Chapter 576: Temporary Peace
Feng Ying had sustained most of her injuries from Zhang Jiu and Lu Jian.
Residual toxins and the discarnate soul’s bleak power still lingered inside of her.
At this moment, they were quietly corroding Feng Ying’s flesh bit by bit.
The Spirit God Sect secret magics Lu Jian had used contained bizarre, decaying power, which was stopping Feng Ying, who practiced wood-attributed incantations, from drawing wood power from her spiritual sea to heal her injuries.
Besides, since Feng Ying had consumed too much power running and battling, her vortex of wood power was almost drained.
Therefore, she could do nothing to stop the two destructive forces from causing her more and more internal damage.
“Residual power from a discarnate soul...” After a brief moment of pondering, Nie Tian channeled a bit of his soul power into Feng Ying’s body.
The residual power from the discarnate soul seemed very restless inside of Feng Ying, as it kept surging up towards Feng Ying’s neck in an attempt to rush through her neck to ravage her soul.
However, the wisps of Nie Tian’s soul power eliminated the residual power from the discarnate soul soon after they flowed to her neck.
Immediately afterwards, he practiced Heavenly Wood Heal to drive out the residual toxins Zhang Jiu had left inside of her with his extremely rich wood power.
Within a very short time, the two types of harmful forces inside Feng Ying were completely neutralized.
Nie Tian withdrew his hand and said plainly, “Alright, all you need to do now is recover your wood power with wood-attributed spiritual materials and heal your external injuries with your wood-attributed incantations.”
Feng Ying, who had seemed to be in great pain moments ago, now seemed very enlivened. Even though her aura was still weak, it was gradually growing stronger and stronger.
Although she didn’t understand how Nie Tian had done it, she could tell that, after Nie Tian’s treatment, she had become much better.
Feng Ying smiled heartily, her adorable eyes glittering with gratefulness. “Many thanks, Big Brother Nie. I knew that, with you here, those bad people from the Heaven Palace Sect would never have their way.”
After a brief pause, a grieved expression appeared on her face. Tears welled up in her eyes as she said, “Unfortunately, the other sisters didn’t hang on till your arrival.”
“Don’t worry,” Nie Tian said in a low voice. “Those people will pay for their crimes.”
Feng Ying sighed. “But… I wonder if we’ll be able to make it back to the Domain of the Falling Stars. None of us knew that we’d run into outsiders here before we came. Even if we somehow manage to get back to the Domain of the Falling Stars, the Heaven Palace Sect, the Flame God Sect, the Poison Sect, the Heaven Expanse Sect, and the Thunder Mountain Sect probably won’t let this slip so easily. I’m afraid that they’ll seek trouble with you.”
Nodding, Qin Yan chimed in, “It’s almost impossible to cover up the fact that we’ve killed Liao Yan, Yu Yang, and the others in here. If we let any of their survivors slip back to the Domain of the Falling Stars, the news will spread.
“By joining up against those forces, we might still manage to ride this one out. But you... you’re not a disciple of a powerful sect. Plus, the Heaven Palace Sect and the Flame God Sect already consider you their most wanted enemy. They’ll stop at nothing to find you once you go back. You’ve got to make sure that you don’t expose yourself after returning to the Domain of the Falling Stars.”
She started to look very embarrassed as she continued, “I shouldn’t have revealed your true identity back when we were in the colorful band. It wouldn’t have been this troublesome if they didn’t know about it... But, you know, I was certain that I was going to die. That was why I did such a distasteful thing. I hope you can accept my sincerest apologies.”
Nie Tian took a deep look at her, and after a moment of silence, he said, “That’s all in the past. As for the future, I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.” Then, he turned his eyes away from her and added, “But as far as I see it, Su Lin, Yang Kan, and the others won’t be leaving here. None of them will get to return to the Domain of the Falling Stars alive. Even if they do, I don’t care what the Heaven Palace Sect and the Flame God Sect attempt to do to me.”
Ever since he had learned from Armes that he was a Son of the Stars, he had become even more sure of himself.
According to Armes, after breaking through into the Worldly realm and refining the second fragmentary star mark, he would probably be able to find the key to walk out of the Domain of the Falling Stars into an even vaster heaven and earth.
The Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace was a formidable force in the starry river. Compared to it, the Heaven Palace Sect and the Flame God Sect, which hadn’t produced a single Void domain expert, were nothing but a couple of puny insects.
Once he got in contact with the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, none of the so-called powerful sects in the Domain of the Falling Stars would dare to make any moves against him.
All of this depended on whether he was able to enter the Worldly realm and refine the second fragmentary star mark in the near future.
