost sect might launch an assault on them. Therefore, they had no choice but to ask for food from the Mystic Mist sect.

Yet, Nie Tian alone had devoured a large proportion of the Mystic Mist sect's meat stock during the past few days.

There was still half a month left until the Secret Dimension Gate would open, and unfortunately, they were already seeing the bottom of the spirit beast meat storage.

Without a better solution, they could only eat less and live frugally, hoping that they could rough it out till the day the gate was reopened.

However, whenever the Mystic Mist sect disciples felt starving, they would think of Nie Tian, the "bottomless pit".

In the same way, whenever it came time to distribute food, they would stare at Nie Tian resentfully, and whisper curses.

Knowing that he wouldn't win in an argument, Nie Tian completely ignored their grumbling and pretended he heard nothing.

Grrr.

After swallowing a small piece of spirit beast meat, a loud sound rumbled out from Nie Tian's belly. With a bitter expression, he rubbed his belly and murmured, "Just hang in there for a few more days."

Now that they had a food shortage, Nie Tian was being rationed just as much as everyone else.

Even those who had small appetites couldn't get full, not to mention him.

At this moment, Jiang Miao, who was sitting next to Nie Tian, handed her ration of spirit beast meat to him. "Here, take it," she whispered. "I don't eat much, and I'm not hungry anyway.

"Well, look what we have here!" Jiang Lingzhu said with a taunting laugh.

An Ying glanced over, but said nothing as she quietly went back to her share.

Pan Tao chuckled.

Jiang Miao's face immediately flushed. Embarrassed, she lowered her head, not daring to look at Nie Tian.

Nie Tian froze for a moment, looking at Jiang Miao, confused. Soon, he noticed that the baby-faced Jiang Miao was clearly thinner than before.

Nie Tian didn't reached out to grab the meat, but rather stood up and said, "Thank you, but actually I'm not that hungry. I'll go take a look in the vicinity to see if I can find stuff to eat."

"You can't go out there!" Jiang Miao replied hastily. "It's too dangerous!"

A bit farther away, Nie Xian's face grew grim. "Don't do it, Nie Tian. People from the Blood sect and the Ghost sect could show up at any moment. If you accidentally run into those devils, I'm afraid you won't be able to return to us."

"It's alright, I won't go far," Nie Tian promised. "If anything comes up, I'll return immediately."

Pan Tao rose to his feet. "I'm a little bored myself. I'll go with you."

"Me, too," said Jiang Lingzhu, standing up and grinning. "I could use some walking and stretching."

Their conversation and actions were immediately noticed by Zheng Bin, who came over and asked about the situation.

After realizing what they planned to do, Zheng Bin turned to Jiang Lingzhu, expression dour as he said, "No one knows when the disciples of the Ghost sect and Blood sect will appear, or how many people they have. If you all go, we'll fall short on battle power. If by chance the Ghost sect and Blood sect raid us while you're gone, I'm afraid we won't be able to hold our own."

With a shrug, Jiang Lingzhu sat back down. "Alright then, I'll stay."

Inwardly, she knew that Zheng Bin's words made sense; if she left the crowd at this time, it would put her, Zheng Bin, and everyone else in danger. Therefore, she looked at the bigger picture and chose to stay.

"What about us?" Pan Tao asked. He didn't look very happy, and was apparently disgruntled at being controlled by Zheng Bin.

Zheng Bin's gaze shifted between Pan Tao and Nie Tian, and after a moment of hesitation, he said, "If it's just the two of you, I'm okay with it."

Pan Tao let out a cold harrumph. "Are you saying that we don't matter?"

"I'm not looking for an argument," Zheng Bin replied. "But I hope you two will take my advice and stay put. It would be better for everyone."

"Sorry," Pan Tao replied. "I don't like being told what to do." With that, he turned and left.

Nie Tian smiled and caught up with him.

…

Meanwhile…

Seven disciples of the Ghost sect and the Blood sect, under the leadership of Yu Tong and Mo Xi, were standing on a pile of dried bones. As for Yu Tong, she was in the middle holding the Blood Searching Compass.

After a moment passed, she put it away. Her beautiful eyebrows slightly furrowed as she said, "Sixteen people, only five hundred meters away from us. Those who escaped from the palm of our hands should have merged with those from the Mystic Mist sect. They're right at the Secret Dimension Gate, waiting for it to reopen. We only have half a month left."

"Sixteen?" Mo Xi grinned. "Last time we ran into them at the border of the desert, they had more people. Didn't we slaughter many of them and send the rest fleeing? What are you hesitating over, Yu Tong? You've broken through into the Lesser Heaven stage. Who could match your strength?"

Heart seething with hatred, Yu Tong murmured to herself, "There's one…"

She took a deep breath, and a blood-colored light flashed in her pupils, "Seven against sixteen. We're too outnumbered. In order to be safe… I'm going to use the Earth Web!"

"The Earth Web!" Mo Xi and the others exclaimed at the same time, looking at her with faces full of disbelief.

With a grim expression, Mo Xi said, "The Earth Web is a dangerous forbidden technique. Only Qi warriors with Heaven stage or higher cultivation bases should be able to use it. Plus, even if a Heaven stage Qi warrior were to use the Earth Web, that person would inevitably sustain a vital injury afterwards! You just entered the Lesser Heaven stage. You won't be able to use it. And you shouldn't exert yourself!"

"I can wield it with the help of the Blood Bead," Yu Tong said firmly, as she took out a eye-shaped, blood-colored bead from her bracelet of holding.

"Nie Tian!" she bellowed inwardly.

A Blood sect teenager said anxiously, "Senior martial sister, even if you manage to use the Earth Web with the Blood Bead's help, you'll suffer from the backlash yourself."

"Yu Tong, you're very important to your sect," Mo Xi continued, "much more important than the result of this trial. I hope you understand this. I've gone on missions with you before. You've always been rational and don't force yourself beyond your limits. I bet you know that if your sect learns about you using the Earth Web to kill those guys, and hurting yourself in the process, they will punish you instead of rewarding you, right?

"What happened to you? Some of them truly infuriated you, didn't they? How come you're so reckless now?"

"You're in no place to criticize me for my decisions!" Yu Tong lashed out.

She didn't give Mo Xi or others the opportunity to say more before suddenly pressing her hand onto her bracelet of holding. The next moment, several buckets of blood flew out of it and poured onto the ground beneath her.

In a flash, an intense, bloody reek filled the air, as a scarlet blood aura gradually emitted from within her.

Under the influence and control of her Blood Bead, the enormous amount of blood seeped into the ground and extended out in every direction like veins as they closed in on Zheng Bin and the others.

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After leaving the campsite, Nie Tian and Pan Tao randomly picked a direction and walked for a period of time before stopping.

Staring off into the distance, Pan Tao said, "If we want the food from the Mystic Mist Palace to last until the Secret Dimension Gate opens, everyone will have to go hungry in the following days. It's partly our fault, too. We were just focused on getting here as quickly as possible, and tossed away a lot of food along the way."

Smiling, Nie Tian said, "Well, actually it's because of me. Before you guys showed up, Zheng Bin believed that their food supply was more than enough, so he let me have as much as I wanted. He never thought you'd be in such a sorry situation, and arrive empty-handed."

Nie Tian didn't have much of an opinion of Zheng Bin, either good or bad.

After spending a while with the trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect, he came to realize that the atmosphere among them was extremely harmonious under his leadership.

Moreover, Zheng Bin wasn't a stingy man. Otherwise, he wouldn't have accommodated Nie Tian's request for such a large amount of food.

"Yep, although I haven't worked with Zheng Bin before, I heard that his reputation was pretty good." Pan Tao laughed. "Although, he clearly doesn't think much of the two of us, considering that he agreed for us to leave the group."

"Hahaha, it's not that big a deal. As long as we can find things to eat and keep everyone from starving, it'll count as us repaying his kindness." With these words, Nie Tian gradually closed his eyes, and unleashed his powerful psychic awareness to detect the signs of life in the vicinity.

Pan Tao saw what Nie Tian was doing, and stopped talking.

A while later, Nie Tian opened his eyes and shook his head. "There aren't any living beings nearby. Let's switch to another location."

"Okay."

The two of them roamed in the vicinity of the Secret Dimension Gate. From time to time, Nie Tian would use his psychic power to scan the area for fluctuations of life.

Unfortunately, there seemed to be no spirit beasts in the vicinity.

They switched from place to place, searching for signs of life, but they still couldn't find anything.

Once again, Nie Tian probed about with his psychic power, eyes closed. It was at this point that he suddenly detected unusual fluctuations of Qi and blood coming from the deepest parts of the earth.

He suddenly became enlivened, assuming that there was a spirit beast similar to the Lurker Lizard, hiding somewhere in the depths of the earth. He immediately gathered his psychic awareness and sent it underground to search for it.

As soon as he did, he found that there were countless blood streams slowly flowing deep under the ground they were standing on.

The strange thing was that he felt somehow familiar with those blood streams…

"They're from Yu Tong!"

All of a sudden, his expression changed as he concentrated even harder to sense the movements in the earth.

He could clearly detect that there weren't any soul fluctuations in the blood streams, yet they were extending slowly and furtively towards the place where Zheng Bin and the others were.

They interweaved with each other, forming a dense and enormous web that seemed to be able to trap all living beings.

His eyes snapped open as he turned to Pan Tao, who was glancing around to keep guard, and said, "Something's wrong! There are countless blood streams flowing in the deepest parts of the earth! I believe that those blood streams were released by Yu Tong! And their target is Zheng Bin and the others!"

"Countless blood streams from Yu Tong?" Surprised by Nie Tian's words, Pan Tao started to ponder as his brow slowly furrowed.

Moments later, Pan Tao's expression flickered as he exclaimed, "The Earth Web! It's the Blood sect's forbidden technique: Earth Web! People from the Blood sect and Ghost sect can't be far from us! They've already locked onto us with the Blood Searching Compass! Damn! Nie Tian, we have to go back, now!"

Confused, Nie Tian asked, "What's an Earth Web?"

"There's no time for that," Pan Tao replied. "We have to get back as soon as possible!"

Nie Tian was affected by Pan Tao's nervousness and said, "Don't tell them that I sensed the abnormality underground. Please help me keep it a secret."

Pan Tao nodded. "I understand."

Even before they entered the Green Illusion dimension, Pan Tao had guessed that it was because of some hidden agenda that An Shiyi arranged for a child from the Nie clan to participate in the trial with them.

After An Ying repeatedly implied for him and Zheng Rui to test out Nie Tian, he became even more certain about that.

However, deep down, he had already considered Nie Tian as an indispensable battle companion. In order to not lose Nie Tian, he knew perfectly well what to do.

Before long, the two returned to the area where everyone was gathered.

"Any findings? Did you find any spirit beasts?" Seeing that they returned so early, Han Xin from the Mystic Mist sect prompted the question in a ridiculing tone, "I've told you already. There simply aren't any spirit beasts in the area. Yet, you had to go and put yourselves and everyone in danger. Are you happy now?"

"Shut up!" Pan Tao let out a cold shout.

Han Xin instantly exploded with anger. "Who are you talking to? We provided you with food and water. And now you're yelling at me?!"

Many other trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect also sprung to their feet, glowering at Pan Tao, as if they were ready to fight the moment the situation worsened.

Zheng Bin's expression turned grim. "Pan Tao, what are you doing? You should apologize to Han Xin!"

"If apologizing can solve the problem, then I'll apologize!" With a dour expression, Pan Tao didn't bother to look at Zheng Bin, but rather turned to An Ying and Jiang Lingzhu, and said, "We're in big trouble. Not only are the Blood sect and Ghost sect nearby, they've also used the Blood sect's forbidden technique, Earth Web!"

"What?!" Jiang Linghzu blurted in astonishment. "The Earth Web!?"

"How could that be possible?!" An Ying exclaimed. "Yu Tong just entered the Lesser Heaven stage. She doesn't have enough strength to use the Earth Web yet."

Zheng Bin's expression changed drastically, and he stopped speaking out for Han Xin. "The Blood sect's forbidden technique, Earth Web?! Are you sure that it's the Earth Web? How did you discover it?"

At that time, Nie Tian, who came back with Pan Tao, secretly grew worried.

As group leaders, Jiang Lingzhu, An Ying, and Zheng Bin were core disciples of the Cloudsoaring sect, Spiritual Treasure sect and Mystic Mist sect.

They had all learned about the Ghost sect and Blood sect's forbidden techniques from their respective sect elders.

Obviously, they knew what the Earth Web meant for them.

Upon hearing that the Earth Web had been set up by the Blood Sect, their expressions all changed drastically. This was sufficient proof of how terrifying the Earth Web was.

"Pan Tao, are you sure that it's the Earth Web?" An Ying asked with a straight face.

By this point, everyone, including Han Xin, who previously bickered with him, glanced over towards Pan Tao, faces pale with anxiety and terror.

Pan Tao glanced at Nie Tian. Seeing that Nie Tian's face was calm as usual, without the slightest doubt, he nodded vigorously. "I'll use my head to vouch for it!"

Once these words were uttered, An Ying's doubts vanished. She immediately said, "We need to locate people from the Ghost sect and Blood sect before the Earth Web forms! We can't just sit and wait for death!"

"That's the only option!" Jiang Lingzhu agreed.

Soon, Zheng Bin also realized how dangerous the situation was, and nodded. "Everyone spread out and search for the traces of the Blood sect and Ghost sect. Once you have an idea of where they are, immediately shout out to inform the others. Since Yu Tong has only entered the Lesser Heaven stage recently, even with the help of a powerful spiritual tool, the coverage of her Earth Web won't be very large!

"She's definitely not far from us! As long as we can locate her and attack her, and stop her from fully forming the Earth Web, then we'll be able to avoid being held down by it!"

An Ying said decisively, "Let's spread out and find them!"

"Nie Tian!" Pan Tao said. "You go with me. I've got a special tool that can detect the movements of the Earth Web! We have the highest chance of finding them!" With that, he suddenly bolted away, not wishing to waste even one second.

He knew very well that he had to separate Nie Tian from the others, so that Nie Tian wouldn't expose his magical sensing ability.

"Alright!" Nie Tian rushed out after him.

In a moment, the two of them were the first ones to run off into the distance.

"He's got a special tool…" Zheng Bin's expression flickered as an idea struck him. Then he called out, "Since he can locate them, there's no need for us to split up! Let's just follow them!"

"Let's go!"

As of this moment, trial takers from the three sects had all discarded their former differences, and stopped bothering about Pan Tao's unkind words. Like arrows, they shot towards the direction that Pan Tao and Nie Tian had left in.

It only took a while for Nie Tian to catch up with Pan Tao. Every once in awhile, he would release his psychic awareness to determine the source of the blood streams.

Pan Tao, on the other hand, kept calling out to the trial takers behind them, "Keep your distance from us! Your fleshy aura will disrupt my searching device!"

Upon hearing his words, the trial takers, who had been gaining on them, gradually slowed down their pace to keep a sizable distance from them.

After that, Nie Tian no longer worried about being discovered by the others. Using his psychic awareness to follow the blood streams, they gradually closed in on the source: Yu Tong.

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Yu Tong stood in the middle of the pile of dried up bones, holding the Blood Bead in her hand, casting her spell silently. A thick blood mist wreathed her curvaceous body.

Blood strings shot out in every direction from beneath her feet, spreading out into the blood mist around her, causing scarlet-colored ancient scripts to appear within the aura that had been enveloping her.

Moments ago, ten wooden barrels had flown out of her bracelet of holding, and had already been emptied onto the ground.

The fresh blood within those wooden barrels was from second grade spirit beasts, and had also been meticulously refined through the use of the Blood sect's secret magics.

Yu Tong used the Blood Bead to control the movement of the blood she had sent underground, compelling the blood streams to flow through the deepest part of the earth, towards the location of the Secret Dimension Gate.

Face serious, Mo Xi, together with five disciples of the Blood sect and Ghost sect, were waiting for her to fully form the Earth Web.

PUFF!

All of a sudden, Yu Tong, who was in the midst of casting her spell, spit out a mouthful of fresh blood.

The moment the blood made contact with the blood mist that had been swirling around her, it seemed to have become weightless, floating in the midst of the blood mist.

One after another, the bloody characters were like shoals of flesh-eating fish that had sniffed out an bloody smell, converging and boring their way to the mouthful of fresh blood.

In a second, the blood became translucent and sparkling, like a blood diamond, emanating deadly but beautiful lights.

"Don't push yourself too far, Yu Tong!" Mo Xi exclaimed anxiously.

Eyes narrowed, Yu Tong glanced coldly at Mo Xi with her devilish, bloody pupils, but didn't open her mouth to speak.

WHOOSH!

The Blood Searching Compass suddenly flew out of her bracelet of holding, landing on the palm of her unoccupied hand.

A blood-colored aura emerged from the tips of her slender fingers, pouring into the Blood Searching Compass, lighting up its dark-red surface.

The blood spots, which represented the fluctuations of the flesh of living beings, were like stars in the night sky, sparkling into appearance on the compass one after the other.

Yu Tong's eyes gradually lay on the compass. Instantly, the expression on her incomparably gorgeous face changed drastically.

"They're coming towards us!"

Hearing her words, every one of the Blood sect and Ghost sect disciples were seized with nervousness, and immediately looked towards the surface of the Blood Searching Compass.

Numerous blood spots were like tiny stars, slowly advancing on where they were standing.

"How did they find us?" Mo Xi asked angrily in a low voice.

A Blood sect disciple said anxiously, "Dammit! Senior martial sister is casting the spell, and now she's reached the most crucial moment. She definitely cannot be disturbed!"

"I'm afraid there isn't enough time for the Earth Web to fully form."

Begrudging hatred could be seen in Yu Tong's eyes.

After a moment of hesitation, she took out three thumb-sized medicinal pills from her bracelet of holding.

The color of the pills was dark-red, just like the Blood Searching Compass. The moment they showed up, the bloody scent surrounding Yu Tong became even more pronounced.

"Blood Strengthening Pills!" Mo Xi was shocked.

