He Lianxiong hadn’t made a good impression on Nie Tian.
However, Nie Tian was rather troubled as he learned from Froste that He Lianxiong was also caught up in a perilous situation.
The reason why Hou Chulan and her subordinate had dared to stay and fight this battle was because they had the prospect of He Lianxiong arriving soon.
If He Lianxiong wasn’t coming, their one and only hope would be gone.
Froste said those words in a rather low voice. Neither Hou Chulan nor her subordinates seemed to have heard them.
Seeing this, Nie Tian let cried out loud in an attempt to alarm the others.
However, his roar seemed to be sealed by layers of invisible force, and failed to spread to any of the human experts.
His expression instantly grew grim.
He suddenly realized that Froste’s words just now had only been meant for him to hear.
“Stop wasting your strength,” Froste said with a composed smile. “You know what? We’ve fought humans for many years. Facing your strong rise, we thought up plenty of ways to deal with you. The last war that swept across almost every race in this starry river ended in our defeat, and heavy losses.
“Now, many years have passed. After many meetings among our grand monarchs, we finally found an effective way to weaken you.
“We’ve decided to use your nature against you. The method we’ve adopted is to unravel you from within.
“To make this strategy work, we’ve made secret arrangements for many years. And now, we’re finally seeing some results!”
Froste laughed heartily.
Nie Tian’s expression flickered with astonishment. “Unravel us from within?”
“That’s right,” Froste said, seeming to enjoy this talk very much. “I’m not only talking about sects like the Nether Spirit Society and the Death Curse Sect, which you four great sects consider crooked sects. But more of them are sects like the Earth Spirit Sect, which are discontent with the four great sects’ governance. We’ve long since established connections with them by satisfying their greedy needs.
“They’ve all become our eyes, allowing us to learn many of your moves beforehand.
“And you don’t even know those people exist!
“Qiu Hanshan from the Earth Spirit Sect is merely one of our many chess pieces in the Domain of Heaven’s Origin. Thanks to them, we learned that He Lianxiong was joining this mission of yours as well. So we prepared a lavish gift for him too.
“Now, as we speak, He Lianxiong is going through the same thing you are. I even doubt that he’ll be able to save himself, let alone come to your aid.”
Nie Tian sighed with a grim face after hearing Froste’s words.
He realized that he and Hou Chulan couldn’t count on He Lianxiong to win this battle anymore.
BOOM!
At this moment, the domain of another Saint domain subordinate of Hou Chulan’s exploded.
Countless discarnate souls swarmed in his shattered domain. With a faint smile, Froste activated his bloodline power and displayed the wonders of his Soul Ferry Battle Armor once again. His Blood Essence condensed into numerous brand new magical symbols on the suit of armor, which then dashed towards the Saint domain expert’s dissipating discarnate soul.
The man’s discarnate soul was chained back together by the peculiar magical symbols and returned to his body.
Blood was shed, and congealed into a red crystal between the man’s eyebrows.
Froste’s soul shadow gradually came to form in the depths of it.
Froste laughed increasingly heartily as he said, “See? This is the core power of my father’s bloodline! As long as I’m here, every casualty on your side will become one more puppet at my disposal! And the ninth grade grand patriarchs’ discarnate souls have become several times mightier under the influence of my Nether River!
“I’m enhancing their battle prowess and determining the course of this battle!”
WHOOSH!
Instead of attacking other humans, the Saint domain Froste had just turned with Soul Ferry flew to his side.
The man was also at the early Saint domain, and well-versed in frost power. His domain had been a world of sparkling ice, but now that it was infiltrated by intense Phantasm Qi, it had taken on a shade of gruesome cyan.
He floated in front of Froste, his cold, hollow eyes fixed on Nie Tian. Froste’s soul shadow in the blood crystal between his eyebrows grinned sinisterly.
Froste’s voice then came out of the man’s mouth and Froste’s true form at the same time.
“Nie Tian, the reason why I’ve wasted so much breath talking is because it’s actually very consuming to release and maintain the Nether River. And I consumed a significant amount of Blood Essence and soul power to cast Soul Ferry, so I couldn’t spare more power to fight you.
“But now, things have changed.
“He’s your opponent now! I can’t wait to see whether you can kill him, a Saint domain expert, the same way you killed eighth grade members of my clan.”
With a casual swing of his hand, Froste issued an order with his bloodline power.
