Chapter 516: Well-matched Adversary
After Gu Haofeng arrived beside him, Cao Qiushui asked with a frown, “Why did you provoke him, Haofeng?”
They were standing on a broken piece from an ancient starship, which was large enough for the two of them.
In fact, Cao Qiushui had noticed Gu Haofeng’s little trick of destroying Nie Tian’s supporting boulder.
“Dong Li made such a big deal of him,” Gu Haofeng said coldly, fierce light flickering in his eyes and the long sword in his hand exuding a frosty aura.
“This is because of Dong Li again?” With a wry smile, Cao Qiushui shook his head and advised him sincerely, “Dong Li has always bossed you around. She teases you when she’s bored and casts you aside when she’s got things to do. All of us can see it, that she actually has no special feelings for you. Why would you still throw yourself at her?”
Gu Haofeng snorted and said, “You’ve never loved someone. Of course you don’t understand.”
A hint of sadness flashed across Cao Qiushui’s eyes as he said, “How do you know I’ve never loved someone?”
Gu Haofeng grew intrigued. “Who is it?”
Cao Qiushui remained silent for a while before changing the topic by saying, “Anyways, Dong Baijie seems to also be quite warm towards that Mu Han person. I bet he’s very important to the Dong Clan, so you’d better quit your little games. If you don’t, Dong Li will only grow more resentful towards you.”
“No way! I can’t let him off this easily!” Gu Haofeng blurted as he swung the sword in his hand, his face ice-cold. “He actually dared to fight back. Who the hell does he think he is!? If the Dong Clan didn’t shelter him, if we didn’t take him into our group, he and Pei Qiqi both were going to die in here!”
With these words, Gu Haofeng’s gaze slowly fixed in the direction where Nie Tian had left. “Say no more. I’ll handle it appropriately.”
Afterwards, he jumped among floating boulders in the direction Nie Tian had disappeared.
Shaking his head, Cao Qiushui followed along.
…
After another leap, Nie Tian landed on a floating fragment from a dead tree. Just as he was about to jump towards his next foothold, he froze.
Floating in the middle of the vastly wide band, he saw a relatively large landmass floating not far ahead of him, along with numerous boulders and a few outsider corpses.
At that moment, he noticed that spiritual light was flashing about on it.
Clearly, people were fighting on it.
Under the influence of an unknown force, all tangible objects in the band, including human Qi warriors, were slowly drifting towards a common destination.
It seemed that it wouldn’t trigger catastrophic changes if people changed directions and moved in directions less than vertical to the natural flow.
The floating land wasn’t directly in front of Nie Tian. It wasn’t in the same direction where Dong Li and Dong Baijie were.
After a moment of hesitation, Nie Tian reckoned Dong Li and Dong Baijie were probably capable of stopping Yang Kan from killing more people from the Realm of a Hundred Battles. It wasn’t crucial that he rushed over right away.
Therefore, he bounced off a few floating boulders towards the floating landmass.
He staggered a few step backwards as he landed, breaking the laws of this place, yet he found to his surprise that nothing happened.
However, as he attempted to jump back to one of the floating boulders he had used to come to this land, he was instantly overwhelmed by a crushing force.
He felt as if a mountain thousands of meters high was weighing down on him. He even felt like his bones were going to succumb to the force and shatter.
Expression flickering drastically, he instantly called it off and trudged towards the center of the floating land.
As he did that, the overwhelming weight on him was instantly lifted.
That was when he realized that, as long as he was over an object, he would be able to move back and forth.
However, once he attempted to return to where he had come from, the laws of this place would instantly unleash great pressure on him.
If it were someone else who had just made the attempt, the person’s bones might have already been crushed, and their meridians might have burst.
Unlike others, all of the breakthroughs he had made were closely connected to the refinement of his fleshy body. It was only because of his exceptionally tough body that he had pulled through the short period of overwhelming pressure.
With his new discoveries in mind, Nie Tian cautiously moved forward on the floating land as he unleashed his spiritual power, forming a defensive ward around him. Only when he reached the edge of the land did he see Qian Xin from the Pill Pavilion Sect fighting a Qi warrior from the Spirit God Sect.
At this moment, six pills were floating in the area between Qian Xin and that man.
The six pills were round and the size of thumbs. Some were crimson, some were silver, and others were dark-cyan.
All of them were spinning, emanating spiritual light of different colors, trapping the man from the Spirit God Sect.
The body of a Spirit God Sect Qi warrior, who seemed to have been killed by Qian Xin, was lying nor far from them.