"No!" Other Blood sect disciples yelled to stop her.

However, before they could do anything about it, Yu Tong had already swallowed them with lightning speed.

Suddenly, something sinister could be seen on her beautiful face.

At that moment, the Blood Bead she held tightly in her hand, as well as the blood she had spat out, simultaneously released an astonishing, bright, blood-colored light.

"We can only strike in advance!" Yu Tong bellowed, wrath filling her voice.

…

Also at this moment, Nie Tian retracted his psychic awareness and quietly pointed in a direction for Pan Tao. "They're over there. I can't be wrong."

Pan Tao felt assured before asking in a low voice, "No need to hide it from the others?"

Nie Tian briefly nodded his head.

Pan Tao stopped for a moment, as he turned his head around, facing Zheng Bin, Jiang Lingzhu, and the others, and then pointed towards the direction that Nie Tian had indicated, shouting at the top of his lungs, "I'm certain that they are over there!"

"Hurry!"

"Go stop the witch's spell!"

"We can't let her finish the Earth Web!"

Everyone shouted out together, with the loudest being Zheng Bin, who couldn't wait any longer and suddenly surpassed Pan Tao and Nie Tian. He was the first to dash towards the location of Yu Tong.

Li Xi from the Mystic Mist sect called out energetically, "Kill the witch while she's casting the spell! As long as she's dead, the others won't be a threat!"

After Yu Tong's location had been pinpointed, everyone grew excited, believing that as long as they could seize the opportunity to kill Yu Tong, they would then be able to eliminate the other Ghost sect and Blood sect disciples.

As of this moment, the trial had already lost its priority. As long as they could kill Yu Tong, Mo Xi, and the others, they would definitely receive handsome rewards from the four sects.

With bloodshot eyes, everyone shouted, "Kill them! Kill them all!"

FIZZ! FIZZ!

All of a sudden, strange sounds resounded from the depths of the ground.

In the next moment, countless blood strings, each one as thin as a hair, pierced out of the ground.

It seemed as if rivers of blood were flowing out from under their feet. The pungent smell of blood suddenly pervaded the air.

A strange, bloody magnetic field enveloped everyone as soon as those scarlet blood strings shot out from the earth.

It was at that moment that Nie Tian sensed that his blood seemed to have stopped flowing.

A strange, indescribably painful feeling burst out of every part of his body, making him feel as though he had sustained a heavy blow and couldn't move a bit.

Astonished, he looked over towards An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, Pan Tao, and the others. Their faces all changed drastically as panic filled their eyes.

He instantly realized that everyone on his side was just like him, influenced by the bloody magnetic field and held down by a strange force!

FIZZ! FIZZ!

One after another, numerous blood strings pierced towards everyone, like sharp steel needles.

Li Xi was the one who yelled the loudest. Nie Tian looked over and saw him staring at the approaching blood strings with wide eyes and a flushed face, yet completely incapable of moving.

PUFF! PUFF! PUFF!

Three strands of blood penetrated into his chest, and shot out of his back.

Li Xi's wide eyes lost their radiance as he died instantly.

FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ!

A dozen more blood strings shot out from the earth, jabbing towards Nie Tian's abdomen.

"NO!"

Nie Tian let out an explosive roar, like a wild beast, and his heart, which had previously seemed to stop beating, finally began to pump violently again.

Moments later, he discovered that his previously stopped blood flow had returned to normal.

SHEW!

With a swift shift of his body, he narrowly dodged the blood strings that were piercing towards him.

PUFF! PUFF! PUFF!

After his narrow escape from death, Nie Tian glanced around and saw three more disciples of the Mystic Mist sect pierced through the torso by the blood strings.

"The witch has unleashed the Blood Constraint in advance!"

Eyes extremely wide and red, Zheng Bin roared out as though he had gone mad, while tears seemed to be splashing out from his eyes.

After breaking free from the strange forces that had been affecting his blood, Nie Tian suddenly heard Jiang Miao's cry. He turned to his side and saw four strands of scarlet light stabbing towards the back of Jiang Miao's neck.

"S-save me!"

Without thinking, Nie Tian dashed to Jiang Miao's side at the fastest speed possible, and pulled her away before the strands of scarlet light could pierce into her neck.

"Save those around you!" Jiang Lingzhu cried out.

An Ying, Pan Tao, and Zheng Bin, who had also recovered their ability to move, rushed through the battlefield to help their fellow fighters to break free from the Blood Constraint.

After saving Jiang Miao, Nie Tian studied the battlefield with rapt attention and a grim face, and found that everyone who had reached the ninth level of Qi Refining had already managed to break free from the Blood Constraint.

He was the only one who was at the eighth level that managed to struggle free.

In a flash, Li Xi and three other trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect had died by the countless blood strings.

Only five of the Mystic Mist sect disciples were lucky enough to survive with Zheng Bin, An Ying, and Jiang Lingzhu's help.

With a gaze filled with praise, An Ying looked deeply at Pan Tao, and said, "Pan Tao! Your judgment was correct! This really is the Blood sect's forbidden technique: Earth Web! We're lucky you detected it beforehand! Otherwise, if the Earth Web was fully formed, none of us would be able to escape from the Blood Constraint!"

It was exactly because the Earth Web was not yet fully condensed that Nie Tian, Jiang Lingzhu, and others had only been affected by it for a moment.

Once it was fully formed, everyone who was enveloped within it would be bound by it permanently, except those whose cultivation level was higher than the person who had cast the spell.

However, the one who had cast this spell was the witch, Yu Tong, a Qi warrior at the Lesser Heaven stage!

In the entire Green Illusion dimension, she possessed the highest cultivation base. Not a single person was a match for her, let alone higher than her.

This meant that once the Earth Web was completely formed, everyone enveloped within would die tragically by her hands!

"Thank you for saving me again," Jiang Miao said timidly.

Just as Nie Tian was about to reply, An Ying yelled, "Those who have escaped from the Blood Constraint, help people around you. The steel-needle-like blood strings haven't disappeared!"

FIZZ! FIZZ!

Just as she had expected, the strands of blood-colored light, after missing their targets, circled back and locked onto new targets, stabbing once more towards the crowd.

The sky was filled with the interweaving scarlet strings. They took the shape of a blood net in one second, and then spread out, turning into countless blood needles in the next second.

"Yee?!"

All their attention concentrated, everyone was preparing to defend against the attacks of the blood strings, when their expressions suddenly flickered.

FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ!

To their surprise, all of the countless blood strings took a sudden turned and headed towards Nie Tian.

At this moment, it seemed that Nie Tian had become their one and only target.

Everyone was still poised and uptight, only to be flabbergasted by the scene in front of their eyes.

They didn't understand why Nie Tian was such a big threat to the extent that he had actually attracted the raging attacks of the all the blood strings to himself.

"What… What did he do to Yu Tong?"

Knowing that Yu Tong was the controller of the scarlet blood strings, the same question simultaneously surfaced in the hearts of everyone present.

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As the sky-filling, scarlet blood strings pierced madly towards Nie Tian, Yu Tong suddenly let out a hysterical screech.

"Nie Tian! You're DEAD!!!"

Knowing that her position had already been exposed, Yu Tong acted even more boldly, and with a screech, she vented out the enormous hatred she had towards him.

By now, Nie Tian and the others were only a few hundred meters away from her.

Those who had escaped the attacks of the blood threads suddenly experienced excruciating pain in their eardrums, as if they had been stabbed by Yu Tong's screech. Their expressions flickered as they looked at Nie Tian with an extremely strange gaze.

Jiang Lingzhu was confused. "What did this guy do to piss off Yu Tong so much that she abandoned everyone else just to kill him?"

By this point, all the trial takers who hadn't reached the ninth level of Qi Refining had also broken free from the Blood Constraint.

Jiang Miao's blood flow had also returned to normal.

Nie Tian cursed inwardly, "God damn! This woman has gone insane!"

Seeing the innumerable blood strings shifting between different patterns, while simultaneously chasing after him and him alone, he could only move as fast as he could to dodge them.

The sky-filling blood strings were like sharks that had caught a whiff of the smell of blood, swimming about in midair and chasing after Nie Tian.

The other trial takers, on the other hand, had been blankly staring at Nie Tian, who was constantly dodging the blood strings that were hot on his tail.

Jiang Lingzhu was the first to snap back to reality and said, "What are we waiting for? Come on, we've got to help him!"

Upon these words, all the trial takers rushed to Nie Tian's side, and made every effort to cut the blood strings.

However, they were so numerous and so tough that even though everyone drew power from their spiritual tools, it was still hard to cut even one blood thread.

On the other side, Mo Xi from the Ghost sect called out with a dour expression on his face, "Yu Tong, what are you doing?!"

One of the Blood sect disciples stared at Yu Tong as if she were a ghost. "Senior martial sister, what's happening? I've never seen you hate a person so much! You haven't suffered a backlash from the Earth Web and fallen into a state of Qi deviation, have you? Using all the blood to build up an Earth Web just to attack a single person. Isn't it a bit irrational?"

The other disciples from the Blood sect and Ghost sect also felt puzzled, looking over towards Yu Tong, whose eyes were now filled with insanity.

They couldn't fathom what Nie Tian had done to anger Yu Tong so much that the always rational Yu Tong turned into such a mad and violent person?

"It's my problem! I don't have to explain it to you!" Yu Tong clenched her teeth, the bloody light in her eyes blazing like a torch.

With these words, she took out another two Blood Strengthening Pills from her bracelet of holding, and recklessly swallowed them to stimulate her potential.

"You're insane!" Mo Xi's face turned pale with fright.

He knew perfectly clear that Blood Strengthening Pills could give a short and violent boost to a Blood sect disciple's strength, however the burden it placed on the body was too great. Every Blood Strengthening Pill she consumed would inflict a huge amount of damage to herself.

In order to form the Earth Web as soon as possible, Yu Tong had already swallowed three Blood Strengthening Pills, which was the limit of a Lesser Heaven stage Qi warrior.

With another two, it wouldn't be long before she sustained severe damage and collapsed, losing all battle power.

Admittedly, the Blood Strengthening Pills could enhance her Qi and power as well as the potential of her fleshy body to an astonishing extent, in a very short period time. However, the price… would be half a year of secluded meditation!

As of this moment, Mo Xi gradually realized why Yu Tong had insisted on fighting despite their significant disadvantage in numbers. The reason she spared no cost to gather power and form the Earth Web was definitely not just to fulfill the trial mission.

Her true motive was to kill Nie Tian!

The trial and the mission had already lost all meaning. The only thing in her head now was the desire to slaughter Nie Tian!

"Nie Tian!" With a loud and furious roar, Mo Xi bolted forward from Yu Tong's side. "All of you, stay here and protect Yu Tong!"

FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ!

Countless scarlet blood threads flew about in the empty sky, like blood-colored meteors that plummeted towards Nie Tian.

The dreadful smell of blood suddenly surged up in the air around Nie Tian, making him want to vomit with every breath he took.

At the same time, a bloody magnetic field seemed to have gradually formed again, identical to the previous one.

"It's the Blood Constraint again?"

Nie Tian's expression changed slightly as he realized that Yu Tong had given up on binding everyone with the Earth Web. Instead, she was now concentrating all of her power on him alone.

Apparently, Yu Tong no longer cared about the others' lives; she only wished to kill Nie Tian before he could leave the Green Illusion dimension.

Jiang Lingzhu brandished her thin, dark-golden sword, slashing apart one blood string after another as she tried to approach Nie Tian. "Nie Tian! Be careful! That witch can't use the Blood Constraint to bind all of us since it wasn't completely formed. However, if she uses the Blood Constraint on you alone, it will still work."

However, there were simply too many blood strings chasing after Nie Tian. Even adding in An Ying and the others, the blood strings that they had destroyed weren't even ten percent of the total number.

WHOOSH!

In an instant, the spread-out blood strings once again interweaved with one another, morphing into a gigantic scarlet net.

The intersection point of the blood strings released brilliant, blood-colored light, and when the enormous scarlet net swooped towards Nie Tian, scarlet inscriptions appeared inside the mesh of the net.

It was at this very moment that Yu Tong bellowed from hundreds of meters away, her voice full of hatred, "Blood Constraint!!!"

Nie Tian, who was attempting to escape from the scarlet net, suddenly felt an abnormal change in his blood flow. Instantly, he was held down where he stood, no longer able to move a single step.

The scarlet web of blood seized the opportunity and swooped down, wrapping Nie Tian up.

Affected by the Blood Constraint, Nie Tian could only watch the net as it trapped him.

In the next moment, a heart-wrenching pain spread out from every single piece of flesh on him.

He instantly realized that the giant net was contracting unceasingly, as the numerous blood strings that constituted the net began to slice into his skin and flesh.

It felt like innumerable arrows piercing his heart. He could actually feel the blood strings cutting into his flesh and penetrating his veins.

His blood was being pulled at by a great suction force, streaming into those blood threads.

It seemed as if the countless blood strings had turned into bloodsucking leeches, drinking his blood greedily, and his robust physique gradually shriveled due to massive blood loss.

Pan Tao let out an explosive shout. "Nie Tian!"

As An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, and the others rushed over to help him, they were met with frantic attacks from the scattered blood strings that roamed around him.

After tearing apart a few blood strings, Zheng Bin suddenly stopped.

"He's totally trapped this time! Yu Tong is using the Blood Sect's blood refining art to refine his blood!"

Eyes fill with pity, he stared at Nie Tian and said calmly, "He's dead for sure. With our cultivation base, we won't be able to stop the blood refining spell. Instead of wasting our energy on him, we might as well track down the source of the spell, and kill that witch as quickly as we can, to stop her from hurting others."

Without waiting for the others to give their consent, Zheng Bin instructed the survivors from the Mystic Mist sect, "Follow me! Let's take advantage of this moment and kill that witch to avenge Nie Tian. Get her while she's distracted from using the blood refining spell!"

With these words, he abandoned Nie Tian and charged forward.

All the trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect took orders from him, thus upon hearing his orders, they could only look sadly towards Nie Tian before dashing off.

"Help him!" Pan Tao cried. "He can be saved!"

However, Zheng Bin and the others from the Mystic Mist sect simply ignored him.

Even An Ying looked deeply at Nie Tian, who was gradually wasting away, before shaking her head. "Zheng Bin is right," she said softly. "Nie Tian… won't make it. We shouldn't waste too much energy on him. Yu Tong is the crucial factor that determines whether we win or lose."

With these words, she also stopped chopping at the blood strings, and dashed after the Mystic Mist sect disciples.

Seeing her leaving, Zheng Rui also departed without uttering a word.

Only Jiang Lingzhu, Nie Xian, Jiang Miao, and the outraged Pan Tao stayed by Nie Tian's side, sparing no effort to slash the scarlet blood strings, still hoping to save his life.

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Unfortunately, the unyielding effort of Pan Tao and the other three didn't seem to be of much help to Nie Tian.

The countless blood strings were packed like dense, tenacious weeds, and they were also incomparably tough. Even if Zheng Bin and the others had helped, it would still be hard to cut apart all of them.

Besides, seeing that Nie Tian had no hope of surviving, Zheng Bin and the others had already left decisively.

Wrapped up in the Earth Web, Nie Tian was gradually drying up. Even his pupils… gradually turned empty and dark.

The blood strings, on the contrary, seemed to become increasingly thicker and brighter after absorbing more and more of his blood.

"Save him!" Jiang Miao sobbed. "Hurry and save him!" Her sharp sword slashed through the air as she spared not the slightest effort to cut apart the blood threads.

Nie Xian, who was also from the Nie clan, didn't say a word. His expression was grim as he hacked away like a machine.

From the look of it, he also believed that Nie Tian didn't have much time left, and he was only doing his best clear his conscience and remain guilt-free in the future.

Meanwhile, Jiang Lingzhu's face was filled with pity. In her opinion, if the outstanding Nie Tian died in the Green Illusion dimension, it would be a huge waste.

She planned to bring out all she had, and leave everything else to the heavens. Truthfully, she didn't hold her hopes very high either.

After all, she knew how terrifying the Blood sect's blood refining art was.

It was at this moment that the shouts of An Ying and Zheng Bin echoed out from not far away, as they met the angry Mo Xi halfway along their charge towards Yu Tong.

"Mo Xi!"

"You actually dare to come over!!"

"Kill Mo Xi first!"

The two parties immediately engaged in fierce battle.

Hearing the sounds of the battle, Jiang Lingzhu frowned and looked deeply at Nie Tian. With a sigh, she said, "We really are losing him."

By this time, Nie Tian already looked horrifically shriveled, as if he had been completely drained of blood and liquid.

At some point along the line, he had closed his eyes, and had even stopped breathing. Other than the faint heartbeat echoing out from his chest, he was no different from a dead man.

The blood strings, however, grew increasingly thicker and more radiant.

Face dour, Jiang Lingzhu shook her head. "Pan Tao, let's not wait any more. I also want to save him, but he's… he's dying. With our strength, we can't stop Yu Tong's blood refining art. If you really want to save him, kill Yu Tong, the spellcaster. That's the only way. If we can kill Yu Tong soon enough, perhaps… he'll still have a chance to live."

With bloodshot eyes, Pan Tao gritted his teeth and yelled, "Yu Tong! Let's kill her!"

"Yeah, let's go!" Nie Xian exclaimed.

Jiang Lingzhu also nodded her head. Finally, she chose not to waste more time, and led Pan Tao and Nie Xian to join Zheng Bin and the others.

By doing that, Jiang Lingzhu had actually declared Nie Tian's death in her heart.

She knew perfectly well that Nie Tian might only have half a minute to live, and there was absolutely no way that they could kill the Blood sect's Yu Tong in such a short period of time.

After Pan Tao, Nie Xian, and Jiang Lingzhu left, Jiang Miao was the only one who stayed by Nie Tian's side.

Jiang Miao had also stopped cutting away the blood strings. She just stood close to Nie Tian, trying her best to refrain from sobbing, as she stared blankly towards him.

She knew that her strength was limited. Even if she followed Pan Tao and the others, she probably wouldn't be able to provide much help.