The early Saint domain master of frost power instantly charged towards Nie Tian.
With the Nether River floating before him, Nie Tian felt that all of his soul magics were somehow suppressed.
Even the Spirit Pearl couldn’t help him to resist such influences.
Watching the early Saint domain expert whizzing towards him enveloped in his frost domain, the only thing Nie Tian could think of was the Star Behemoth bone.
SHEW!
Like a streak of bright light, the bone shot out of his hand towards the man’s frigid domain that was filled with a cyan mist.
All Saint domain experts’ domains looked tangible and real. The frigid cyan mist in the man’s frigid domain congealed into a large block of cyan ice that exuded a bone-piercing frigid aura.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The Star Behemoth bone ignited the bloodline power within it as it pierced into the cyan ice cube.
The ice cube then exploded violently, filling its surroundings with ice shards that looked like swords, and icy light that looked like a waterfall. However, all of them came after Nie Tian, as if they were still under Froste’s control.
BOOOOM!
Nie Tian’s inner flesh aura was ignited, along with the flame power in his flame power core.
The Flame Dragon Armor instantly filled its surroundings with a sea of flames. The ice shards and icy light were vaporized by the blazing flame power as soon as they entered it.
CRACK!
After shattering the ice cube, the Star Behemoth bone continued to shoot towards the early Saint domain man.
A sneer appeared on the face of Froste’s soul shadow within the blood crystal at his brow. “Very impressive. It seems to me that both your cultivation base and strength have progressed significantly after our encounter in the Shatter Battlefield. And that bone is also exceptional, since it can even pierce through the frigid domain of a Saint domain human. Unfortunately, that’s still not enough!
“Bloodline talent: Dark Soul Ward!”
One drop of blood after another flew out of Froste into the Saint domain expert’s frigid domain that had been shattered and bound back together.
The misty, cyan Phantasm Qi within the domain seemed to be activated and vested endless power by the Blood Essence.
At the same time, a stream separated itself from the Nether River that was floating over him and poured into the man’s domain, forming a ward that would trap all souls and spirits.
As soon as the ward formed, the flesh aura connection between Nie Tian and the bone became unstable.
“Get the hell out of here!” Froste let out a nasty laugh as the Saint domain expert’s residual soul power condensed into a giant hand in the depths of the Dark Soul Ward.
Illusory and wreathed in rolling Phantasm Qi, the giant hand exuded a strong soul-binding power.
The giant hand reached out of the ward to grab Nie Tian.
Influence from the hand instantly gave rise to high waves in Nie Tian’s sea of awareness. His true soul seemed to be bound by some invisible force, and was being slowly pulled out of his sea of awareness.
“Soul Capturing Hand!”
Nie Tian, who had fought Armes and Abreu, a pair of Phantasm brothers, on the floating continent, identified the bloodline magic as soon as the giant hand came grabbing at him.
However, since Armes and Abreu’s Soul Capturing Hand didn’t contain power from the Nether River, they had displayed limited might when they had cast it.
However, this time, as Froste cast it, a strong sense of crisis rose in Nie Tian’s heart.
One star soul after another instantly lit up in his sea of awareness, and started to shine with dazzling starlight.
“Starchains!” He continued to tap into his star souls’ power as he attempted to bind his true soul with Starchains and stop Froste from pulling it away.
At the same time, he exclaimed with Froste’s reflection in the depths of his eyes, “Bloodline talent: Life Shackle!”
Three drops of Blood Essence immediately started to seethe, unleashing this brand new bloodline talent he had awakened upon entering the seventh grade.
As this happened, a sea of Nie Tian’s flesh aura rapidly spread towards Froste.
The intense flesh aura generated by Nie Tian’s seething Blood Essence actually went through the Dark Soul Ward effortlessly, and continued to spread towards Froste.
In order to let Life Shackle fully display its might, the target’s bloodline needed to be at the same grade or lower than the caster’s.
Nie Tian’s bloodline happened to be at the seventh grade, which was the same as Froste’s.
Life Shackle instantly worked its wonders!
Froste’s soul shadow within the blood crystal between the eyebrows of the Saint domain expert, who Froste had made a puppet with Soul Ferry, suddenly grew faint.
Even the illusory Nether River over Froste’s head grew blurry.
Flabbergasted by the changes, Froste only felt that his flesh body was somehow locked down, along with every drop of his Blood Essence.
