Chapter 339: Life Within the Meteor
A confused expression spread across Nie Tian’s face. “Unforeseen circumstance?”
Since he had refined a fragmentary star mark, he had developed the ability to sense Ning Yang’s location accurately.
He focused his attention and searched in his mind. He immediately learned that Ning Yang was still quite far from where they were standing.
This meant that Ning Yang had been in a location much farther from the crash site than they had been.
He could sense with great clarity that, as they spoke, Ning Yang was rapidly approaching.
According to their original plan, if they arrived at a meteor crash site before Ning Yang, they could just wait for Ning Yang to come.
Since Ning Yang hadn’t arrived, what did Li Langfeng mean by “unforeseen circumstance”?
As this question entered his mind, with a thought, Nie Tian commanded his seven Heaven Eyes, which had been hovering around him, to fly above the area where the meteor had crashed.
It was an enormous crater with a diameter of thousands of meters.
A gigantic, grayish-brown meteor was embedded into the earth at the bottom of the hundred-meter-deep crater. Sparks were still sputtering off of its surface from time to time.
Floating above the enormous crater, Nie Tian’s seven Heaven Eyes scanned the area and didn’t discover anything worth noting.
Face filled with confusion, he said, “Everything seems normal to me.”
Xue Long and Pei Qiqi were both at the Greater Heaven stage, so they hadn’t transcended their psychic power into soul power.
Since they were standing so far from the fallen meteor that it was beyond the reach of their psychic power’s perception, they couldn’t sense a thing.
Confusion filled their faces as well.
Li Langfeng’s expression was abnormally grim as he explained, “I can sense very subtle, flickering signs of life from within that meteor. I suspect that the reason why the life aura within the meteor is so weak is that the life within it is intentionally suppressing its own life aura. Even I only sensed it shortly after I got here.”
“What?!” Xue Long’s expression flickered drastically. “There’s a person inside that meteor?”
A shocked expression also appeared on Pei Qiqi’s face.
Li Langfeng shook his head. “It’s not necessarily a human. I think it might be an outsider from some unknown realm.”
Upon hearing these words, everyone was flabbergasted.
A gigantic meteor that had plummeted to the earth from an unknown universe actually had an outsider hiding inside of it!
After a moment of hesitation, Li Langfeng said, “Let’s not go over there so fast, and wait for Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng to go over there first. If my speculations are correct, and there actually is an outsider in that meteor, we’ll be able to see how it interacts with them first.
“Since it’s intentionally suppressing its own life aura, even I can’t make an accurate judgment of its strength.
“So having Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng explore the meteor for us and draw out whatever is inside of it is probably the safest choice.”
“Okay!” Xue Long agreed.
Nie Tian and Pei Qiqi also nodded.
Li Langfeng was the most powerful one among them, and he was known as a man with no scruples. No one in the Realm of Split Void would want to start a feud with him. Even though Nie Tian hadn’t known him for long, he knew very well how terrifying he could be.
Li Langfeng had never been one to act with discretion, but now that even he behaved so cautiously facing this meteor and the living creature within it, it was enough evidence that he had truly sensed danger.
Hence, the four of them did their utmost to hide their life auras as they waited in place. Nie Tian even used his newly-awakened bloodline talent, Life Stealth.
With the help of the green aura, which was the embodiment of his bloodline power, Life Stealth allowed Nie Tian to completely seal his life aura.
Not only that, but he could even make adjustments by changing his state of mind and the degree of involvement from the green aura.
At that moment, every bit of aura from his fleshy body and spiritual power had been concealed.
It would be almost impossible for people to sense the extremely weak signs of life on him from locations further than where Li Langfeng and the others on his team were.
At the same time, he concentrated his attention and strengthened the connection between him and his seven Heaven Eyes in order to keep a close watch on the gigantic meteor.
Even though he still couldn’t sense the slightest sign of life after having his seven Heaven Eyes hover around the meteor for some time, he had faith in Li Langfeng’s judgment.
“Once a cultivator enters the Worldly realm, their psychic power will undergo overwhelming complete changes. Even their soul will transcend and become different. I’m only at the Heaven stage, and the seven fragmentary stars within my soul were acquired by accident when I was in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.
“Perhaps this is why I can’t detect signs of life from within that meteor like Li Langfeng can.”