“Big Brother Nie, can you help Senior Martial Sister Qin?” Feng Ying asked, looking concerned.
Seeing that Nie Tian had helped her stabilize her injuries so effortlessly, she assumed he could do the same to Qin Yan, who had also suffered serious injuries.
With a quick glance at Qin Yan, Nie Tian said with a faint smile, “She’ll be fine. She’s got plenty of valuable medicinal pills.”
He had long since sensed that a powerful medicinal pill had been releasing copious life force to every corner of her body from her stomach.
“Indeed, I’ll be fine,” Qin Yan said.
“Now that Dong Baijie, Dong Li, and the others are after those people, I supposed they’ll get to kill most of them. Whoever remains will be too weak to cause us any more trouble.” With these words, Nie Tian glanced around at the corpses lying on the ground, all of which still had their rings of holding on, and then said, “Let Dong Li distribute the loot after she gets back.”
Qin Yan nodded. “For sure.”
“Good, I need to spend some time cultivating myself.” After a moment of pondering, Nie Tian added, “Two weeks from now, a spatial rift that leads to the Domain of the Falling Stars will open in this place. I’ll lead everyone through it when the time comes. Before that, everyone can take their time to gather precious spiritual materials and herbs on this island. But remember: don’t leave this island.
“If we don’t leave this island, none of the outsiders with bloodline power higher than the fourth grade will be able to get to us.
“One last thing: don’t ever try to break through into the Worldly realm here. Once someone advances to the Worldly realm on this island, the restrictive spell on the island will stop working.
“This is very important!”
Qin Yan was taken aback. “How do you know about the restrictive spell? And how do you know that a spatial rift that leads to the Domain of the Falling Stars will open in two weeks?”
In her eyes, it seemed as if Nie Tian was able to see through everything, which confused her to a great extent.
He hadn’t received such information from his sect. That was for sure. But where?
She knew nothing of the things he had just revealed to her, and neither did Dong Li or the other chosen ones.
No matter how hard she searched in her mind, she couldn’t find an reasonable answer.
“Just remember my words and tell the others.” Instead of explaining, Nie Tian blurred into motion and disappeared into the distance.
He didn’t spare another glance at the human Qi warriors that had died at his hands, or their rings of holding.
Humans possessed very limited flesh power. Even if he absorbed their flesh power with Life Drain, it wouldn’t be enough to make it worth the effort.
As for those people’s rings of holding, he believed that, once Dong Li was back, she wouldn’t forget about him when she distributed the loot.
With these thoughts in mind, he returned to the vast, black lake, where he formed another Wood Thriving Formation and planned to refine his vortex of wood power to the limit within two weeks with the help of the profound spell formation, as well as the extremely rich wood power in that area.
What Armes had said to him had come as a great shock to him. It made him realize that the Domain of the Falling Stars was indeed not worth mentioning.
As a Son of the Stars, he would eventually sail across the starry river, enjoy copious resources, and bring people to his heel.
Therefore, he was rather eager to advance to the Worldly realm and refine the second fragmentary star mark, so that he would be able to solve some of the mysteries that came along with his status.
A few hours after he had left, people returned from their pursuit one after another.
Unlike when they had chased after the fleeing outsiders, almost all of them had hunted down and killed someone. At this moment, each and every one of them was wreathed in intense killing intent.
Other than Su Lin from the Heaven Palace Sect, most of the other runaways had been killed.
Under Dong Baijie’s unrelenting pursuit, Yang Kan from the Flame God Sect had suffered serious injuries and eventually fled the island. Since Dong Baijie feared that outsiders might be waiting in ambush somewhere beyond this island, he decided to let Yang Kan live or perish on his own.
After everyone returned, Dong Li started to distribute the loot among them.
Qin Yan also delivered Nie Tian’s words and told everyone that a spatial rift would appear on this island in two weeks.
Upon hearing this, everyone was very thrilled, but also very curious as to how Nie Tian had managed to acquire such information.
All of them had already gathered considerable amounts of precious spiritual materials and herbs on both islands. After returning to the Domain of the Falling Stars, every one of them would be able to trade their gains for copious amounts of cultivation materials.
In fact, what had worried them the most was how they would return. Now that Nie Tian had showed them the way, they all felt greatly relieved.
Soon, all of the loot was distributed under Dong Li’s instructions, and everyone returned to their previously allocated areas to resume their collection of spiritual materials.
Nie Tian, however, was sitting by the vast, black lake, focused on refining his wood power and preparing himself for his next breakthrough in cultivation.
A few days passed...
Somewhere on the boundless, black sea, Armes and Abreu finally received word from their clan seniors.
This meant that they were finally in contact with the powerful seniors from their clan, and they were ready to turn back.