Qian Xin was expressionless as his hands wove in the air, dazzling light flickering on his fingers. With exquisite hand seals, he was controlling the six pills to form some kind of spell formation.
However, Nie Tian noticed that his face looked rather pale, and his temples were throbbing unceasingly.
Meanwhile, Qian Xin’s eyes started to flicker, a painful look appearing in his eyes every a few seconds.
“Hmm?!" As he came closer, Nie Tian sensed that someone’s psychic awareness was hovering around Qian Xin.
“According to Cao Zhaoji, we can’t use our psychic awareness while we’re in here, can we?” Nie Tian muttered. Then, upon a closer examination, he discovered that the Qi warrior from the Spirit God Sect was indeed attacking Qian Xin’s soul with the Spirit God Sect’s secret magics.
Eyebrows furrowed, he attempted to scan his surroundings with a wisp of his psychic awareness.
Shockingly, nothing happened. However, as soon as his psychic awareness left the floating land and flew into the void, it was shredded, causing a sudden stabbing pain in his head.
Hence, he realized that it didn’t matter whether it was his fleshy body or psychic awareness. As long as they remained over a landmass, the laws of this place wouldn’t apply to them.
This meant that Cao Zhaoji’s statement wasn’t completely accurate.
SHEW! SHEW! SHEW!
As Qian Xin formed another hand seal, the light shooting out of his pills instantly became as sharp as needles.
The clothes of the late Greater Heaven stage Spirit God Sect Qi warrior instantly exploded. Numerous fine wounds split open on his exposed flesh, bleeding nonstop.
However, with a ferocious expression, the man said coldly, “I’m only sustaining fleshy injuries, but you... are sustaining injuries to your soul!”
A surge of fluctuations, which Nie Tian could sense with great clarity, flew into Qian Xin’s mind.
Qian Xin, who was forming hand seals, staggered backwards, fine streams of blood flowing out of the corners of his eyes down his cheeks, giving him a terrifying look.
Back when he had been in the Realm of Dark Underworld, Nie Tian had traveled with Qian Xin, and learned that he had been at the middle Greater Heaven stage.
He didn’t seem to have made any breakthroughs in his cultivation during this time, and was still at the middle Greater Heaven stage.
However, his opponent, the Qi warrior from the Spirit God Sect, was at the late Greater Heaven stage.
Like the Ghost Sect in the Realm of Flame Heaven, the Spirit God Sect also put great emphasis on their disciples’ cultivation of psychic and soul power, and would normally take in youngsters with strong psychic power as their disciples.
The man made a wise move by attacking Qian Xin’s soul with his far superior psychic power.
Qian Xin staggered back to Nie Tian’s side. His eyes widened. “It’s you?!”
After realizing that it wasn’t Gu Haofeng, Cao Qiushui, or others that had come to his aid, a hint of disappointment flashed across Qian Xin’s eyes.
Qian Xin had secretly observed Nie Tian when he and Pei Qiqi had been taken into the group from the Realm of a Hundred Battles.
Back then, he had only noticed that Nie Tian was at the early Greater Heaven stage, and thus assumed that he was Pei Qiqi’s lackey, and hadn’t spared him another glance.
“Where are the others?” Qian Xin asked.
Expressionless, Nie Tian answered, “Dong Li and Dong Baijie traveled in a straight line. They passed this area long ago. Cao Qiushui and Gu Haofeng were behind me, but I don’t know if they’ll discover the fight taking place here and make a detour. After all, this floating land is off the track.”
More disappointed, Qian Xin nodded and waved his hand at Nie Tian. “You may leave now. You won’t be able to help me anyways.”
With these words, he took out a medicinal pill that would help him restore his psychic power, and stuffed it down his throat. Then, he refocused on the Spirit God Sect disciple and shouted, “Chang Yuan! All of you Spirit God Sect and Flame God Sect disciples are going to die here!”
“I don’t think so,” Chang Yuan said with a calm voice.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
One Soul Banner after another shot out of Chang Yuan’s fluttering cuff and formed a circle in the air.
Sinister discarnate souls could be vaguely seen squirming inside of them.
They let out sharp screeches that hurt Qian Xin’s and Nie Tian’s ear drums.
The corner of Chang Yuan’s mouth rose. “I know you. You’re the one who escaped from us with Pei Qiqi. I still don’t understand how you two managed to get through our water-tight blockade.”
Before Nie Tian could say anything, he shook his head and added, “But that doesn’t matter now. Pei Qiqi is going to die in this place, and so are you!”
All of a sudden, ear-piercing screeches rose from all directions, along with Chang Yuan’s secret psychic magic.