She might as well just gaze at Nie Tian quietly before he died.

But then, Jiang Miao suddenly let out a soft cry, and covered her mouth. "Ah!"

After everyone had left, Nie Tian's eyes snapped open, and the desire to live suddenly shot out from within them!

THUMP THUMP!

His originally extremely weak heartbeat suddenly grew incomparably vigorous, and the desire to live in his eyes gradually turned into begrudging violence!

He was unwilling to die in such a place!

THUMP THUMP! THUMP THUMP THUMP!

As Nie Tian's heartbeat became increasingly strong, Jiang Miao watched him open his mouth, as if he were roaring soundlessly.

Wrath filled his face, as he seemed to be forcing something inside of him to burst out.

FIZZ! FIZZ!

For no apparent reason, the blood strings that had cut into Nie Tian's flesh suddenly started to twitch.

After absorbing Nie Tian's blood, they had become powerful and thick, but now they were shrinking down at a speed visible to the naked eye!

Nie Tian's shriveled body seemed like an inflating balloon, expanding rapidly!

ROOOOAR!

A berserk howl escaped from Nie Tian's mouth. He threw his head back and inhaled air in large gasps, as if he was going to swallow the entire sky into his belly.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

The mesh of the Blood Web which had trapped him, suddenly split apart, and the blood strings that had cut into his flesh seemed to have detected something, and attempted to retract from his body.

"This is…."

Jiang Miao, who was staring blankly at Nie Tian, didn't know what was happening. It seemed like those blood threads were scared of something.

Moments ago, the blood strings covering Nie Tian's entire body had been as thick as a finger, but now they suddenly shriveled down to their original size, and became as thin as a hair.

SHEW!

A blood string that had been strangling Nie Tian seemed to be pulled by a mysterious force, and suddenly disappeared into his neck!

Shock stretched across Jiang Miao's face.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

Seconds later, more blood strings, that had originally cut into Nie Tian's skin, disappeared into his flesh.

It was as if countless invisible hands were pulling every single one of the blood strings into Nie Tian's body.

Meanwhile, Jiang Miao was taken aback by the incredible scene, as she wondered what was happening to Nie Tian.

FIZZ! FIZZ!

The scarlet blood strings that hadn't cut into Nie Tian madly twisted while letting out shrieking sounds, as if they were trying to break away from Nie Tian.

At that moment, the previously savage and terrifying blood strings seemed to have seen a ghost, as they only wished to flee.

However, Nie Tian was still roaring and taking in large gulps of air.

With his inhalations, the blood strings that were attempting to break free from him seemed to be forcibly held down by an enormous magnet, and were stuck firmly to his body.

They seemed to be continuously tightening under the formidable suction, as they gradually cut into Nie Tian's skin.

However, after piercing into Nie Tian's skin, the blood strings seemed to slowly melt down and merge with his flesh.

The blood threads, which had previously bared their fangs and brandished their claws as they madly attacked everyone, were now screaming as they tried to struggle free at all costs.

However, as Nie Tian breathed, the blood threads seemed to be ruthlessly sucked inward and absorbed into his body, one by one.

Very quickly, not only did Nie Tian's body return to normal, but he also glowed with a red light, and seemed even stronger than before.

At the same time, an intense bloody scent spread out from him, making Jiang Miao, who was standing beside him, tremble in fear.

"What… What happened to you?" Jiang Miao asked timidly.

At this moment, a scarlet, bloody aura was unleashed from Nie Tian's eyes, which condensed and took form of two bloody, sharp swords.

He glanced at Jiang Miao and blurted, "Guard me and don't tell anyone about what you saw."

"Oh, okay." Jiang Miao replied hastily.

WHOOH! Nie Tian took a deep breath.

The last remaining blood strings around him were pulled into his body and forcibly absorbed.

By this point, the blood strings that Yu Tong had refined with the second grade spirit beasts' blood, had been completely absorbed into Nie Tian's flesh.

POOH!

It was also at that moment that Yu Tong, who was being guarded by the Ghost sect and Blood sect, suddenly coughed up a mouthful of blood, and passed out.

Upon seeing that Yu Tong went unconscious, the disciples from the Ghost sect and Blood sect immediately gave up on the idea of continuing to stay in the Green Illusion dimension, and their expressions changed drastically.

"Senior martial sister!"

"Yu Tong suffered from the backlash of the forbidden technique, Earth Web!"

"Dammit! From now on, she'll be of no help at all, and in fact, a big burden!"

"By now, our mission in the Green Illusion dimension has truly come to an end."

"Tell Mo Xi to retreat! Otherwise, we're all going to die here!"

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The moment they saw their strongest leader, Yu Tong, pass out, the disciples from the Ghost Sect and Blood Sect lost their fighting spirit.

They also shouted loudly to inform Mo Xi to return.

At this time, Mo Xi was still under siege, with numerous sinister and terrifying ghost shadows hovering around him, as he continuously attacked An Ying and the others.

Mo Xi originally planned to break through the defenses of An Ying and the others, and then kill Nie Tian. However, he quickly found out that he couldn't possibly accomplish the job single-handedly.

When he heard the urgent cries coming from behind him, he realized that Yu Tong had suffered from a backlash, and could no longer help them secure victory.

As a matter of fact, he had long since realized that, regardless of whether Yu Tong could kill Nie Tian or not, she wouldn't be able to quickly recover after consuming five Blood Strengthening Pills, and would inevitably drag them down.

"I'll kill you all next time!" Mo Xi bellowed, causing the sinister ghouls around him to suddenly expand, split up, and bite towards Zheng Bin and the others.

Mo Xi's figure flickered quickly, as if he had morphed into a weightless ghost, floating rapidly back to where he had come from.

When he rejoined his group, he saw that a disciple of the Blood Sect had already hefted Yu Tong onto his back.

Without even the slightest hesitation, Mo Xi gave the order and led the remaining disciples from the Ghost sect and Blood sect towards the glacier area.

"Let's go! "

Soon after he was gone, the ferocious ghouls that had been biting towards the crowd gradually turned fuzzy, and seconds later, vanished into thin air.

"Chase them down!" Zheng Bin said, gritting his teeth.

An Ying also called out, "The witch from the Blood sect must be in trouble. If not, Mo Xi would never retreat! Let's take the opportunity and kill them while Yu Tong can't fight, and avenge our fallen teammates!"

"Kill them all!"

They soon reached an agreement and ran after Mo Xi and his group, hoping to annihilate all the disciples of the Ghost sect and Blood sect in the Green Illusion dimension.

On the other hand, Jiang Miao was still staring at Nie Tian with a complicated look in her eyes.

Wordlessly, Nie Tian sat down on the ground, and closed his eyes. In the next moment, raging fluctuations of Qi and blood emerged from within him.

His skin continuously emanated a bloody aura, which was like a dense mist of blood that enveloped him, making him appear somewhat unfathomable.

He almost looked like a balloon, constantly inflating and deflating. He would grow large in one second, and shrink down in the next.

Jiang Miao had no clue about what was happening to Nie Tian, but she knew for a fact that even Yu Tong's Earth Web had failed to kill him.

Nie Tian, who had been deemed doomed by An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, and the others, was now breathing evenly with a heartbeat that was stronger than ever.

He was actually emanating a life force that was even more vigorous than before he was trapped by the Earth Web!

"Such a strange guy…" Jiang Miao whispered.

At this time, Nie Tian suddenly felt incredibly hot, as if he had turned into a furnace. Every single meridian and vein inside of him seemed to be violently expanding and contracting.

Even he didn't understand what was going on. He only knew that when he had been on the verge of being drained of all his blood by those scarlet blood strings, his heartbeat suddenly accelerated.

And at that moment, he had begrudgingly attempted to reverse the desperate situation by forcibly stopping the outflow of his blood.

He had actually done it!

When his heart began pounding in a violent and unfathomable way, he suddenly sensed that an unknown force had surged up within his heart.

The moment that force was unleashed, his blood, together with the blood that he had absorbed from the scarlet blood strings, seemed to have suddenly reached a resonance with his heart.

It was at that time the blood that had previously been sucked out of him was pulled fiercely back into his veins.

Not only that, even the scarlet blood strings themselves were also dragged into his body.

He wasn't aware of how much Yu Tong had gone through to create the scarlet blood strings. She used the Blood sect's unique Blood Refining Technique to refine the blood of a second grade spirit beast, and after several days of unrelenting effort, she eventually formed a deadly weapon that carried rich Qi and blood.

He only knew that those countless blood strings contained copious Qi and blood, which was currently being forcibly channeled into his veins, and merging with his blood!

As he took multiple deep breaths, his blood vessels expanded, and his body bulked up, which seemed to have been caused by the fact that his blood had greedily absorbed the blood and Qi in those scarlet blood strings.

Soon, his body seemed to have turned into a giant melting pot, and started to refine the considerable amount of blood and Qi contained in the blood of the second grade spirit beast. After numerous rounds of refinement, they completely merged with his own blood, and started to nourish his body.

During this process, he used his psychic awareness to examine himself, and found that some mysterious, unknown symbols were flashing within his blood. However, only a second later, they disappeared.

Then he could faintly sense that his blood was completely out of the ordinary!

However, the secrets within seemed to be concealed extremely deeply, and wouldn't be unveiled unless Nie Tian was in a desperate situation.

His cultivation base was still poor, and he was still far from strong enough to explore the secrets in his blood.

From the look of it, what had happened inside of him was merely the first step in unlocking the secrets inside of him.

Even though he harbored doubts in his heart, he didn't interfere with the unusual occurrence inside of him. Instead, he opened up his mind and let his body operate in such a unique way.

Meanwhile, he himself seemed to have become an outsider, as he used his soul to quietly observe what was going on.

After an unknown period of time, he gradually realized that the blood and Qi that had originated from the blood strings had completely disappeared into his blood.

His exceptionally fast heartbeat returned to normal, and he no longer released a misty, bloody aura.

He secretly examined himself again, discovering that the blood that was flowing inside of him had already calmed down, and he no longer experienced any anomalies.

The spiritual sea in his dantian hadn't changed at all due to the fact that it received none of the energy that had lay within the scarlet blood strings.

Neither had his psychic strength become enhanced because of it. However, he knew that something had changed in his blood.

Only, he couldn't tell what had changed after his heartbeat returned to normal.

After another thorough examination, he was convinced that everything was back on track, so then he opened his eyes.

Jiang Miao was staring at him, confusion and curiosity written across her face. "You're finally awake!" It seemed that she was waiting for him to give a reasonable explanation.

"Thank you for guarding me," he said with a smile.

Jiang Miao was somehow embarrassed. "It's only fair for me to do that. You saved me twice, yet I did nothing of the kind. The only thing I could do was to stay by your side and watch over you. I thought…"

She was going to say, I thought you wouldn't make it, and only wished to have one more glance of you before you died. However, seeing how radiant Nie Tian was now, like nothing had ever happened, she snapped her mouth shut.

It was only at this point that Nie Tian took a serious look at Jiang Miao for the first time.

She had a baby face, and a pair of big bright eyes. Her garments were dark green, and she always sounded timid when she spoke, as if she were a rabbit that might be scared off at any moment.

Jiang Miao's appearance was only slightly above average, not as outstanding as An Ying and Jiang Lingzhu. However, she was very good-natured, unlike the other two, who always hid their intentions.

Although Jiang Miao was probably older than him by a year, Nie Tian couldn't help but view her as an innocent little sister.

"It's all because of the different living environments…" he sighed inwardly.

Ever since he was little, he had always lived under the shadow of the internal struggles of the clan. He was there when Nie Donghai lost his power; he knew how much his loving aunt had suffered; he pulled through when Nie Hong, Nie Yuan, and other clan members picked on him…

Compared to his peers, he was much more mature. He had long since come to understand that Nie Donghai and Nie Qian had placed great hopes on him.

From the start, he had always worked hard when no one was watching, silently harboring the hope that he could cure his grandfather's injury and seek justice for his aunt one day.

Jiang Miao, on the other hand, had been a flower raised in a greenhouse, who had always been cherished and protected by everyone, and had never experienced the ugly side of human nature.

To her, the Green Illusion dimension trial was the biggest blow she had received in her entire life.

Her cozy environment of the past had turned her into a sheep. Perhaps she would gradually change after the trial and learn how dangerous the world really was.

Nie Tian weighed over his choice of words before calmly saying, "I'm fine. It seems that the witch lacked power at the crucial moment, which caused her to suffer from a backlash. And then, the blood that was originally sucked out of me suddenly returned. So I used my own method to slowly channel it back into my limbs. I'm fully recovered now."

Jiang Miao nodded. "Oh, it's good that you're fine."

However, she knew very well that the explanation Nie Tian had given was absolutely not the truth.

Even though she was convinced that he was hiding something, and was extremely curious about what it was, she chose to be smart and not inquire further.

The two of them chatted there, waiting for An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, and the others to return.

After a long time passed, Pan Tao, An Ying, and the others appeared on the distant horizon.

Pan Tao caught sight of him from hundreds of meters away, and immediately let out an incredulous shout.

"Nie Tian! You're still alive?!"

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"He's still alive?!!"

Zheng Bin stood there, staring aghast at Nie Tian.

An Ying and Jiang Lingzhu seemed as if they had seen a ghost, and could scarcely believe their own eyes.

The Lesser Heaven stage Yu Tong had clearly used the Blood sect's forbidden technique, Earth Web, to trap Nie Tian and start to refine his blood.

When they left, Nie Tian was already on the verge of dying. In fact, he hadn't even been breathing. The only thing that was standing between him and death's door was his weakening heartbeat.

How could Nie Tian have survived a situation like that?!

Every one of them found it hard to believe.

Pan Tao was the first to rush to Nie Tian's side. He circled around Nie Tian a few times, examining him carefully. After confirming that there was nothing wrong with him, he punched his shoulder heartily and blurted, "You little brat, how did you survive?!"

That was the the question that everyone wanted to ask.

At that time, everyone who had run after the people from the Ghost sect and the Blood sect had returned to Nie Tian's side, and were staring at him with eyes wide, waiting for him to give an explanation.

Nie Tian forced a laugh and said, "The witch proved to be her own undoing."

"What do you mean?" asked Pan Tao.

"She seemed to have suffered from a backlash when she was casting the blood refining technique." Nie Tian's expression was the same as ever. With a calm tone, he continued, "If she had managed to pull through, every drop of my blood would have been drained and refined. However, using the Earth Web with her Lesser Heaven cultivation base seems to be a bit beyond her.

"I sensed that when she was refining my fresh blood, something suddenly went wrong, and then she immediately lost all power.

"Since she could no longer continue with her spell, the blood that had been removed from my body gradually flowed back inside of me. Those countless scarlet blood strings also exploded into pieces, turning into a bloody mist as they slowly dissipated."

As Nie Tian spoke, Jiang Miao, who was standing next to him, had a subtle, strange look in her eyes, since this explanation of his was clearly different from the one he had given her.

According to him, those scarlet blood strings had exploded, but Jiang Miao had clearly watched as the numerous blood strings, which contained rich blood and Qi, had actually disappeared into him, where they seemed to have been refined by Nie Tian.

Fortunately, Jiang Miao harbored gratitude towards him, and thus didn't expose his secrets.

After he gave the explanation, thoughtful expressions could be seen on everyone's faces. Some believed him, while the others… secretly doubted the authenticity of the words. Among that latter group were An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, Pan Tao, and Zheng Bin.

Those who truly understood the profound mysteries of the Blood sect's blood refinement technique all knew that once the technique was started, even if Yu Tong had indeed suffered from a backlash, it still wouldn't stop.

Even if Yu Tong had died, the blood refinement technique would still last long enough for Nie Tian to die tragically due to excessive blood loss.

At the very least, it was impossible for the fresh blood that had been previously extracted from Nie Tian to flow back on its own.

In short, it was definitely impossible for him to have come out unscathed. Even if he somehow survived, he shouldn't be as radiant as he was now.

Seeing that everyone remained silent, with some of them looking at him with puzzled expressions, Nie Tian hurriedly changed the subject. "How about you guys? Did you catch up to them and kill them all?"

Pan Tao smiled bitterly. "No. Mo Xi, the witch, and two others escaped. We chased them for a while and killed three of the rear guards.

"The weird thing is that Mo Xi and the others seemed to have suddenly disappeared.

"If we could have killed Mo Xi and that witch, at least we would be able to justify ourselves to our elders after we leave the Green Illusion dimension." With that, he sighed regretfully.

Yu Tong sustained severe injuries, leaving Mo Xi as the only powerful enemy, but still they failed to take them out in spite of that. This left them all with a sour taste in their mouths.

The others also felt that they were useless, thus no one spoke to defend themselves.

Finally, An Ying spoke up. "It's about time to go. Let's head to the Secret Dimension Gate. According to my calculations, the trial is going to end soon. We'll only need to rough it out for a few more days. Let's feast when we're out of the Green Illusion dimension."

Everyone nodded in assent.

It was at this point that Zheng Bin suddenly turned to Nie Tian and said, "We… thought you'd die for sure, and only then did we leave. We didn't know you could make it. Otherwise, we would have stayed and helped you."

An Ying, Jiang Lingzhu, and Nie Xian also looked at him with apologetic looks on their faces.

Nie Tian, on the other hand, didn't take it seriously. He knew that Zheng Bin and the others' decision was a wise one. If not for his inexplicable uniqueness, it would have been absolutely impossible for him to survive.

They knew nothing about it, therefore abandoning a doomed person and trying to turn the situation around by killing Yu Tong wasn't wrong in the slightest.

"It's nothing." Nie Tian said, smiling. "I won't blame you guys. You did nothing wrong."

Pan Tao patted him on his shoulder and amiably said, "It's good that you survived. Haven't you become a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect yet, you little punk?"

"No, I haven't," Nie Tian said truthfully. "My cultivation base isn't good enough yet."

Pan Tao nodded and chuckled, a meaningful look in his eyes.

