As Pei Qiqi pulled with great force, half of Nie Tian’s body entered the portal like water merging with the sea.
SHEW! SHEW! SHEW!
At the same time, wisps of flesh aura shot out of his extended hand and bound up Huang Jinnan like crimson ropes.
In the meantime, Zhao Heng canceled his power, and the watery sphere Huang Jinnan was in collapsed and vaporized.
Nie Tian’s flesh aura that carried the profound truths of life swooped in and formed a blood-colored sphere that enveloped Huang Jinnan.
WHOOSH!
Inside the portal, Pei Qiqi’s pulling force increased.
Just as Nie Tian quickly assumed a tight grip on Huang Jinnan, the two of them were dragged into the portal together, and started shifting between different spaces.
As they did, extremely fierce spatial blades kept flashing by like carving knives. Nie Tian felt as if they were inside a bizarre tunnel, where bits of multicolored light that were sharp enough to sever anything kept flying past.
BZZZ! BZZZ!
Nie Tian felt disoriented. All he could tell was that Huang Jinnan, who he was holding, and himself were constantly being scraped by the dashing light.
The flesh aura shield that enveloped Huang Jinnan burst over and over. However, every time it did, he would rapidly reform it with a new flesh aura.
Soon, Nie Tian started to feel bone-piercing pain in every inch of his body. A vigorous flesh aura then rushed out of his bones, flesh, meridians, and internal organs to intercept and neutralize the infiltrating spatial power.
Meanwhile, Pei Qiqi’s figure seemed illusory in this bizarre tunnel filled with dashing light, as if she was an ethereal immortal that wasn’t in a solid form.
For Nie Tian, this experience was completely different from any time he had used a teleportation portal before.
The dashing light was constantly hurting him and Huang Jinnan, who he struggled to protect.
Pei Qiqi, however, didn’t seem affected at all.
The traveling process lasted quite a while. It pained Nie Tian to the point where he wanted to die.
BZZZ!
All of a sudden, he felt like he had come out of the bizarre tunnel alive.
He opened his eyes and found himself standing on a huge meteor that was floating in the vast starry river.
Pei Qiqi was standing in front of him with her back facing him. Numerous strings of spatial power could be seen slithering all over her, as if they were branded with her profound bloodline power.
In his arms, Huang Jinnan was moaning weakly in pain, as if he were going to wake up soon.
The blood-colored sphere that had protected him was already gone. His robust body was now covered in crisscrossing cuts, which were fine and deep, but didn’t cut to his bones.
Nie Tian then looked down at himself, and discovered that he had even more cuts on himself than Huang Jinnan.
Clearly, he had sustained more injuries than Huang Jinnan had.
However, thanks to his exceptionally tough body and the wonders of his unique bloodline, not only was he not bleeding at all, but those gashes were even healing at a visible speed.
With a grim expression, Nie Tian muttered, “I’ve practically drained my flesh power protecting Huang Jinnan, but he’s still badly injured.”
Then, he turned to Pei Qiqi, who remained silent and had her back facing him. “Senior Martial Sister Pei, you…”
Pei Qiqi turned around. “You two are lucky to be alive.”
Nie Tian’s expression instantly flickered.
Pei Qiqi’s face was extremely pale. The vigorous glitter in her eyes was gone, and her flesh aura had become almost too faint to detect.
As she swung her arms slightly from time to time, tiny sparks could be seen flying off of her fingertips.
“I don’t think my condition will allow me to fight another battle for a while.” With these words, she sat down slowly. Stones that contain rich spatial power flew out of her sleeve one after another to float around her.
Then, wisp after wisp of spatial power rose out of the stones and swirled into her.
At this moment, she seemed to have become even thinner than usual. Her eyes were sunken and dispirited, as if someone had drained her of her Blood Essence.
However, as the wisps of spatial power fused into her, her shriveled body slowly expanded back.
“Sorry for putting you through so much trouble,” Nie Tian apologized.
Pei Qiqi looked down at Huang Jinnan, who was still groaning unconsciously, and said plainly, “It’s alright. At least he didn’t die.”
“Where are we?” Nie Tian asked.
“This is a piece of land from a shattered dead realm.” With these words, Pei Qiqi pointed at a hemispherical realm in the distance that was wreathed in a frosty aura. “That’s realm number nine, still sealed by the Heaven Freezing Spell.”
Nie Tian looked over with rapt attention, and discovered that the space outside realm number nine was filled with a large amount of dazzling light.
Nie Tian was taken aback by his discovery. “Are those…?!”
Apparently, at some point, ancient starships had sailed to realm number nine.
While some of them belonged to the three ancient human sects, more seemed to belong to the Nether Spirit Society, the Death Curse Sect, Phantasms, and Bonebrutes.