After these thoughts flashed across his mind, Nie Tian concentrated his attention on everything happening in that area instead of being hung up on why he wasn’t able to detect the life aura within that meteor.
It wasn’t long before he sensed anomalies via his Heaven Eyes.
He discovered that the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth was quietly converging on the grayish brown meteor embedded in the bottom of the enormous crater in an abnormal fashion.
Within the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth, the cyan phantasm Qi, which originated from the Phantasms’ realms according to Li Langfeng, seemed especially active.
Nie Tian observed with rapt attention, and discovered that wisps of light-cyan phantasm Qi seemed to be attracted by the meteor as they rapidly attached themselves to its surface.
Meanwhile, those wisps of phantasm Qi disappeared from the surface of meteor at a rate visible to the naked eye.
“Cyan phantasm Qi from the Phantasms’ realms...” With these thoughts, Nie Tian gasped and exclaimed, “The outsider inside of that meteor is probably a Phantasm!”
“How come you’re so sure?” Li Langfeng asked with a surprised expression on his face.
Even though he had transcended his psychic power into soul power, he was only able to tell that there was a subtle life aura within the meteor, and that it probably didn’t belong to a human, considering its strange features.
However, he couldn’t be certain which outsider race it belonged to.
“The phantasm Qi within the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth seems to be getting abnormally active,” Nie Tian explained.
After hearing Nie Tian’s words, an impressed expression appeared in Li Langfeng’s eyes as he nodded and marveled, “The legacies of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace are indeed unfathomable. Even I can’t sense the subtle changes in the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth, but you can. When you enter the Worldly realm, the perception of your soul power will be far better than mine for sure.”
“A Phantasm!” Xue Long exclaimed softly.
Pei Qiqi said in a soft voice, “Of all the outsider races, Phantasms are the most mysterious. Why in the world would they suddenly come here?”
At that very moment, Li Langfeng said, “Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng are almost here.”
Upon hearing these words, Nie Tian also detected Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng’s auras, which were rapidly approaching the meteor from the opposite direction.
“Let them test out that Phantasm for us.” Li Langfeng said calmly.
Therefore, the four of them waited.
In the meantime, not only was Nie Tian able to detect Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng’s auras via his Heaven Eyes, but he could also listen into their conversation.
“Lord Ning, it’s been quite a long time. You still haven’t found anything useful?” Tong Jianfeng asked.
With disheveled hair, Ning Yang looked completely different from the handsome, clean-dressed young man in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace. He didn’t even shave his beard. At this moment, he looked very much like a dingy, middle-aged man. “Not yet, but I firmly believe this place has some kind of connection with the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace!
“Since I haven’t refined my fragmentary star mark yet, I can’t tell how they are connected and why this place is special. However, I’m sure that the reason why this place attracts so many meteors from outer space is that the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace has deployed come kind of restrictive spell here.
“So many meteors crash in this region. I believe I’ll find one that contains the answer to my problem!
“All I’m waiting for is a meteor that comes from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.”
With these words, Ning Yang had already jumped to the top of the gigantic, grayish-brown meteor. After summoning his incomparably sharp spiritual sword, he started chopping giant pieces off the meteor with stretched sword moves, hoping to unearth the answer he had been looking forward to this entire time from within it.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
Table-size stones were continuously sent into the air by Ning Yang’s sword moves before they fell and scattered around.
“Star Stones!” Nie Tian, who had been observing via his Heaven Eyes, noticed that this meteor contained Star Stones.
Since Ning Yang didn’t attach any importance to those Star Stones, he just turned a blind eye to them and let them scatter around as he continued hacking.
CRUNCH!
As he once again hacked his spiritual sword into the meteor and turned his wrist in an attempt to break a piece off the meteor, a confused look suddenly appeared in Ning Yang’s eyes.
In the next moment, blood shot out of Ning Yang’s sword-bearing hand.
“Lord Ning!!!” Tong Jianfeng cried out.
Threads of cyan light flowed out from within the meteor like long, floating rivers before they shot towards Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng.
Ning Yang sensed the danger, so he let go of his sword and jumped away at the first possible moment. Tong Jianfeng, on the other hand, threw himself towards the meteor out of his concern about Ning Yang’s safety, and thus got his torso penetrated by the threads of cyan light.
By the time Tong Jianfeng fell towards the bottom of the crater, the light in his eyes had already dissipated. Just like that, he was killed instantly.