Jiang Lingzhu was sizing Nie Tian up as she listened in on Nie Tian and Pan Tao's conversation. Her expression flickered, as though she had understood the meaning behind Pan Tao's words. She instantly said in a loud voice, "Don't even think about trying to recruit Nie Tian! Pan Tao, let me assure you, Nie Tian is joining the Cloudsoaring sect, if not sooner, then definitely later. You'd better give up your little scheme!"

Pan Tao rubbed his nose. "Your sect sets the rules and insists that disciples from the subordinate clans should reach the ninth level of Qi Refining before they can be admitted. Our sect, however, isn't that rigid. Nie Tian is like a brother to me now. We survived many desperate situations together. I'll definitely recommend him to the Spiritual Treasure sect after we leave the Green Illusion dimension."

"There's no way you can succeed!" Jiang Lingzhu said, her voice firm and tough.

Pan Tao burst into laughter. "Haha, let's see."

The Secret Dimension Gate would be opened in a few days. Yu Tong had sustained severe injuries, and only three disciples from the Ghost sect and Blood sect were still in fighting condition.

From the look of it, the Ghost sect and the Blood sect could no longer pose a threat to them.

Convinced that they would be able to make it out of the Green Illusion dimension, Pan Tao loosened up, and had already started to think over the matters regarding after they had left the Green Illusion dimension.

"Yeah, we will see!" Jiang Lingzhu said, not willing to back down in the slightest.

For the next few days, Nie Tian and the trial takers from the three sects remained by the Secret Dimension Gate, quietly waiting for it to open.

Since the gate was about to open and there weren't any spirit beasts in the vicinity, they chose to simply endure the hunger.

Five days passed…

Everyone was pale, skinny, and feeling dizzy from starvation. But then, strong waves of spiritual power fluctuations emanated from within the stone wall on the mountain.

"The gate is open!" Excitement spread out on everyone's face.

Soon, the smooth stone wall turned into a bright mirror.

"Everybody, let's leave in orderly fashion!"

Upon An Ying's command, the starving crowd followed one another into the Secret Dimension Gate.

Beside the lake in the marshland…

An Shiyi from the Spiritual Treasure sect, Li Fan from the Cloudsoaring sect, Sang Bing from the Grayvale sect, and Dowager Weng were chatting as they looked towards the vortex in the lake center.

Sang Bing tilted his chin up and said to An Shiyi, "Assuming there were no mishaps, the Frost Python most likely was slaughtered by Yuan Feng. If that's the case, don't you be petty, kid. That Heaven Comprehending Pill must be handed over according to the rules."

A charming smile appeared on An Shiyi's face. "How do you know that Yuan Feng killed the Frost Python?"

Sang Bing chuckled up. "Neither your sister An Ying, nor Zheng Bin or Jiang Lingzhu, have truly gone through trials and hardships. But we've trained Yuan Feng with harsh circumstances. We even brought him with us when we battled with the Ghost sect. He has been baptized by blood. The Green Illusion dimension trial will have been a piece of cake for him."

"Oh really," replied Li Fan, sounding a bit sarcastic. "Then I very much want to see whether he can bring back the Frost Python's head."

"You'll see." Sang Bing sounded full of confidence.

"They're coming out!" said Dowager Weng.

With her words, Zheng Bin and the trial takers from the Mystic Mist sect emerged from within the whirlpool.

After them were Jiang Lingzhu and Nie Xian. An Ying, Pan Tao, Nie Tian, and Zheng Rui were the last to walk out.

"Those who come out last always have the greatest gains." Face joyful, Sang Bing laughed out loud, as if Yuan Feng was going to walk out of the whirlpool in the next second, with the Frost Python's head in his hand.

However, after laughing for awhile, he realized that after everyone had gone ashore, Yuan Feng still hadn't showed up.

He immediately packed away his laughter. Brow slightly furrowed, he said, "Could it be that Yuan Feng and his group didn't get to the stone wall when the Secret Dimension Gate opened?"

Jiang Lingzhu went over to Li Fan and said, "Yuan Feng is not coming back. He's not the only one. No one from the Grayvale sect will be coming back either.."

"What?!" Sang Bing's face changed drastically.

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Read Lord of All Realms - Chapter 81: Temporary Departure online free - Light Novel Full

"The Ghost sect and the Blood sect invaded the Green Illusion dimension…" Jiang Lingzhu said with a sigh. "We're the only survivors."

Upon hearing her words, the faces of An Shiyi, Li Fan, Sang Bing, and Dowager Weng all fell.

"The Ghost sect!!! The Blood sect!!!" Sang Bing let out a raging roar that could shake Heaven and Earth.

Yuan Feng had been treated as a core disciple of the Grayvale sect. They had poured a huge amount of medicinal pills and spiritual tools on him, and raised him to be the future leader of the Grayvale sect.

In their eyes, Yuan Feng was far more important than Yun Song and the other eight participants!

Yuan Feng's death was absolutely unacceptable to them!

Standing among the crowd, Nie Tian felt guilty as he looked over at the howling Sang Bing.

Then, he quietly glanced at Jiang Lingzhu, his heart full of gratefulness.

He knew that if Jiang Lingzhu hadn't taken that banner, Sang Bing from the Grayvale sect would have sensed its existence the moment he stepped out of the Green Illusion dimension.

The more furious and violent Sang Bing became, the clearer he understood, if the secret of him killing Yuan Feng was exposed, what kind of wrath he would have to bear from the Grayvale sect.

That wasn't even mentioning that he wasn't an official disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect yet. However even if he was, he still couldn't possibly escape his doom.

"An Ying, where are the people from the Ghost sect and Blood sect now?" An Shiyi asked hurriedly.

"I don't know." An Ying said with a wry smile. "We chased and killed some of them right before the gate opened, but the rest… somehow disappeared. And we couldn't find any trace of them."

"I'll make them pay!" Roaring, Sang Bing bolted into the whirlpool, and disappeared in the blink of an eye.

After hearing about the appearance of the Ghost sect and Blood sect in the Green Illusion dimension, Dowager Weng from the Mystic Mist sect also lost her composure. "Young Miss An," she said to An Shiyi, "you stay here and take care of them. I'll go with Sang Bing to search the Green Illusion dimension. Hopefully we can still capture the stragglers!"

"I'll go, too!" said Li Fan from the Cloudsoaring sect.

Faces clouded by haze, the two of them followed Sang Bing into the whirlpool.

Before long, An Shiyi from the Spiritual Treasure sect had become the only senior leader that remained beside the lake, despite the fact that Dowager Weng apparently didn't even remember her name.

Ignoring that, she turned to the others and grimly said, "Tell me everything!"

Jiang Lingzhu, An Ying, Pan Tao, and Zheng Bin went on to explain in great detail everything that had happened in the Green Illusion dimension.

Meanwhile, Nie Tian stood beside them wordlessly, waiting for them to finish.

At that time, he noticed that An He, the old servant from the An clan, was also waiting beside An Shiyi.

It was An He who had escorted him to this place from Black Cloud City. Now, he had showed up here after the trial ended. He was probably here to pick him up and take him home.

When he looked at An He, An He happened to be looking at him. He put on a wry smile and hurriedly bowed towards An He out of respect.

An He nodded briefly back at him, then turned to An Shiyi. "Miss, why don't I take Nie Tian back to Black Cloud City first?"

"Sure, go ahead," An Shiyi said, waving her hand. "Take him and leave."

Originally, An Shiyi planned on interrogating An Ying to get a full understanding of Nie Tian's performance in the Green Illusion dimension, and whether there was anything special about him.

However, the Ghost sect and the Blood sect had showed up, and too many trial takers had died because of it. She was no longer in the mood to ask about Nie Tian.

A heaven-shaking mishap had happened in the Green Illusion dimension, and the Spiritual Treasure sect was the host. As the person in charge of the event, she was currently under too much pressure, thus she had no time to bother with Nie Tian's trivial issue.

An He waved his hand. "Follow me."

"Okay," Nie Tian replied, walking toward him as calmly as ever.

It was at this moment that Pan Tao walked up to him and gave him a bear hug. "I'll go find you in Black Cloud City in a couple of days, bro," he said quietly. "I hope we can fight together again."

Nie Tian was taken aback by his words.

Grasping Nie Tian by the shoulders, Pan Tao winked and mysteriously said, "I'll bring someone with me."

Nie Tian was quite confused, not sure what Pan Tao meant.

"You'll find out soon enough." Pan Tao laughed and pushed him away, saying, "Go, return to Black Cloud City. We'll meet again."

"Alright." Nie Tian didn't read too much into it.

"Pan Tao…"

After witnessing the exchange between Nie Tian and Pan Tao, An He had a strange look in his eyes. He was unclear about what had happened between Pan Tao and Nie Tian.

However, he could tell that Pan Tao had already considered Nie Tian as a brother that he shared life and death with. The sincerity in Pan Tao's eyes couldn't lie.

Pan Tao was the grandson of the grand elder of the Spiritual Treasure sect, Pan Hongzhen, whose status in the Spiritual Treasure sect was only second to the sectmaster.

Even though the An clan of Black Cloud City was highly regarded by the Spiritual Treasure sect because of An Shiyi, it was still only a subordinate clan of the Spiritual Treasure sect.

Pan Hongzhen's status in the Spiritual Treasure sect wasn't something that An Shiyi or the An clan could compare to.

Seeing the way Pan Tao had treated Nie Tian, An He was shocked inwardly. Originally, he had thought Nie Tian to be a weaselly young man who had used some underhanded method to curry favor with Pan Tao.

Jiang Lingzhu gave Pan Tao a hard look and then called out, "Nie Tian! I'll also go find you in Black Cloud City in a couple of days!"

Pan Tao rubbed his nose and laughed, but declined to comment.

"Jiang Zhisu's precious daughter…"

An He was flabbergasted. Eyes full of suspicion, he looked Nie Tian up and down before glancing over towards Pan Tao and Jiang Lingzhu, even more curious than before.

"This Nie clan kid seems good at cultivating relationships. I can't believe that Pan Tao and Jiang Lingzhu both have grown fond of him."

Previously, when they traveled to the lakeside, An He didn't have much interest in starting a conversation with Nie Tian, as he didn't take Nie Tian seriously. All they did was march on at a fast pace.

Actually, An He had some unpleasant feelings towards Nie Tian back then.

The spot An Shiyi had given Nie Tian for the Green Illusion dimension trial was originally meant for a child of the An clan. As a member of the An clan, An He secretly frowned upon the arrangement.

Because of this, he didn't talk to Nie Tian the entire way to the lakeside, and only considered him as a kid who had somehow struck it lucky.

But now, the appearance of the disciples of the Ghost sect and the Blood sect in the Green Illusion dimension trial resulted in many people getting killed. The Grayvale sect even had all of their trial takers slaughtered.

He was secretly glad that the kid from the An clan didn't get to enter the Green Illusion dimension, and had thus escaped from the calamity.

Now, without that issue weighing on his mind, and adding in that Pan Tao and Jiang Lingzhu had suddenly grown so close with Nie Tian, An He couldn't help but change his attitude towards him and regard him more favorably.

With an amiable expression, he said to Nie Tian, "Let's go. Your grandfather and the others have been waiting for you. Since the Nie clan is going through a rough patch, it's better that you return soon."

"What do you mean rough patch?" Nie Tian frowned.

"I'll tell you on the way," An He said gently.

"Okay," said Nie Tian.

Nie Tian also felt the sudden and drastic change in An He's attitude towards him.

Before long, Nie Tian followed An He to the same carriage that they had come in, and they slowly drove out of the marshland.

Meanwhile, An Shiyi and the others were still gathered by the lake, waiting for Sang Bing, Li Fan, and Dowager Weng to return.

A day passed, and Li Fan finally walked out of the whirlpool, holding the pale, skinny, and close to death Ye Gumo with one hand.

"Brother Ye is still alive?!" Jiang Lingzhu exclaimed with joy.

Li Fan dropped the almost unconscious Ye Gumo at her side, and said, "This kid is lucky. He hid by himself in the volcano area, and I when found him, he was on the verge of dying from starvation."

Ye Gumo's head was still drooped, as he looked up at Jiang Lingzhu. He forced a smile and said weakly, "It's good that you guys are fine."

"Mr. Li, where are Sang Bing and Dowager Weng?" An Shiyi asked hurriedly.

With a sigh, Li Fan said, "They should be out soon. We turned the whole Green Illusion dimension inside out, and still couldn't find the disciples from the Ghost sect and the Blood sect. They probably left long ago."

This was, of course, to be expected.

Shortly after, the grim-faced Sang Bing and Dowager Weng walked out of the lake together.

Sang Bing didn't say a word before striding away.

Dowager Weng shook her head towards An Shiyi and said, "We found nothing. The Green Illusion dimension trial is truly over now. Let's go back, and discuss the upcoming issues another day."

"Yeah, I'm afraid that's all there is to do," An Shiyi said bitterly.

Thereupon, the leaders of each sect led their respective juniors away.

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Three days later, in Black Cloud City. Dusk…

Nie Tian was sitting in the carriage as An He drove through the city gate.

After entering the city, the front curtain of the carriage had already been lifted, as An He would occasionally glance at Nie Tian.

On their way to the Green Illusion dimension trial, the curtain of the carriage had never been lifted. During those three days, An He had practically ignored Nie Tian, and they had traveled in silence.

However, on their way back, An He took the initiative to pull up the curtain, and had friendly conversations with Nie Tian along the way, spelling out the conflicts between Black Cloud City's three clans in detail.

Nie Tian also had a clear feeling that An He's attitude towards him had undergone a fundamental change.

From An He, Nie Tian learned that there had been internal disputes within the Nie clan in recent months, with the focus being the Flamecloud gem mine.

Nie Beichuan had confirmed that they would no longer be able to mine Flamecloud gems from it.

He, who had just ascended to the position of clanmaster, panicked. He had interrogated every single one of the miners, and found out that Nie Qian had taken Nie Tian into the mine, then blamed Nie Qian for everything that occurred.

Since he couldn't figure out a way to explain what had happened to the Cloudsoaring sect, he had deliberately made things difficult for Nie Qian, and had repeatedly urged Nie Donghai to take Nie Qian to the Cloudsoaring sect and admit to causing the mining accident.

In Nie Beichuan's eyes, Nie Donghai didn't have much time left anyways. He might as well sacrifice himself and shoulder the wrath of the Cloudsoaring sect together with Nie Qian, and thus bring peace and safety back to the Nie clan.

His decision won the assent of many clan elders, who later joined him in rebuking Nie Donghai and Nie Qian.

"Uncle An, did the Cloudsoaring sect do anything after learning that the mine could no longer produce Flamecloud gems?" Nie Tian asked.

Driving the carriage slowly towards the Nie clan, An He frowned and said, "Quite strangely, no. According to what I know, it seems the Cloudsoaring sect hasn't made any statements or held your clan accountable."

"Then why did they insist on making my grandfather and aunt admit the guilt?" Nie Tian asked, his voice cold.

After a moment of hesitation, An He explained, "Because they're scared. The Cloudsoaring sect assigned that mine together with the job of mining it to your clan. The reason that your clan had been acknowledged and protected by the Cloudsoaring sect all these years was that your clan has been working for them.

"Some drastic change occurred, ensuring that a mine which should have been able to produce Flamecloud gems for another ten years went dry overnight. Before the Cloudsoaring sect raised any questions, your second grandfather already started to panic.

"Monumental changes struck the mine which the livelihood of the entire Nie clan relies on, all when he took power. How could he not be scared?"

Nie Tian snorted and said, "He doesn't deserve to be my second grandfather!"

An He turned to look at Nie Tian. After a moment of pondering, he said, "When your grandfather was in his prime, he severely injured Nie Beichuan during their fight for the position of clanmaster. After that incident, the two brothers became estranged. Your grandfather controlled the Nie clan and overshadowed Nie Beichuan for many years after that. Now that your grandfather has finally lost his power, Nie Beichuan surely won't bother to consider the brotherly love between them."

"My grandfather will reassume the position of clanmaster one day!" Nie Tian said in a firm, low voice.

An He laughed. With a meaningful look in his eyes, he glanced at Nie Tian and said, "Perhaps so."

If it were before, An He probably would ridicule him a bit, and tell him that he didn't know the immensity of heaven and earth.

But now, An He felt that it might not be impossible for Nie Tian to help Nie Donghai regain his former position if he kept his upheaving momentum.

Pan Tao and Jiang Lingzhu were two extremely important third generation disciples of the Spiritual Treasure sect and Cloudsoaring sect. The powers backing those two would even put An He in awe.

As long as Pan Tao and Jiang Lingzhu continued to support Nie Tian, he would definitely gain benefits from the rise of Pan Tao and Jiang Lingzhu in their respective sects.

"We're here."

An He pulled on the reins and stopped the carriage.

Nie Tian jumped out and thanked An He respectfully. After that, he prompted, "Okay, I'll head off now, alright Uncle An?"

An He nodded and smiled. "Go on, now. Don't worry. If Nie Beichuan makes it too hard for you, you can come to our clan. Since the miss regards you so highly, you're welcomed to visit anytime you want. Nie Beichuan's power may be enough to turn the heavens in the Nie clan, but he's just a commoner in the eyes of our clan."

"Thank you, uncle An. I got it."

An He nodded, signaling for Nie Tian to go in. With a lash of his horsewhip, he drove the carriage back in the direction of the An clan.

Nie Tian took a deep breath, and with a calm mind, he finally stepped towards the entrance of the Nie clan.

At the entrance, the guard Jin Jiang saw him, and was suddenly given a start. "Nie… Nie Tian?!"

Jin Jiang wasn't a true member of the Nie clan, but rather a guest-member. However, people like him had a knack for gathering information.

It took three whole days for Nie Tian and An He to return to Black Cloud City from the marshland, yet it only took one day for the news of the horrible incident in the Green Illusion dimension to reach Black Cloud City.

Members of the three major clans in Black Cloud City had been all talking about it the whole day.

Among the many trial takers who participated in the Green Illusion dimension trial, Nie Tian was the most unremarkable one. Thus, none of the news that had come from the four sects regarded him.