Right now, they were spewing energy fluctuations that could easily destroy the heavens and extinguish the earth, like sharks that were biting each other in the depths of the sea.
BOOM!
An oddly-shaped ancient starship that looked like an enormous bird was hit by a beam of light and exploded in the starry river.
A number of war chariots that were in the shape of smaller birds escaped the explosion. Each of them had a handful of Death Curse Sect disciples standing on them.
Debris from the destroyed ancient starship floated all over that area of the starry river.
Dead humans, Phantasms, Bonebrutes could also be seen floating everywhere.
Nie Tian couldn’t believe his own eyes. “How come such a large-scale war suddenly broke out outside realm number nine?”
At this moment, Huang Jinnan finally woke up. The first thing he said was, “Something bigger than all of us has happened.”
In the starry river close to realm number nine, a huge black vortex was slowly swirling like the bottomless mouth of a low-tier Demon.
All of a sudden, a tremendous ancient starship that was made of nothing but bones sailed out of it. Standing on it, numerous large Bonebrutes unleashed their death power.
At the same time, a human figure expanded at an alarming rate in the starry river right outside realm number nine.
That figure seemed to be transformed from the domain of a human expert. Gradually, the figure took the shape and appearance of Mo Heng, the grand elder of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.
It was just that, as a human, he should be as puny as a grain of sand in this vast starry river.
However, at this moment, he gave Nie Tian a feeling that he was the same size as realm number nine.
“Dharma Idol!!”
After assuming its full size, Mo Heng’s figure made fists with its colossal hands and brought them down onto realm number nine.
RUMBLE!
A heaven-shaking, earth-toppling rumble came from the frozen realm barrier surrounding realm number nine. Giant pieces of mixed ice and realm-separating aura started to fall there.
Numerous spell symbols flew out of the realm barrier like flapping moths, but they were all shattered by the mighty fists.
Mo Heng’s colossal dharma idol continued to swing its mountain-like fists.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Inside realm number nine, mountains shattered and the earth split. The entire realm trembled nonstop, as if it might fall apart at any moment.
“Is that…?!” Nie Tian exclaimed, flabbergasted.
Even though Huang Jinnan was still very weak and covered in gashes, golden light burst forth from his eyes as he said, “That Senior Mo Heng’s dharma idol! God domain experts’ domains have numerous wondrous uses, one of which is to transform into dharma idols. They can control their dharma idols the same way they control their own bodies. The only difference is that after activating their dharma idol, they can destroy a realm with a causal move of their hand.”
“Dharma Idol!” Nie Tian was shocked to his very core.
Gazing into the distance, Pei Qiqi said, “I didn’t expect such a large-scale war to take place here, in the Domain of Nether Heaven. Other than the Nether Spirit Society and the Death Curse Sect, I guess other crooked sects have also gathered to this area of the starry river. Clearly, all those crooked human sects have schemed with the outsiders to set us up.”
With a grim face, Huang Jinnan said, “We’re only seeing what’s happening at realm number nine. I suspect the same thing is happening at the other realms.”
“I’m afraid that an outsider grand monarch will show up soon,” Pei Qiqi muttered softly.
In the next moment, Nie Tian’s expression flickered as he exclaimed, “I sense an extremely strong flesh aura rolling in the distance. That flesh aura has covered an area so vast that it’s beyond the detection range of my bloodline power!”
Deeply anxious, Huang Jinnan said, “Miss Pei is right. The entire Domain of Nether Heaven might have already been enveloped in some outsider grand monarch’s thick flesh aura. I’m afraid it has cut off our connection with the outside world. Even spatial power experts like Ji Yuanquan may not be able to leave the Domain of Nether Heaven now.”
Pei Qiqi sighed. “I suppose similar battles are taking place in other human domains as well.”
Huang Jinnan nodded. “They must have planned this war for a long time. The Domain of Nether Heaven might be just one of many battlefields. The main battlefield might be in the Dead Star Sea, or somewhere else. But one thing is certain: the four great sects are all bogged down in this full-frontal war.”
WHOOSH!
A streak of pale-gray light suddenly flew out from the distant starry river.
It covered hundreds of thousands of miles and reached realm number nine in a breath’s time.
The pale-gray light came to a sudden stop, intense death power rolling like a nebula. A bony figure that was even larger than Grand Patriarch Bone Crusher gradually emerged from the depths of the thick, rolling death power.
It was a Bonebrute.
Underneath his feet was an altar that was made of countless sets of skeletons.
“Grand Monarch Withered Bones! One of the three tenth grade Bonebrute grand monarchs!”
Staring at the skeleton altar from afar, Huang Jinnan muttered with glazed eyes. His body couldn’t stop trembling, as if he had seen Death himself.