The Yun clan, on the other hand, had already been filled with wailing and despair after hearing about the annihilation of the entire Grayvale sect group in the Green Illusion dimension.

Earlier this morning, when Jin Jiang walked past the Yun clan, he could just barely hear the shrill weeping sounds of Yuan Qiuying. It was at that moment that the Yun clan had received the news that Yun Song, whom they placed such high hopes upon, had died in the Green Illusion dimension.

Jin Jiang also heard that the Grayvale sect wasn't the only one that had suffered great casualties. The other three sects had also lost many juniors.

In his opinion, Nie Tian, who was unluckily invited to the Green Illusion dimension trial by An Shiyi, was probably the weakest of all, and his status wasn't even worth mentioning. He should've long since died in the Green Illusion dimension.

He had never expected him to return alive, especially after knowing that Yun Song had died in there.

"What's wrong?" Nie Tian furrowed his brow.

Jin Jiang snapped out of his reverie and smiled embarrassedly, "We all thought you had died in the Green Illusion dimension just like Yun Song from the Yun clan… Nie Tian, your grandfather and aunt abandoned all hope after hearing about the enormous events that occurred. You'd better go see them right away."

He was not a member of the Nie clan, so Nie Tian's life or death didn't exactly affect him.

Nie Tian was taken aback. "The news of the incidents in the Green Illusion dimension has already reached Black Cloud City?"

"Of course." Jin Jiang nodded. "The news can be spread via many ways, so it beat you back. You'd better go. Your grandfather locked himself in his house and hasn't come out since. Your aunt seems to have spent the day crying. You'd better go relieve them now."

"Many thanks!" Nie Tian rushed through the clan gate.

On his way in, every clan member who caught sight of him was greatly surprised by his unbelievable return.

"Nie Tian!"

"No way! Nie Tian is still alive?!"

"Yuan Feng and Yun Song died, but he returns alive?"

"He's really lucky!"

"…"

Under the astonished gazes of everyone, Nie Tian ran to the remote pavilion where his grandfather Nie Donghai lived.

Before even reaching the door, Nie Tian shouted at the top of his lungs. "Grandpa, I'm back!!"

Inside the room, Nie Donghai, who was drowning in desperation with all the windows shut, felt a strong shock and suddenly became enlivened.

He subconsciously wiped away the tears from the corners of his bloodshot eyes, and thrust the door open.

"Little Tian! Is that you? Did I just hear Little Tian's voice?" Not far away, Nie Qian's sobbing voice echoed out, as she dashed out from a small pavilion.

"Grandpa, auntie, I'm fine," Nie Tian said loudly. "I'm back from the Green Illusion dimension!"

As soon as those words were uttered, he caught sight of Nie Donghai and Nie Qian, who were staring at him ecstatically.

In that moment, he suddenly realized that those two had placed all of their hopes and love on him.

He was their everything!

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Inside the room, Nie Tian briefly described his experience in the Green Illusion dimension to Nie Donghai and Nie Qian.

The Green Illusion dimension trial had exerted an immense influence on him, not only on his cultivation base, but also on his wisdom.

Compared to half a year ago, he was now much more mature, as he knew what to tell and what not to tell Nie Donghai and Nie Qian.

He intentionally concealed the fact that he had killed Yuan Feng and Yun Song, and that he had encountered the Frost Python in the desert.

He had also avoided talking about his clashes with Yu Tong, as well as the great boost in cultivation that he had received from the spirit beast meat.

However, he was honest about the fact that he had broken through to the eighth level of Qi Refining from the sixth level.

He understood that those were the kind of things that Nie Donghai and Nie Qian were most concerned with.

As expected.

"What?! You're now at the eighth level of Qi Refining?" Nie Qian immediately grew excited.

Nie Donghai was also secretly moved. A bright gleam exploded out from his eyes as his body even slightly trembled with excitement.

Nie Tian grinned. "Yes. If there are no mishaps, I believe I'll be able to reach the ninth level of Qi Refining by the age of 15, and become a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect."

"That's terrific!" Nie Qian was elated.

Nie Tian was only eleven years old. Reaching the eighth level of Qi Refining at this age made her realize that the hope she had placed on Nie Tian was definitely achievable.

Ever since Nie Tian was young, Nie Qian had repeatedly imparted upon Nie Tian one idea – only by becoming a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect would he be able to change his fate.

All the efforts she had put in over the years had been dedicated to making him a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect.

Every child of the Nie clan regarded entering the Cloudsoaring sect as the ultimate honor, and also the only way to change their families' fates.

The reason for Nie Beichuan to be able to assume the position of clanmaster, was partly because Nie Donghai had sustained serious injuries, but more importantly because of Nie Han's achievement.

As Nie Beichuan's eldest grandson, Nie Han had successfully stepped into the ninth level of Qi Refining by the age of 15, and thus been received by the Cloudsoaring sect.

As long as he could achieve a steady growth in the Cloudsoaring sect, the Nie clan would be able to benefit because of that. If Nie Han were to become a high ranking official in the Cloudsoaring sect one day, then the Nie clan… would undoubtedly become an important part of the Cloudsoaring sect.

Similarly, back when Nie Donghai had a firm control over the Nie clan, Nie Tian's mother Nie Jin had played an indispensable role.

Now that Nie Tian was only 11 years old and had already entered the eighth level of Qi Refining, Nie Qian believed he might even be able to enter the Cloudsoaring sect at a younger age than Nie Han.

Perhaps Nie Tian would be able to step into the Cloudsoaring sect in a year or two, and thus completely turn his fate around.

"Grandfather, when I returned, I heard that our clan is going through a major internal disturbance?" Nie Tian probed.

Nie Donghai briefly frowned, and said calmly, "Compared to your entering the eighth level of Qi Refining, they are only small things. Don't you bother about the trivial matters within the clan. I will handle them. All you need to do is focus on your cultivation."

"I… I want to help," Nie Tian said.

"You won't be able to do much for now." Nie Donghai shook his head. "You'll only have a say in the clan when you become a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect."

When it came to the matters within the clan, Nie Qian suddenly fell silent, and her face turned grim.

Nie Tian wished to help, but didn't know how to stop Nie Beichuan and the clan elders from punishing Nie Qian and Nie Donghai.

"Status…" he thought. "My status is too low…"

"Rest well today," Nie Donghai said consolingly. "And from now on, don't think about anything else, just concentrate on your cultivation. You'll have a say in the clan affairs when you're officially accepted by the Cloudsoaring sect. But now is not the time."

"I see," Nie Tian said with a nod.

Meanwhile…

Nie Beichuan was discussing matters with several clan elders in the great meeting hall.

Soon, they reached an agreement that they would force Nie Donghai and Nie Qian to admit to the Cloudsoaring sect that it was their fault that the mine experienced such drastic changes, and that they were willing to accept the punishment.

Now they only needed to force Nie Donghai and Nie Qian to comply.

Before long, the news of Nie Tian returning spread to the great meeting hall, and the clan elders were all flabbergasted.

"Nie Tian is back!"

"He's really in luck! Even Yuan Feng from the Grayvale sect and Yun Song from the Yun clan died tragically in Green Illusion dimension. I can't believe the he actually returned safe and sound."

"Yeah, who would have thought?"

In fact, they had never considered Nie Tian as a true member of the Nie clan.

After all, Nie Tian's father, whom Nie Tian had never met, didn't bear the family name 'Nie'.

In their eyes, only children whose father bore the family name 'Nie' were to be deemed as true members of the Nie clan.

Nie Tian wasn't one of them.

Therefore, when they learned about the fact that Nie Tian returned alive, they were only shocked, but not a bit relieved.

"That brat is really lucky!" said one of the clan elders, Nie Yaozu, sounding slightly surprised. A moment later, though, he cast Nie Tian's return aside, and said, "Trial takers from the four sects were massacred in the Green Illusion dimension. Many Cloudsoaring sect elders must be in a sour mood at this tragic moment. If we don't make a gesture and admit our dereliction of duty as soon as possible, it will only fuel their rage."

Face grim, Nie Beichuan said, "Exactly, we can't afford to delay any more!"

Another clan elder named Nie Feiyun wore a dour expression as he cold-heartedly said, "Since Donghai's injuries seem to be incurable in the little time he has left, he won't be able to help the clan much in the future. In order for the Nie clan to tide over the crisis, he has to make sacrifices. Besides, it was Nie Qian who caused this accident!"

Nie Feiyun had always been a firm supporter of Nie Beichuan. Moreover, Nie Donghai had feuded with him when he was still the clanmaster. It was expected that he didn't treat this incident lightly.

Even though some of the clan members didn't completely support the decision, they still nodded briefly.

After all, they understood that someone would have to atone for the accident that had happened in the mine. Since everyone pointed their fingers towards Nie Donghai and Nie Qian, for the clan's benefit, they chose chime in.

"Let's summon them here tomorrow, and convince them to undertake the guilt," Nie Beichuan said coldly.

…

That night…

Nie Tian quietly retrieved the hidden dragon bone from behind one of the bricks on the wall, and started to fondle it admiringly.

With a strand of psychic awareness, he reached out to the drop of blood inside the dragon bone. He immediately felt peace at heart.

Having parted with the dragon bone for half a year, he found that it hadn't changed at all. When he held it closely in his hand, he could just barely sense that dragon bone had also missed him.

He didn't think much about it, and soon fell into a relaxed slumber.

The next morning, he got up and started his assiduous cultivation, just like before.

In the afternoon, a knocking sound suddenly rang out while he was cultivating.

Wondering who it was, he went down stairs to open the door. Seeing it was the guest elder, Wu Tao, standing in front of the door with a complicated expression on his face, Nie Tian asked, "Mr. Wu, why are you here?"

Wu Tao glanced around and made sure no one was around. Only then did he say in a low voice, "The clanmaster and the clan elders have come to a decision in the great meeting hall this morning, that they will have your grandfather and aunt confess to the Cloudsoaring sect. Your grandfather and aunt are probably already at the main gate and are about to set out."

Nervousness could be seen on Wu Tao's face as he added, "Don't tell anyone that I came by or that we met."

Finishing relaying the situation, Wu Tao left in a hurry, not daring to stay any longer.

"Nie Beichuan!" Nie Tian's eyes brimmed with rage.

He thought that with his grandfather's prestige, as well as the contributions that he had made to the clan over the years, Nie Beichuan wouldn't dare to be so impudent, and so he believed that Nie Donghai would be able to handle this matter well.

Never had he expected for Nie Beichuan to make such a cold-hearted move only a day after his return.

With a grim face, he dashed towards the clan gate.

Many members of the Nie clan saw him and whispered with one another, as they felt that he wouldn't be able to do anything even if he made it to the gate in time.

"Yee? Is that Nie Tian?"

"How did he get the word?"

"Why? Does that matter? He's not a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect. Yeah, he managed to walk out of the Green Illusion dimension, so what? Will he be able to overturn the decision that the clanmaster and the elders agreed upon?"

"He's not Nie Xian. The elders won't consider his feelings."

"That's true."

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At the Nie clan's main gate, all the clansmen, led by Nie Beichuan, were looking at Nie Donghai and Nie Qian with all kinds of expressions.

Nie Beichuan's face was cold and expressionless. A hint of a cold smile could be seen at the corner of clan elder Nie Feiyun's mouth, as if he was secretly pleased.

Some of the other clan elders, however, had complicated looks in their eyes, as if they felt guilty inside, but still couldn't say anything.

Most of the clansmen were here to see them off, after learning that Nie Donghai and Nie Qian were about to go and beg for forgiveness from the Cloudsoaring sect. Their gaze was somewhat indignant and helpless as they looked towards the father and daughter.

Having realized that the result was certain, Nie Donghai behaved very calmly, and didn't start a fight with Nie Beichuan and his flunkies in front of all the clansmen.

The oldest clan elder Nie Yaozu pondered for a bit and said, "Donghai, don't you worry too much about this trip to the Cloudsoaring sect. You've done a good job working for the Cloudsoaring sect for all these years. They… may not necessarily punish you for the accident at the mine."

Nie Yaozu believed that the vanishing of all the Flamecloud gems in the mine could have just been an accident and probably had nothing to do with Nie Qian.

However, since someone had to atone for the accident to the Cloudsoaring sect, he had also deemed Nie Donghai to be the most suitable man to take the blame, considering that he was no longer the clanmaster, and probably wouldn't be able to make any more contributions to the Nie clan with his degrading health.

But actually, deep down, he felt somewhat sorry towards Nie Donghai and Nie Qian. Only because of that did he say a few words of consolation.

"I understand," Nie Donghai nodded briefly and said. "I'll go to the Cloudsoaring sect to beg for their forgiveness. But Nie Tian is still young. If I were to receive punishments and can't return, I hope you can take care of him for me, considering what I'm doing for the clan today."

"You can be assured of that." Nie Yaozu promised.

With nothing more to say, Nie Donghai turned around, and was about to set off with Nie Qian.

At this very moment, Nie Tian bolted out of the clan gate, yelling.

"Grandfather!"

Under the clansmen's gazes, he stopped in front of Nie Donghai and Nie Qian, blocking their way, and said, "I'll take full responsibility of the accident at the Flamecloud gem mine and go beg for forgiveness from the Cloudsoaring sect!"

"Little Tian!" Nie Qian snapped. "What are you doing? You're not helping. Go back, now!"

Nie Donghai gave him a hard look and berated, "The reason I didn't go to see you was that I didn't want you to be distracted. Don't behave so immaturely!"

Nie Tian didn't back down because of their words. Instead, he stood straight like a mountain, raised his chin towards Nie Beichuan, and said, "Clanmaster, my grandfather is in his old years, and won't be able to withstand the anger of the Cloudsoaring sect. Moreover, I happened to be there when the mining accident occurred. If the clan needs to find a scapegoat for it, I'll go!"

"How impudent!" Nie Beichuan let out a cold harrumph. "What do you mean 'find a scapegoat'? Sure, you were there with Nie Qian when the changes occurred in the mine, however, on what account do you think that you caused the changes? Plus, what are you? How old are you? Wouldn't it be a humiliation to the Nie clan if we give you to the Cloudsoaring sect? Wouldn't the Cloudsoaring sect think that we're taking them as fools?"

A few clan elders joined Nie Beichuan, and berated Nie Tian harshly.

"Nie Tian! Cut the nonsense! You shouldn't be here!"

"Exactly! It's a joke to send a child to the Cloudsoaring sect!"

"Get out of here, now!"

They had just gone to great lengths to persuade Nie Donghai and Nie Qian to take the blame. How could they allow Nie Tian to tamper with their plan?

The way they saw it, Nie Tian's words were merely a joke.

Only Nie Tian himself knew that the changes that had occurred in the mine were indeed caused by him.

He could never tell them that it was his dragon bone that had drained every wisp of the flame power of every Flamecloud gem in the mine, reducing them to rubble.

Yet, there was no way that he could sit back and watch his grandfather and aunt bear the Cloudsoaring sect's anger because of something he had caused.

Nie Donghai's third brother, Nie Nanshan looked incensed as he ordered his son to take Nie Tian back inside. "Nie Qiu! Take Nie Tian back! Don't let people laugh at our clan!"

At that time, a lot of commoners of Black Cloud City had heard the disturbance, and quietly converged on the main gate of the Nie clan.

In just a few moments, dozens of people were gathered by the gate.

"Nie Tian! Get back inside!" Nie Donghai said with a stern face.

"NO!" Nie Tian shook his head and blurted. "I'll take the blame from the Cloudsoaring sect!"

With these words, he strode outward before Nie Qiu could grab him.

At that time, Pan Tao's voice echoed out from behind the crowd of people.

"Nie Tian! What the hell are you doing? I've come all this way from the Spiritual Treasure sect. You won't leave just like that without even greeting me, will you?"

Nie Tian was taken aback, and looked in confusion in the direction that Pan Tao's voice had come from, searching for him.

"Give way!" An explosive shout echoed out from behind the crowd.

All of a sudden, the crowd burst into clamor. At the source of Pan Tao's voice, many onlookers stepped back, clearing out a wide path.

"It's the master of the An clan, An Rong!"

"The master of the An clan is here!"

In the next moment, Nie Tian saw Pan Tao and a middle-aged man with similar looks pace towards him under the escort of the master of the An clan, An Rong.

An Rong was in his sixties, tall and with a long beard. He was now wearing a long face, looking formidable without being angry.

After giving way to him, many commoners of Black Cloud City briefly bowed and greeted him with flattering smiles on their faces.

"Greetings, Master An."

"Good day, Master An."

"Long time no see, Master An."

An Rong completely ignored everyone's greetings as he respectfully led the middle-aged man beside Pan Tao towards the place where the Nie clan members were gathered.

Among the three major clans in Black Cloud City, the strength of the An clan had always ranked first, a ranking that had never changed for decades.

In the eyes of most people in Black Cloud City, An Rong was actually the master of Black Cloud City, and therefore the most powerful person there.

Everyone was puzzled to see that he had come to the Nie clan, and even more so when they saw him leading the way for a stranger.

"An Rong, what are you doing here?" Nie Beichuan's words sounded somewhat lacking in confidence. However, from their titles, he was actually on equal footing with An Rong.

The bad-tempered An Rong immediately lashed out. "Nie Beichuan, is Black Cloud City your personal property? Do I have to inform you beforehand every time I take a walk in Black Cloud City?"

Nie Beichuan simmered with rage, yet he could do nothing about it. "Well, we didn't invite you here!"

"I wouldn't go to your shithole clan even if you did invite me!" An Rong sneered. "Ever since your brother got injured, your clan has been in a complete mess! Endless internal disputes. You find that interesting, don't you?"

"That's none of your business!" Nie Beichuan retorted.

"Hahaha, who said I give a damn!" An Rong replied tauntingly. "I heard that you people ruined the Cloudsoaring sect's mine? Well, I'm going to have so much fun watching how that turns out! The moment you became the clanmaster, that mine collapsed! That's a pretty bad sign!

"Your clan's livelihood depends on that mine. Now that it has collapsed, I'm afraid it won't be long before your position collapses with it."

An Rong burst out into laughter, as he only attacked Nie Beichuan's sore points without giving him any face.

Many of the surrounding onlookers pondered over his words, and thought he actually made some sense.

Even some members of the Nie clan secretly agreed with An Rong, and started to suspect that it was because of Nie Beichuan's bad luck that the mine had suddenly collapsed immediately after he had become the clanmaster.

"Cut the nonsense!" Nie Beichuan fumed with anger, glaring furiously. Yet, he couldn't find a way to refute.

At that time, the middle-aged man and Pan Tao had already walked to Nie Tian's side.

"Nie Tian, this is my father." Pan Tao pointed at the man beside him, and smiled as he introduced him. After that, he pointed at Nie Tian and said, "Father, this is my good bro Nie Tian."

Nie Tian quickly bowed. "Nice to meet you, Uncle Pan."

Pan Bai smiled, and with a gentle tone, he said, "The moment Little Tao returned to the Spiritual Treasure sect, he urged me to come to Black Cloud City with him. On our way here, he told me how you two fought shoulder to shoulder and went through desperate occasions together in the Green Illusion dimension. He really has a high opinion of you."

Someone in the crowd, who had his eyes fixed on Pan Bai the moment Pan Bai showed up, finally remembered his identity.

"Pan Bai!" the man cried out. "He's the Pan Bai from the Spiritual Treasure sect! Years ago, it was he who came to take An Shiyi to the Spiritual Treasure sect! And he's the son of the great elder Pan Hongzhen!

"He's in charge of recruitment for the Spiritual Treasure sect. He seems to be at the late-stage of Heaven stage!

"How come he's in Black Cloud City?

"Pan Bai!"

Every member of the Nie clan, including Nie Donghai was suddenly enlivened. Eyes filled with disbelief, they simultaneously gazed toward Pan Bai.

As of that moment, they finally understood why An Rong was so respectful towards this person.

Even with An Shiyi in the Spiritual Treasure sect, the An clan was still a subordinate clan. However, Pan Bai was one of the core figures in the Spiritual Treasure sect, whose father's status was only second to the sectmaster.

An Rong stopped ridiculing the long-faced Nie Beichuan, turned to Nie Donghai and solemnly said, "Nie Donghai, you're in luck. Mr. Pan has come to Black Cloud City for Nie Tian. Mr. Pan is in charge of recruiting promising youngsters for the Spiritual Treasure sect. As long as he has his eyes on the child, he doesn't need to be at the ninth level of Qi Refining to be admitted as a disciple.

"He's here is to take Nie Tian to the Spiritual Treasure sect, just like when he admitted An Shiyi from our clan."

Upon hearing these words, every onlooker, including the members of the Nie clan, immediately burst into an uproar.

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"Personally coming to admit Nie Tian to the Spiritual Treasure sect? Isn't the Nie clan the Cloudsoaring sect's subordinate clan?"

"What a lucky kid…"

"Normally, Pan Bai wouldn't personally take someone back to the Spiritual Treasure sect. Those whom he had his eyes on all displayed remarkable talent in the Spiritual Treasure sect, and none of them turned out to be mediocre."

"Years ago, he came and took An Shiyi from the An clan to the Spiritual Treasure sect. Now look at her. She is already an influential figure in the sect."

"This man is famous for his eye for talent. Those who managed to get his attention all turned out to be important figures."

"What does he see in Nie Tian?"

"…"

After realizing why Pan Bai had come here, the onlookers immediately fell into an uproar.

Meanwhile, everyone from the Nie clan was flabbergasted, and couldn't wrap their minds around what Nie Tian had done in the Green Illusion dimension to make Pan Bai set his eyes on him.

"Spiritual Treasure sect! Spiritual Treasure sect!" Nie Qian slightly trembled as her eyes glittered with bright lights. Years of endurance had finally paid off.

Nie Donghai breathed deeply, struggling to calm himself. Finally pacified, he nervously looked towards Pan Bai as he carefully asked, "Mr. Pan, is what An Rong said true?"

Nie Tian regained his composure after a moment of bewilderment. He looked at Pan Bai, unable to make heads or tails of the situation.

At this time, it rushed back to him that when he parted with Pan Tao days ago, Pan Tao had told him that he would bring someone to see him in Black Cloud City.

Now he knew who Pan Tao had been talking about.

Under everyone's gaze, Pan Bai smiled and said, "In the entire Spiritual Treasure sect, I'm the most famous for being a good judge of talent. All these years, those disciples that I've brought back to the Spiritual Treasure sect have all proved their abilities not long after they were admitted.

"Not only am I a good judge of talent, but so is my son."

As he spoke, he looked towards Pan Tao, who confidently stuck out his chest upon hearing his father's words.

"I trust my son's eye for people, and I trust my judgement." He looked profoundly towards Nie Tian, and with a serious face, he finally brought out what everyone was waiting to hear, "That's right. I've come to Black Cloud City for Nie Tian. I hereby officially invite Nie Tian to continue his cultivation in the Spiritual Treasure sect as a disciple!"

"He's serious!" Nie Yaozu was taken aback.

Upon hearing Pan Bai's words, the other Nie clan members all looked towards Nie Tian with extremely strange gazes in their eyes.

Nie Beichuan, on the other hand, didn't say a word. With a dour face, he seemed to be bothered by something.

Even as the crowd clamored, a commoner of Black Cloud City moved close to An Rong's side and loudly said, "Master An, you were here late and missed a good show. Let me tell you what happened…"

He then went on to relay how Nie Tian had interrupted Nie Beichuan and the others as they attempted to force Nie Donghai and Nie Qian to go to the Cloudsoaring sect to beg for forgiveness.

An Rong laughed loudly. "Nie Beichuan, you sure are resourceful! The moment you assumed your position, the mine collapsed. You don't examine what you've done wrong. Instead, you force your eldest brother to take the blame. How competent are you!?"

"Shut the hell up, An Rong!" Nie Beichuan roared, enraged.

An Rong didn't seem to be the least bit concerned. "What? You can do it, but can't hear people talk about it? As I see it then, you don't need to remain in such a land of trouble."

Nie Donghai didn't respond, yet his face turned dark and grim.

However, Pan Bai frowned and said, "Mr. Nie, you and Nie Tian's aunt can also go to the Spiritual Treasure sect. I'll make arrangements for the both of you."

"What?! Even Nie Donghai and Nie Qian will be accepted by the Spiritual Treasure sect as well? No way…"

"I can't believe they think so highly of Nie Tian!"

"They're willing to accept Nie Tian and two others as tagalongs? What could possibly be going on?"

Everyone was shocked by Pan Bai's words.

Nie Donghai, Nie Qian, and Nie Tian suddenly became enlivened, and at the same time, cast incredulous gazes towards Pan Bai.

Pan Bai gently nodded his head.

The previously depressed Nie Donghai was clearly moved by Pan Bai's offer. His eyes flickered, as indecision appeared on his face.

The Spiritual Treasure sect's offer was so irresistible that he was actually considering completely breaking away from the Nie clan and taking Nie Tian and Nie Qian to the Spiritual Treasure sect.

Brimming with excitement, Nie Qian called out, "Father!!"

Since she had already secretly made up her mind, she anxiously urged Nie Donghai to accept the offer, in case Pan Bai went back on his word.

To them, Pan Bai's offer was practically a pie falling from the heavens. It seemed too good to be real.

Over the years, she and her father had constantly been targeted within the Nie clan, which made their life extremely tough.

The moment she learned that Pan Bai was here to accept them to the Spiritual Treasure sect, she inwardly agreed a thousand times over to break away from the Nie clan, the home of her heartache.

It was also at this time that Li Fan's voice echoed out from afar. "Mr. Pan, the Nie clan is the Cloudsoaring sect's subordinate clan. It's not exactly appropriate for you to so openly take from us, is it?"

"Li Fan from the Cloudsoaring sect!"

"How come he's also here? They're about to put on a good show!"

"It's a little crowded in Black Cloud City today, isn't it?"

Accompanied by the clamor of the crowd, Li Fan, disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect's sectmaster Jiang Zhisu, led Jiang Lingzhu as they walked closer.

The moment Li Fan and Jiang Lingzhu appeared, Nie Beichuan and numerous members of the Nie clan, who originally felt inferior, seemed to suddenly gain confidence, as they looked over towards Li Fan one after the other.

"Mr. Li, you have to administer justice!"

"Those from the Spiritual Treasure sect are trashing our clan!"

"Nie Donghai and his daughter caused the mine to collapse, and now they actually want to break away from the clan. This is simply unforgivable!"

Helplessness filling their eyes, they stared at Li Fan as they made critical comments, wishing for him to overshadow Pan Bai.

"Pan Tao!" Jiang Lingzhu cried out, pointing at him angrily. "You bastard! I knew you'd come to the Black Cloud City to stir things up! I already told you in the Green Illusion dimension that Nie Tian is going to join the Cloudsoaring sect. Don't you even think of trying to win him over!"

With a shrug, Pan Tao said, "Doesn't your sect have a rule that only those who reach the ninth level of Qi Refining will be eligible to become a disciple? Nie Tian doesn't meet the requirement, therefore you guys won't admit him to your sect anyways. Is it a problem that we're willing to admit him while you aren't?"

"Who said that we're not willing to accept him?" Jiang Lingzhu placed her hands on her hips, assuming a domineering posture. "I talked to my father as soon as I came back from the Green Illusion dimension, and he immediately gave permission. The reason Uncle Li and I are here is to bring Nie Tian back and officially admit him as a disciple of the Cloudsoaring sect!"

"What?" someone blurted shrilly. "Did I hear that right? The Cloudsoaring sect wants Nie Tian too? How lucky could that kid be for the Spiritual Treasure sect and the Cloudsoaring sect to scramble for him?"

"Doesn't the Cloudsoaring sect have harsh rules towards their subordinate clans? Only those who can enter the ninth level of Qi Refining by the age of 15 should be eligible to become an official disciple?"

"Don't tell me that the Cloudsoaring sect is breaking the rules for Nie Tian!"

"What the hell is going on?"

After realizing that Li Fan's purpose was the same as Pan Bai's, every single one of the onlookers were flabbergasted.

The moment Nie Donghai and Nie Qian heard Jiang Lingzhu's words, and realized that the sectmaster was willing to break the rules for Nie Tian, they were at a complete loss of words.

"Mr. Li, you… are you really here for Nie Tian?" Apparently, Nie Beichuan was somewhat flustered.

With a brief nod, Li Fan said seriously, "It's my master's wish."

"But for decades, the Cloudsoaring sect has only admitted youngsters with a cultivation base at the ninth level of Qi Refining. And the rule applies to all the subordinate clans, not just the Nie clan." Nie Beichuan seemed panicked. "That has been the rule for decades, a rule set by you! How can you break it just like that?"

Indifference appeared on Li Fan's face. "We make the rules, so we can break the rules. As long as my master says the word, then all rules are breakable."

After pausing for a moment, he seemed to have recalled something and chuckled, saying, "Well… the rule isn't completely abolished. It'll still apply to Nie clan children who wish to be admitted by the Cloudsoaring sect in the future."

"So Nie Tian…" Nie Beichuan asked, confused.

"He is and will be the only exception!" Li Fan said solemnly.

Nie Beichuan froze.

"Oh, by the way, what happened in the mine was only an accident. It was nobody's fault." Brow furrowed, Li Fan continued, "If you failed to unveil the true reason, then you should have made an honest report, and let us investigate it, instead of forcing your elder brother and niece to take the blame.

Nie Beichuan's face suddenly turned lifeless.

"Ever since you assumed the position of clanmaster, things has been very messy, and my master has become quite displeased." Li Fan looked towards the Nie clan elders, and said with a grim expression, "You people pick a new clanmaster!"

With these words, he intentionally took a glance at Nie Donghai.

"I, I, I…." Nie Beichuan stammered. He wanted to say something, yet couldn't utter a complete sentence.

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When Li Fan uttered the words "My master isn't pleased", it essentially forced Nie Beichuan to resign. No matter whether he was willing to or not, he would have to give up the position of clanmaster.

Li Fan intentionally glanced at Nie Donghai when he told the Nie clan elders to choose a new clanmaster, which was a clear implication.

Clan elder Nie Feiyun, a dedicated supporter of Nie Beichuan, had a deathly pale face. His expression froze and he didn't dare to say a single word in refutation.

The eldest clan elder, Nie Yaozu, secretly heaved a sigh. He turned to Li Fan and said, "We'll do as the sectmaster wishes, and choose a new clanmaster."

Face indifferent, Li Fan waved his hand and said, "Clansmen fighting in front of their own clan; what kind of image does this make of you?" He indicated for all the Nie clan members to return to the clan.

"Sorry for our poor manners," Nie Yaozu responded on Nie Beichuan's behalf, and instructed the Nie clan members to get inside.

Meanwhile, Nie Beichuan seemed to have lost his soul and was dragged away from the clan gate by his third brother Nie Nanshan.

It was only a moment before all the Nie clan members went inside, leaving only Nie Tian, Nie Donghai, and Nie Qian at the gate.

"Mr. Pan, Master An, shall we speak inside?" asked Li Fan.

Pan Bai and An Rong also understood that it wouldn't be appropriate if they got into a fight with Li Fan in front of the whole lot of civilians. Therefore, they both nodded and followed Li Fan into the Nie clan.

"Mr. Nie, let's go in," Li Fan said to Nie Donghai. "Shall we? I hope you'll give it some serious consideration before making your decision on whether or not you'll be leaving the Nie clan to join the Spiritual Treasure sect."

"Of course," Nie Donghai replied.

Soon, they all followed Li Fan and Jiang Lingzhu into the Nie clan.

Seeing them leave, the crowd of onlookers lost their interest and gradually dispersed.

However, the series of incidents that had happened at the main gate of the Nie clan were exaggerated and spiced up as they rapidly spread.

Before long, all of Black Cloud City knew about the Cloudsoaring sect and the Spiritual Treasure sect's fight over Nie Tian.

As a result, the name Nie Tian became known all over Black Cloud City.

Pan Bai from the Spiritual Treasure sect personally came for Nie Tian, and was even willing to bring Nie Donghai and Nie Qian back to the sect.

Meanwhile, the Cloudsoaring sect forced Nie Beichuan to abdicate and hinted for the Nie clan to make Nie Donghai the clanmaster again. Not only did they completely ignore the collapse of the mine, they even broke a sect rule that had been around for decades by admitting Nie Tian before he reached the ninth level of Qi Refining.

For decades, never had a child of the three clans in Black Cloud City received such grand treatment.

Neither Nie Tian's mother, who was widely acknowledged as an extremely talented youngster, nor An Shiyi from the An clan received such a sensational reception when they were admitted.

Many had suspicions in their hearts, not understanding what extraordinary talent the seemingly ordinary Nie Tian had demonstrated that made the Cloudsoaring sect and Spiritual Treasure sect openly fight for him.

"Nie Tian's cultivation talent is really that outstanding?"

Inside the Yun clan…

Having received the grievous news about Yun Song's death, Yun Zhiguo emptily dragged himself back into his room.

Inside, Yuan Qiuying had already learned from her informants about the odd things that had happened in front of the Nie clan gate.

"Song'er died in the Green Illusion dimension. How come that brat didn't?!" Yuan Qiuying seemed to have gone mad, as she smashed all of the vases and jars in the house.

Face haggard, Yun Zhiguo stared blankly at her as she went out of control.

"Good-for-nothing! Everyone from the Yun clan is good-for-nothing!" Yuan Qiuying stormed to his side and started to throw punches and kicks at him while yelling, "Yun Zhiguo! If you don't have Nie Tian and that slut Nie Qian killed, I won't forgive you for the rest of my life!"

Yun Zhiguo stared at Yuan Qiuying, who was baring her fangs and brandishing her claws like a crazy shrew. Suddenly, intense regret filled his heart.

He regretted that he had divorced Nie Qian and married the shrew, under the pressure from his clan.

Without Yuan Qiuying, the Yun clan and the Nie clan would still be friends, and he wouldn't have had to endure this woman's abuse on a daily basis.

Only until now did he finally realize how good Nie Qian had been to him.

Deep down, he knew that Nie Tian would eventually choose one of the two sects, and his future path of cultivation would be bright and promising.

For Nie Tian, Pan Bai personally came, and Jiang Zhisu broke the rules that the sect had adhered to for decades. All of this signified that there was definitely something special about Nie Tian.

The Nie clan would inevitably reverse their misfortune because of him. If the Yun clan ever dared to make a move on the Nie clan in the future, it would undoubtedly attract retaliation from the Cloudsoaring sect.

"Wrong… I couldn't have been more wrong…" he moaned inwardly.

Meanwhile…

Li Fan and Pan Bai were sitting in the Nie clan's great meeting hall, exchanging words gracefully with teacups in their hand.

Pan Tao stood next to Nie Tian. With a low voice, he said, "Nie Tian, whatever the Cloudsoaring sect can offer you, the Spiritual Treasure sect can also offer you. Others don't know about your special talent, but I do. If you go to the Cloudsoaring sect, you might not be able to make the best use of your talent. You might as well join the Spiritual Treasure sect, so that we brothers can fight side by side again."

Nie Tian rubbed his head and forced a smile onto his face. "About that… let me thank you first. But too much is going on, and I'm still muddle-headed right now. Let me think about it."

"Pan Tao!" Jiang Lingzhu moved over and gave him a fierce glare. "What are you saying to him?"

After that, she turned to Nie Tian and said, "My father already gave his consent. All of the problems with your clan will be solved. After all, the Nie clan has a close connection with the Cloudsoaring sect. Don't let Pan Tao mess with your head."

Confused, Nie Tian asked, "I don't understand why your father is willing to break the rules for me."

He and Pan Tao had communicated a lot in the Green Illusion dimension, therefore it was understandable that Pan Tao knew about his abilities and thus persuaded his father to come to Black Cloud City for him.

However, he only displayed his strength once in Jiang Lingzhu's presence, by forcing Yu Tong to retreat.

He didn't feel that it was possible for Jiang Lingzhu to persuade her father to break the rules just because of this.

He had a hunch that Jiang Zhisu harbored an ulterior motive, which was why he was making an exception for him.

In fact, Jiang Lingzhu also harbored certain suspicions. "I also don't know why he made an exception for you. However, it was truly my father's wish. You don't need to worry about that. Since my father has spoken, there definitely won't be a problem."

Nie Tian smiled wryly and said, "I need some time to think. Plus, I want to see what my aunt and grandfather think."

Although the three of them were also in the great hall, there was a distance between them and the grown-ups. Furthermore, there wasn't place for them to sit, so they could only whisper to each other while standing.

In the main seats, Li Fan and Pan Bai had been chatting about the monumental events which had taken place in the Green Illusion dimension, as well as the decisions that the four sects had made regarding the revenge that they were about to take on the Blood sect and the Ghost sect.

Nie Donghai and An Rong didn't say a word, but rather listened attentively the entire time.

Nie Tian and the others were growing impatient by the time they finally ended the pleasantries. Li Fan and Pan Bai exchanged a glance, and then Li Fan said, "About Nie Tian's issue, how about we let them decide?"

Pan Bai smiled and nodded. "I agree."

Only until then did Li Fan turn to Nie Donghai and say, "Mr. Nie, about what happened before… because of what happened to my junior martial sister, some sect elders were discontent with the Nie clan, and the things that they did were a bit excessive. However, the Nie clan and the Cloudsoaring sect have worked together for so many years. We know each other. I can't promise you too much, but I can assure you that in the future, the Cloudsoaring sect will definitely be fair and impartial towards the issues in the Nie clan!"

With these words, Li Fan halted for a moment, his expression becoming solemn and serious.

"Also… If Nie Tian chooses to join the Cloudsoaring sect, I guarantee you that the treatment he's going to receive will be completely different from Nie Xian's and Nie Han's.

"Someone living in the mountain behind Cloudsoaring Peak had set his mind on Nie Tian, and wants to take Nie Tian as his disciple."

Upon hearing these words, Jiang Lingzhu couldn't help but exclaim, "Ahhh?!"

Nie Donghai was immediately enlivened, and ecstasy spread out all over his face. Without waiting for anyone else to say anything, he hastily nodded his head and said, "Sure! Sure! You can take Nie Tian to the Cloudsoaring sect any time!" He seemed to fear that Li Fan might take back his words.

Even Pan Bai's expression slightly changed after hearing Li Fan's words.

He gazed deeply at Nie Tian, and then looked over towards Pan Tao, as he realized that his son was every bit as good as he was when it came to judging talent.

For the person in the mountain behind Cloudsoaring Peak to make such a decision meant that there had to be something uncommon about Nie Tian!

It was also at that moment that he realized it had become certain that Nie Tian would step into the Cloudsoaring sect.

However, he didn't feel frustrated.

He knew that even if Nie Tian didn't choose the Spiritual Treasure sect, after everything that had happened, Nie Tian would still be grateful towards Pan Tao.

If there were no mishaps, under that person's guidance, Nie Tian would skyrocket in the Cloudsoaring sect.

As long as Nie Tian could remember what Pan Tao had done for him, his trip would be worth it.

"Nie Tian!" Nie Donghai said loudly. "What are you waiting for? Thank Uncle Li!"

Nie Tian bowed and said, "Thank you, Uncle Li."

Li Fan laughed. "I'll give you three days. After three days, I'll take you to Cloudsoaring Mountain."

"I understand."

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During the following three days, Nie Tian showed Pan Tao around Black Cloud City.

After Nie Donghai decided for Nie Tian to join the Cloudsoaring sect, Pan Tao's father, Pan Bai, had returned with An Rong to the An clan for a temporary visit.

Meanwhile, Li Fan and Jiang Lingzhu stayed in the Nie clan to wait for Nie Tian to get ready to leave for the Cloudsoaring sect.

Although three days was a short period of time, the efficiency of the Nie clan elders was extremely amazing.

The next day, Nie Yaozu the other elders and declared that Nie Beichuan's position as clanmaster would be removed due to his dereliction of duty with regards to the mining accident.

On that afternoon, under Li Fan's observance, the Nie clan elders elected Nie Donghai to be their clanmaster again.

On the other hand, Nie Beichuan and Nie Nanshan spent the three days mostly in their rooms, totally dispirited and no longer daring to interfere with clan affairs.

Li Fan was like a giant mountain weighing down on the two brothers. As long as he was still in the Nie clan, they could only follow his words obediently without the slightest thoughts of revolting.

The Nie clan members who had treated Nie Donghai and Nie Qian coldly in the past, started to fight for their favor once again. At the same time, Nie Donghai moved back into the big mansion which represented the clanmaster's status.

Pan Tao knew that he wouldn't be able to turn Nie Tian's decision around. Therefore, after touring in Black Cloud City for several days with him, he went back to the An clan to prepare for his return with his father to the Spiritual Treasure sect.

This morning, just as the first cracks of light emerged, Nie Tian went to the square where the clan members trained.

On the square, many Nie clan youngsters were sitting cross-legged with their hands on their knees, breathing the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth. Others were moving their fists and bodies as they practiced spiritual techniques.

Nie Hong and Nie Yuan were also sitting there, cultivating quietly.

However, unlike before, the other Nie clan youngsters now intentionally kept their distance from these two, and chose other spots to cultivate at.

If it were three days ago, wherever they went, the other youngsters would automatically gather around them, attempting to gain their favor.

Nie Tian had never come back to the square again since he had injured Nie Hong.

Now that he suddenly appeared, many of the cultivating Nie clan youths were shocked, and gazed towards him with a mixture of surprise, envy, and respect.

"All of you, go back to your cultivation!" Wu Tao shouted with his low-pitched voice.

The agitated youngsters gradually quieted down after hearing his rebuke.

However, their eyes were still locked onto Nie Tian, who walked towards Wu Tao.

In merely three days, Nie Tian's name had spread to every corner of Black Cloud City.

Even in the nearby Dim Star City, Frost Stone City, and Bone Shatter City, many people were talking about him.

Because of him, Pan Bai from the Spiritual Treasure sect had personally come to the Nie clan; because of him, the Cloudsoaring sect had broken a rule that had stood for decades, and took him in before he had reached the ninth level of Qi Refining.

To every one of the Nie clan youngsters in the square, Nie Tian was a legend.

They couldn't understand how Nie Tian, who, a year ago, used to train with them on the same square and fight with Nie Hong and Nie Yuan all the time, could improve so drastically, and attain such a miraculous success in such a short time.

Nie Tian bowed respectfully towards Wu Tao. "Mr. Wu, thank you for taking care of me all these years. I will soon be going to the Cloudsoaring sect, and I have specially come today to say goodbye to you."

When his grandfather and aunt were being forced by Nie Beichuan and his allies to go to the Cloudsoaring sect to admit their guilt, the entire Nie clan had intentionally hid it from him.

Only Wu Tao had taken a great risk and secretly informed him.

Furthermore, when he previously trained on the square, Wu Tao had also treated him well, unlike the other clan members who had treated him coldly because his grandfather had lost his power within the clan.

Therefore, he was there to express his gratitude towards him before he left the Nie clan.

"Oh, there's no need." Wu Tao hurriedly went forward to help him up.

After that, Wu Tao looked deeply into his eyes, smiled broadly, and said, "I always knew that you were different, even though I couldn't figure out what exactly it was. I always felt that you would be taken in by the Cloudsoaring sect, just like Nie Xian." With these words, he paused for a moment before continuing, "But I underestimated you…"

Both of them were children of the Nie clan, and both were regarded highly by Wu Tao. Nie Xian had been formally accepted by the Cloudsoaring sect after he stepped into the ninth level of Qi Refining.

However, Nie Tian was different.

Not only had Pan Bai from the Spiritual Treasure sect come for him, but the Cloudsoaring sect even broke a rule that had been enforced for decades for him.

Wu Tao also knew that Nie Tian was actually the reason why the Cloudsoaring sect was willing to drop the matter of the collapsed mine, and why Nie Beichuan was removed from his position, allowing Nie Donghai to regain his former position as clanmaster.

Because of Nie Tian, the whole situation of the Nie clan had been turned around!

The shocking potential that he had exhibited and the changes he had caused far exceeded Nie Xian.

"Perhaps something happened in the Green Illusion dimension…" Wu Tao speculated inwardly, his heart filled with mixed feelings.

Nie You, who had her hair wrapped up in a braid on top of her head, curiously looked at him and asked with a naive voice. "Elder Brother Tian, what stage are you at now?"

The innocent Nie You had always stood by Nie Tian, and had accused Nie Hong and Nie Yuan for being shameless every time they battled Nie Tian.

"The eighth level of Qi Refining," replied Nie Tian, smiling.

"Ahhh?!" Nie You exclaimed.

A lot of the other youngsters also seemed astonished after hearing his answer.

They could still remember that Nie Tian was at the third level of Qi Refining when he fought with Nie Hong last time.

It had only been a year, but Nie Tian had already exceeded everyone's expectations and reached the eighth level. Such a rapid advancement was simply unimaginable.

"Elder Brother Tian, you're so awesome!" Nie You's face was full of admiration. "No wonder the Cloudsoaring sect would make an exception for you."

A lot of young girls and boys of the Nie clan cast amazed looks at him, as they chatted and sighed in admiration.

"From the third to the eighth level in a year… This kind of progress is way too terrifying."

"Well, it seems that there is a reason why the Cloudsoaring sect made an exception for him."

"It might be that they value his potential."

Only Nie Yuan and Nie Hong were still sitting off in the distance, looking rather grim.

They didn't say a word, assuming that Nie Tian had come especially to humiliate them.

Sure enough, Nie Tian began to walk slowly towards them after thanking Wu Tao.

All of a sudden, everyone in the square fell into silence.

The expressions on their faces seemed as if they were expecting a good show.

Both Nie Hong and Nie Yuan lowered their heads and gritted their teeth, not daring to meet Nie Tian's gaze.

Since their fathers had already warned them against starting conflicts with Nie Tian, then no matter how Nie Tian insulted them, they could only bear it; they absolutely weren't allowed to resist.

Nie Tian was obviously different from the other disciples that had been admitted by the Cloudsoaring sect.

Nie Tian's success was already immutable.

Nowadays, not a single person in the entire Nie clan would dare to mess with Nie Tian, not to mention those two youngsters.

After all, if they were to be admitted by the Cloudsoaring sect in the future, and Nie Tian were to target them after they joined the sect, their life would be miserable.

For sake of their own future, they could only endure whatever was coming.

Therefore, they had already prepared themselves for Nie Tian to come over and humiliate them.

Meanwhile…

On top of the high pavilion that represented the status of clanmaster, Nie Donghai and Li Fan, who had been conversing, suddenly stopped.

They were leaning against the stone balcony, overlooking the square underneath, before their attention was caught by Nie Tian.

"Hmm…"

They saw Nie Tian arriving in front of Nie Hong and Nie Yuan.

After a moment of hesitation, Nie Tian said, "The conflicts between our grandfathers have nothing to do with us. Although we've been battling over the years, I've never considered you two as my enemies.

"I'll continue my cultivation in the Cloudsoaring sect. I hope, however, that our matches won't stop because of that, and that they won't be limited to within the Nie clan.

"I hope that I'll soon see the both of you in the Cloudsoaring sect. By that time, I'll accept your challenges at any time.

"Thanks for honing me for all these years. Because of you, I strove to get stronger, and eventually earned the chance to enter the Cloudsoaring sect.

"I hope the two of you can also become disciples of the Cloudsoaring sect.

"By that time, we will fight in the Cloudsoaring sect, instead of the Nie clan."

What he said was true. He had never hated Nie Hong or Nie Yuan. They were also only eleven, the same age as Nie Tian, and they actually hadn't been tainted by the despicable minds of Nie Beichuan and Nie Nanshan yet.

Without the countless battles they had fought against each other, Nie Tian wouldn't have been able to improve unceasingly, and he wouldn't have been sharpened into a treasured blade that emanated brilliant light.

All of the people who were watching, waiting for Nie Tian to humiliate Nie Hong and Nie Yuan, let out exclamations of surprise. "Huh?!"

Wu Tao also looked greatly surprised.

Even Li Fan and Nie Donghai, who were high up on the balcony, appreciated Nie Tian's behavior with surprised expressions on their faces.

Nie Hong and Nie Yuan, who had planned for the worst-case scenario, raised their heads to stare blankly at Nie Tian, flabbergasted by his words.

They didn't see the least bit of a sneer in Nie Tian's eyes, or the intent to inflict humiliation that they thought to be there. All they saw was sincerity.

A moment later, Nie Hong snapped out of his daze, as the issues that had been weighing on his mind were instantly lifted. He waved his clenched fist towards Nie Tian and said, "You'll see! I'll definitely make it into the Cloudsoaring sect. By that time, I'll defeat you, and let you know that I'm not a bit weaker than you!"

"So will I!" Nie Yuan said loudly.

With a grin, Nie Tian nodded. "Good. I'll wait for you in the Cloudsoaring sect!"

"Just wait for us!"

Then, Nie Hong said in a low voice, "Congratulations…"

Nie Tian put on a heartfealt smile.

On the stone pavilion, Li Fan turned to Nie Donghai and said, "You taught him well."

"Yes, all the things that I have done over the years finally paid off." Nie Donghai no longer hid his feelings and his face was filled with pride.

Li Fan nodded slowly, and spoke while seemingly thinking to himself, "I wonder what happened to him in the Green Illusion dimension. But from the look of it, what he got from the Green Illusion dimension was way more than just the progress in cultivation. It seems his mind and the way he handles issues also transcended… That kind of growth is even more precious compared to the growth in cultivation."

Nie Donghai laughed gently, feeling as if the pressure that he had endured for many years had been completely been lifted today. Now, he felt incomparably light.

Face solemn, Li Fan said with a serious tone, "From now on, the Nie clan will sorrow as he sorrows, decline as he declines. It will rejoice as he rejoices, and soar as he soars."

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Deep into the night.

The majestic Cloudsoaring Mountain stood tall and erect, like a gigantic stone pillar piercing into the clouds.

At the foot of the mountain, Nie Tian looked up at it, breathing deeply and filled with emotion.

"Lingzhu, you go ahead," Li Fan said casually.

Jiang Lingzhu turned around to look at Nie Tian. With a complicated expression, she said, "What about him?"

Li Fan answered, "Master has instructed me to bring him directly to the back of the mountain."

Jiang Lingzhu was taken aback. "Really?"

Li Fan laughed bitterly. "I wish he was kidding. Ahh… the idea of having such a young martial uncle also bothered me…"

"You lucky dog!" Jiang Lingzhu said, glaring at Nie Tian. Sounding annoyed, she continued, "I don't care. I won't call you martial uncle no matter what. You're not even my age!"

With these words, she went along the long and narrow stone steps towards the top of the Cloudsoaring Mountain.

Nie Tian scratched his head, looking confused. "What's going on, uncle Li?"

"You can call me uncle Li today, but from tomorrow on, I'll be your martial nephew." Helplessness appeared on Li Fan's face, but he didn't explain anything more in detail. Instead, he said, "Let's go, to the back of the mountain."

Full of questions, Nie Tian followed along.

An hour later, the sky had turned completely dark, and a bright, round moon gradually rose up into the night sky.

Behind Cloudsoaring Mountain, Nie Tian and Li Fan appeared at the foot of a mountain that was slightly shorter than Cloudsoaring Mountain.

Li Fan pointed to a stone path which led towards the mountaintop, and said to Nie Tian, "This is as far as I can go. You just have to follow this stone path and walk to the end of it. Someone will be waiting for you at the mountaintop. And that person will be your master in the Cloudsoaring sect."

"What?" Nie Tian was confused. "Why does he live in the back, and not on Cloudsoaring Mountain? From what I've heard, new disciples are supposed to attend some kind of ceremony, aren't they?"

"You're different." Li Fan explained, shaking his head. "You'll see. Many rules of the Cloudsoaring sect won't apply to you."

His words left Nie Tian completely confused.

"Go ahead. Follow the stone path to the mountaintop. Soon, you'll understand how lucky you are, kid." Without another word, Li Fan turned and left.

Under the moonlight, Nie Tian's gaze followed the long, rugged stone path upwards to the top of the peak, his heart filled with all kinds of emotions.

After stewing in his thoughts for a while, he still couldn't figure out what was waiting for him, thus he just followed Li Fan's instructions and walked along the stone path up the mountain, bathed in moonlight.

The stone path was long and rugged, and he spent the entire night climbing. By the time he got to the top, it was already daybreak, and he was exhausted.

At the end of the stone path was a stretch of glossy stone ground, atop which were a few thatched cottages.

Completely worn out, Nie Tian breathed deeply to calm himself. Before he could examine the surroundings carefully, a voice echoed out from within one of the thatched cottages, "You're here."

Nie Tian was taken aback. "You are?"

"Come." The person's voice was filled with tranquility, as if he had just woken up. "Watch your step."

Subconsciously, Nie Tian looked towards the glossy stone ground under his feet.

He saw dots of bright light floating out, which quickly stretched into lines and interweaved into a gigantic grid.

In the next moment, waves of soul-shaking fluctuations were unleashed from within the grid, causing Nie Tian's expression to flicker.

Then he noticed that the clusters of clouds floating near the mountain peak were being attracted as they converged rapidly onto the stone ground under his feet.

Before long, the clusters of clouds seemed to have turned into an ash-gray carpet, spreading out and covering the entire stone ground, with the only visible thing being a carpet of clouds.

At that moment, he felt as if he was standing on top of a sea of clouds, in the highest of the heavens.

"Take your time, and walk to me step by step." Submerged in the dense clouds, the voice that echoed out from the thatched cottage sounded even more ethereal.

Nie Tian glanced around. All he could see was a sea of thick clouds and a thatched cottage that seemed to be floating on top of it, with no mountains or ground visible any longer.

This was something he had never experienced before, and thus he instantly grew incomparably cautious.

No longer able to locate the stone ground beneath his feet, he feared that he might fall from the clouds into the heart of the mountain and die.

He stared closely at the thatched cottage and pondered for a while with his eyes narrowed. Convinced that the stone ground was still there between him and the thatched cottage, he finally took his first trembling step forward.

BOOM!

The moment his foot landed, a surge of energy fluctuations entered his body through the bottom of his foot, which then turned into millions of strands of energy that swam upwards along his legs.

He immediately experienced soreness and numbness all over. When he unleashed his psychic power to examine his body, he discovered that those strands of energy seemed to have found an outlet and rushed forth into his mind.

Shortly after, he felt muddleheaded as he started to lose his balance and stagger.

Every muscle and meridian inside of him seemed to be invaded by the strange, fine strands of energy, and gradually, he started to feel a rise in his body temperature.

"Second step." The voice once again echoed out from within the thatched cottage.

Muddleheaded and dizzy, Nie Tian followed the person's instructions and slowly took his second step.

BOOM!

Another surge of energy rushed into his sole, reaching every one of his bones and limbs and filling his entire body.

His body suddenly expanded out like a inflated balloon, just as what had previously occurred in the Green Illusion dimension when he had tried to refine the blood he had absorbed.

A heart-wrenching pain came from within each and every one of his pores, which grew increasingly unbearable and eventually made him cry out loud. "Ahh!"

While he was roaring wildly, sweat started spilling out from his pores, which… was mixed with filth that was being discharged from within his body.

"Continue!" The voice rang out again.

Nie Tian struggled to resist the acute pain. Jaw clenched, he took another step forward.

With every step he took, astonishing energy would break out from within the clusters of clouds beneath his feet, rush inside of him without meeting any obstacle, and wander about in his flesh and bones, as if it was attempting to stimulate him!

When he took the seventh step, the pain built up to the point where he was on the verge of losing consciousness.

His legs felt as heavy as mountains, and he found it almost impossible to take even one more step forward.

Therefore, he stopped.

Surprisingly, the voice that had kept urging him didn't echo out, as if it was waiting for something.

HUFF! HUFF! HUFF!

Nie Tian panted heavily, as if the most effortless action of breathing had now become too consuming for him.

By this point, he felt as if his body didn't belong to him any more; he was so muddleheaded that he could no longer feel the existence of his body.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

It was also at that very moment that he experienced an anomaly in his heartbeat, which was growing increasingly strong and rapid!

Standing among the clouds, Nie Tian exclaimed inwardly, fearing that his secret was about to be revealed. "Oh, damn!"

This kind of situation had only occurred to help him reverse a desperate situation, allowing him to battle on with an new, unknown strength.

It was no exception this time!

He had been exhausted to death and on the verge of passing out, but as his heart pounded increasingly vigorously, he resumed command of his own body.

It seemed as if his body was reactivated by a new kind of strength!

Having stopped for a while, the voice suddenly rang out once again. "Continue!!"

However, this time, Nie Tian could clearly identify excitement in that voice.

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Cloudsoaring Mountain…

Standing on the mountaintop, surrounded by a boundless white fog, the master of the Cloudsoaring sect, Jiang Zhisu, was gazing at the back of the mountain, his green robes fluttering against the wind.

Jiang Lingzhu and Li Fan stood beside him, and just like him, they were also looking at the back of the mountain, their eyes filled with disbelief.

"The flow of the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth seems to have changed…" said Jiang Zhisu.

After staring for a while, Li Fan said, "Based on my calculations, Nie Tian ought to have reached the top already."

Jiang Zhisu said gently, "It's begun."

"Father, why did martial granduncle chose Nie Tian?" Jiang Lingzhu asked, puzzled.

Li Fan furrowed his brow and said, "Actually, I find it quite strange myself. I failed to spot any special cultivation talent on him. Pan Bai of the Spiritual Treasure sect is well-known for his ability to recognize talent, and since he set his mind on Nie Tian, he must have something unique. But, even if that was true, it was still very unlikely for martial granduncle to pick him, right?"

Jiang Zhisu shook his head and said, "I also have no idea why. In martial uncle's entire life, he has only taken in a total of three disciples, with Nie Tian being the third. You probably have heard of the first two, and know what cultivation stage they're at and their current status."

Li Fan's heart was filled with veneration upon hearing these words.

Jiang Zhisu remained silent for a while before saying, "Martial uncle hasn't made a breakthrough in years, and his time… is about to run out. If there are no surprises, Nie Tian is very likely his last disciple. Actually, I originally assumed that he wouldn't take in any more disciples; who would have thought that he would set his eyes on Nie Tian. However, it's our sect's fortune that martial uncle has taken in a new disciple."

"I wonder how many steps he'll be able to take." Curiosity was written across Li Fan's face.

Eyes narrowed, Jiang Zhisu used his soul to sense the flow of the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth in the vicinity of the Cloudsoaring Mountain. "The first two of martial uncle's disciples both turned out to be more successful than their master. I hope that Nie Tian will too. After today, we'll have a clearer understanding of Nie Tian's potential."

Upon hearing his words, both Li Fan and Jiang Lingzhu's eyes brimmed with admiration, as if they knew what Nie Tian was experiencing at that moment.

…

On the back of the mountain…

Having walked seven steps, Nie Tian couldn't move his legs even the least bit.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

Just as he was catching his breath, rapid and vigorous heartbeats once again sounded out from within his chest.

Nie Tian, who was on the verge of losing consciousness, remained where he was and used his soul to sense the changes inside of him.

He discovered that countless strands of unknown energy were roaming about inside of him, carrying pure and refined power, as they constantly entered and exited his flesh, bones, and internal organs.

He no longer forced himself to take steps forward, but rather attempted to use the Qi Refining Incantation to control the strands of energy.

As soon as he started, he could keenly feel the numerous strands of energy frantically surging forth into his spiritual sea.

In only a flash, his spiritual sea was brimming with spiritual power, but the mighty spiritual energy in him was much stronger than the energy he had acquired from the spirit beast meat in the Green Illusion dimension!

When he tried to use the Qi Refining Incantation to expand his spiritual sea, he discovered that his spiritual sea seemed to be ripped apart and sewn back together, expanding rapidly.

Not only that, but along with the acceleration of his heartbeat, he gradually gained control of the strands of energy that were originally rampaging uncontrollably in his flesh, bones, and internal organs.

Before long, he sensed that the energy was disappearing at an astonishing speed.

He was actually absorbing it!

Before long, he snapped out of the muddleheaded state he had been in, and regained command of his own body, even though he was still feeling incomparably sore and painful.

"Continue!" The urging voice once again echoed out from within the thatched cottage.

Nie Tian gritted his teeth and took another step forward.

The moment he stretched out his leg, he felt drops of murky sweat flowing out from his body, dripping down as he moved along.

THUMP!

When his foot landed on the ground, another surge of energy flowed into him through his sole.

As soon as it entered Nie Tian's foot, the surge of energy once again split into countless strands of energy, dispersing into every corner of his body.

THUMP! THUMP!

He took another two steps in quick succession, and the energy which rushed forth into his body once again became frantic and disorderly.

He had just restored clarity to his mind, and yet was once again thrown into bewilderment as a flesh-rending pain burst out within him, causing him to stagger to the point where he almost fell over.

It was at that point that he realized that the amount of energy that his body was able to bear had once again reached its limit!

He stopped moving again, and then used the Qi Refining Incantation to pull the abundant energy inward.

CRACKLE!

A strange sound rang out from his bones, as if his joints were cheering, his blood was surging in high spirits, and his internal organs were roaring wildly!

Soon, he discovered that the energy, which had filled his spiritual sea to the brim, seemed to have completely transformed his spiritual sea after a violent upheaval.

After examining himself with rapt attention, ecstasy appeared on his face. "The ninth level of Qi Refining!"

He had spent a very long time to expand his spiritual sea bit by bit in the Green Illusion dimension before eventually reaching the eighth level of Qi Refining. At that time, he was fully aware that there was still a very long road ahead, and it could be months before he would reach the ninth level of Qi Refining.

He never expected that simply by taking a few steps within the sea of clouds, his spiritual sea would finish upgrading, and he would step into the ninth level of Qi Refining just like that!

CRACKLE!

All of his bones continued to make cracking sounds, and at the same time, huge amounts of sweat mixed with filth continued to pour out of his pores.

Along with the outflow of the sweat, he suddenly felt his muscles, meridians, and veins grow more powerful and resilient, his bones become as hard as steel, and his internal organs fill with endless strength.

Surprised and elated, he released his psychic awareness in an attempt to probe the surroundings.

His psychic power was like tentacles stretching out from his soul, traveling at an unimaginably high speed, extending into every direction to cover a 150 meters radius!

Within the range of 150 meters, the flow of the wind, the surging power within the clouds, the swaying reeds on top of the thatched cottages, and the ice-cold moisture of the stone ground all became clear to him.

At the same time, a terrifyingly strong life fluctuation, which pulsed in the thatched cottage in front of him, was reflected into his mind!

Closing his eyes, he used his soul to sense it…

Within that thatched cottage, there seemed to be an entity that resembled a blazing sun, releasing heaven-shaking and earth-shattering life fluctuations.

He immediately felt dwarfed by such a formidable power. He also felt that with a look or just a thought, that life within the thatched cottage would be able to instantly reduce him into nothing more than slag.

Back in the Green Illusion dimension, he had also used his unique psychic awareness to detect the Lurker Lizard and Frost Python. The fleshly aura and signs of life of those two spirit beasts had been slightly stronger than Yu Tong's, yet they had already made him feel immeasurably weak.

However, compared to the life fluctuations within the thatched cottage, they seemed ridiculously insignificant, as if they were bugs and this was a dragon, as if they were fireflies and this was the sun.

"It's so powerful!" he exclaimed inwardly. "Is that… really a human being?"

"Yee?!" A muttering sound echoed out from within the thatched cottage, "Such considerable psychic power at the Qi Refining stage… Not bad…"

After halting for a moment, the man in the thatched cottage called out, "Focus, keep going!"

Upon hearing the words, Nie Tian's psychic power instantly returned to his soul, as if it was pushed back by a formless, giant hand.

With a shock to his soul, his snapped out of his psychic activities and realized that it wasn't the time to observe that person.

However, after experiencing a period of bewilderment, his body seemed to have become adapted again and the strands of energy that had rushed forth into his body seemed to have been consumed by more than half.

Therefore, he took another step forward.

Just like that, he walked and stopped. Step by step, he gradually moved towards that thatched cottage.

He didn't pay attention to how long it had been, or how much energy he had absorbed. He even forgot how many steps he had taken.

In the end, when he reached the door of the thatched cottage, he raised his head, and realized that a full moon already hung high in the sky.

"Come in!" the voice echoed out again.

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Below Nie Tian's feet, the clouds rapidly dissipated, and soon he was able to see the stone ground again.

Standing in front of the thatched cottage, he could feel that there were still countless strands of energy roaming about inside of him, yet his pounding heartbeat had returned to normal.

Staring at the thatched cottage, he suddenly felt somewhat nervous, and thus stood there in hesitation.

Previously, he perceived that the person inside the thatched cottage… was an existence whose strength incredibly strong, the likes of which he had never met before.

"Come in," the person urged once again.

Hearing his words, Nie Tian didn't hesitate any further. He lifted the cottage's curtain and strode in.

Upon entering, he immediately knelt and kowtowed three times, saying, "Greetings, master."

When he previously arrived at the foot of the mountain, he had learned from Li Fan that the person he was going to meet would be his future master in the Cloudsoaring sect.

By urging him to step towards the cottage, that person had bestowed millions of strands of energy upon him, which were clearly an enormous fortune to him.

If by now he didn't understand that this person had good intentions, then he would be undeserving of the Cloudsoaring sect's breaking of the rules for him, much less the favor of this mysterious person.

"Smart kid."

Within the humble thatched cottage, an old man that resembled a bag of bones sat quietly on a prayer mat with both of his hands tucked up in the opposite sleeves, sizing Nie Tian up with intense interest.

The old man was plain looking. No matter his clothes or his figure, there was nothing eye-catching about him.

Only his eyes were different, which seemed to be brimming with the thirst for knowledge, constantly pondering certain profound questions, and diligently and tirelessly chasing after the answers.

"Raise your head," the old man said softly.

After hearing his words, Nie Tian slowly lifted up his bowed head and finally summoned enough courage to look the old man in the eye.

With a brief smile, the old man said amiably, "My name is Wu Ji. From today on, I'll be your master. Including you, I have a total of three disciples. When you reach a certain level, you'll naturally come to know about your two senior martial brothers. There's no need for me to tell you about them.

"The only thing I'll say about them is that they have already surpassed me.

"I hope that like them you will too, one day, step out of this heaven and earth to go and pursue the things that I once longed for."

Nie Tian was flabbergasted. "Step out of this heaven and earth?"

Wu Ji's face was calm. "By stepping out of this heaven and earth, I don't mean through an inter-spacial teleportation portal. I'm talking about soaring across the river of stars by relying on your own strength. The heaven and earth in which we reside is just an insignificant realm in the vast galaxy. Its name is the Realm of Flame Heaven, which is the ninth realm of the Domain of the Falling Stars.

"The ninth realm? The Domain of the Falling Stars?" Confusion stretched across Nie Tian's face.

Wu Ji nodded. "That's right, the land that we're standing on is the ninth realm of the Domain of the Falling Stars. And within Domain of the Falling Stars, there are altogether nine realms which are similar to the Realm of Flame Heaven."

Nie Tian's jaw dropped as he stared at Wu Ji wide-eyed.

With merely a few sentences, Wu Ji had practically overturned everything Nie Tian knew about this world, and shook his beliefs to an incredible extent.

"Of course." Face serious, Wu Ji continued, "telling you about all these things right now is indeed a bit too early. But I have faith that your future will not be limited to the Realm of Flame Heaven. I'm telling you all these things because I want you to know that the unmeasured vastness of the entire galaxy far exceeds your imagination.

"One day, you'll step out of the Realm of Flame Heaven and travel freely between the realms of the Domain of the Falling Stars, just like your two senior martial brothers."

Immediately, a longing was born in Nie Tian's heart.

"Just like the Realm of Flame Heaven, each and every one of the realms of the Domain of the Falling Stars is inhabited by numerous powerful Qi warriors. However, the number of Qi warriors in the Realm of Flame Heaven is far fewer compared to the other eight realms.

"In the entire Realm of Flame Heaven, there are only seven Qi warrior forces that can be considered worth mentioning.

"You probably know about them. They are the Spiritual Treasure sect, Cloudsoaring sect, Grayvale sect, Mystic Mist sect, Ghost sect, Blood sect, and Hell sect.

"These seven forces are split up into two alliances, with the Ghost sect, Blood sect, and Hell sect on one side, and the Spiritual Treasure sect, Grayvale sect, Mystic Mist sect, and us on the other."

Inside the thatched cottage, Wu Ji's ethereal voice unceasingly drifted about. He didn't talk too much about the Domain of the Falling Stars and the other eight realms, but rather focused on matters of the Realm of Flame Heaven.

Nie Tian listened attentively, engraving everything Wu Ji had said in his mind.

Wu Ji had opened a brand new door for him, allowing him to gradually understand about his insignificance and the fact that the Realm of Flame Heaven he was in was merely the ninth realm of the Domain of the Falling Stars.

During that day, Wu Ji didn't give any introduction regarding cultivation, but only explained to him in detail the distribution of realms, the complicated relationships between different forces, as well as the conflicts between individual Qi warriors.

A very long time passed…

Wu Ji stopped and said, "Go and think over what I have said today. Also, have a good rest to let your body recuperate, and then, observe and learn about the changes in you.

"In the future, I'll explain to you the relationship between a Qi warrior and the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth, as well as other basic knowledge.

"I won't impart any spiritual techniques for cultivation before you enter the Lesser Heaven stage. For now, you can just continue to use the Qi Refining Incantation to cultivate your spiritual sea."

"Got it." Nie Tian nodded obediently.

Wu Ji examined him silently for a while before asking, "Someone has refined your flesh, blood, and bones before me. Who was he?"

Nie Tian was stunned. Then he contemplated over Wu Ji's question, trying to figure out what he meant.

"I heard you once had a high fever and lost consciousness for a few days?" Wu Ji's eyes glittered with bright light.

Nie Tian suddenly remembered and said, "Yes, I did."

"A foreign doctor treated your fever for seven days, right?" asked Wu Ji.

Nie Tian nodded. "Yeah, he did."

"What is his name?"

"I believe it's Hua Mu."

"Hua Mu?" Wu Ji frowned as he drifted away in thought. After a while, he shook his head and said, "I have never heard this name before. Either it's a fake name, or… he's not from the Realm of Flame Heaven.

"There are only a handful in the entire Realm of Flame Heaven who are able to do what he did and practically give you a brand new body.

"I know every one of them and none are named Hua Mu."

Nie Tian was taken aback. "That foreign doctor helped me refine my flesh, blood, and bones? Is he really… that incredible?"

"Of course, he is." Wu Ji nodded. "But I don't know what motivated him to spend so much energy to help you refine your flesh, blood, and bones. That person is definitely beyond ordinary. If he is indeed from one of the other eight realms, then…"

Wu Ji suddenly stopped and started to examine Nie Tian again, as if he was trying to find an answer on Nie Tian.

After a while, he waved his hand, signaling for Nie Tian to leave. "From today on, the third thatched cottage to the left belongs to you. You can go and rest now."

"Yes, master." Nie Tian rose to his feet, bowed, and walked out of the room.

Wu Ji's words were a bit overwhelming for him, and he needed time to digest such a large amount of overturning information.

Furthermore, he was fairly exhausted, and felt the urgent need to get some good sleep.

Inside the room, Wu Ji was still muttering to himself, "Hua Mu…

"It seems like I have to ask a few friends to go investigate in the other eight realms, and see if there is actually a person named Hua Mu… Since this Hua Mu was willing to go through so much trouble to help refine Nie Tian's body, there must be a reason.

"Could it be that he also saw the potential in Nie Tian and wanted to take him in as a disciple?

"But if he did, how come he didn't take Nie Tian with him?

"Strange, it's truly strange."

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