Back in the location Nie Tian had departed from…
The floating, dilapidated city had long since landed on the meteor surface, and there was no longer seven-colored light or mysterious energy fluctuations emanating out of it.
However, a number of bizarre-looking buildings had appeared within it; some of them were the shape of awls and others were the shape of columns.
There were also a few buildings that people could immediately tell were outsiders’ residences, each of which looked like enormous trees that stretched up into the sky.
In the center of the city, numerous powerful experts from the Realm of Flame Heaven were gathered by the side of a dilapidated, ancient teleportation portal.
After Miao Chen and Tang Yang had left the city, all the other foreign cultivators, who had entered the Heaven Gate trial via the Realm of Flame Heaven and failed to make their escapes, had been killed.
All the young disciples of the seven sects, who had been in hiding, had answered their seniors summons and gathered to this place.
Among the people present were Jiang Lingzhu and Li Fan from the Cloudsoaring sect, Feng Luo and Yu Tong from the Blood sect, An Shiyi from the Spiritual Treasure sect, Zheng Bin from the Mystic Mist sect, Hong Can from the Hell sect, Zou Yi from the Ghost sect, and Guan Qiu from the Grayvale sect.
Originally, no less than eighty people from the seven sects of the Realm of Flame Heaven had participated in the trial. However, only about ten of them had managed to survive up to this point.
All the other survivors had learned about what had happened through Feng Luo and Li Fan after their arrival.
According to Feng Luo’s description, they learned that Nie Tian was the first to enter the city and be transported away.
He had seen it perfectly clearly when Nie Tian was enveloped in a bubble and had shot up from the center of the city into the vast starry river.
Soon after him, Miao Chen and Tang Yang also flew up into the depths of the starry river.
Since Li Fan had a special timing device, he told Jiang Lingzhu and An Shiyi, who seemed quite concerned about Nie Tian, that Nie Tian had been gone for three months.
In the past three months, they hadn’t been able to find any trace of him.
According to Li Fan’s estimation, Nie Tian was probably already dead.
After all, no matter where Nie Tian had gone to, Tang Yang and Miao Chen had gone there too.
Both of them were in the Greater Heaven stage, and Tang Yang was even more formidable and deadly.
As a matter of fact, if Tang Yang and Miao Chen hadn’t left the city, the trial takers from the seven sects probably wouldn’t have had the chance to finish off the other foreign cultivators.
As far as they were concerned, Nie Tian couldn’t possibly handle either Tang Yang or Miao Chen.
The chances were that as soon as the three of them had arrived at their destination, Tang Yang and Miao Chen had immediately made their move and slaughtered Nie Tian.
It had been almost six months since the Heaven Gate trial had started. Some of the weak disciples from the seven sects had been buried in the numerous scattered meteors, while others had been hiding in distant corners and only came out to this place after receiving their seniors’ summons. Some of them actually ran into some mysterious things on those distant meteors.
Now, they were all gathered around the teleportation portal in the dilapidated city, as they all assumed that it was their way out of the Heaven Gate dimension.
For the past month, after they had eliminated all the remaining foreign cultivators in the region, they had spread out to search for interesting things.
However, they found nothing after searching through the nearly one thousand meteors in the vicinity.
Standing on a meteor that was as far as they could go, they saw another vast expanse of void filled with countless meteors.
However, that meteor region was separated from theirs by a boundless, starry river, and there were no stone bridges between the two.
After a moment of thinking, they came to realize that that meteor region was probably one of the two other “arenas” for the Qi warriors who had entered through the other two Heaven Gates.
They were aware that the other two Heaven Gates had opened in the Realm of Mystic Heaven and the Realm of a Thousand Devastations, and both of those realms were far stronger than theirs, especially the Realm of Mystic Heaven, which was ranked first among the nine realms of the Domain of the Falling Stars.
Powerful experts who had managed to obtain keys and eventually enter the Heaven Gate trial from there must be very strong and deadly.
It was lucky for cultivators from the Realm of Flame Heaven that there was an unbridgeable, starry river between the two meteor regions.
If there had been a long bridge connecting the two regions, they would never have had the audacity to cross that bridge and provoke those people from the Realm of Mystic Heaven and the Realm of a Thousand Devastations, in which case they might draw fire upon themselves.
“That Nie Tian kid is probably dead. I know that you have certain feelings for him, but try not to be too sad about it.”
Qiu Heng, a middle Greater Heaven stage Qi warrior from the Spiritual Treasure sect, frowned and said softly to An Shiyi, “You’ve made significant progress in your cultivation in this Heaven Gate trial. You should consider yourself lucky. From what I can tell, with the enlightenment you’ve received here, you’ll be able to step into the Greater Heaven stage before long.
“When you do that, your status in the sect will rise again, and the mistakes you made in the Green Illusion dimension trial will also be written off. I doubt that the sectmaster will mention it again.
“The An clan and your sister An Ying will be proud of you, and more importantly, benefit from your achievement.
“Burdening yourself with Nie Tian’s death won’t do you any good, will it?”
Qiu Heng knew a thing or two about space traveling magics, and he had visited Black Cloud City because of the appearance of the spacial rifts.
According to seniority, he was An Shiyi’s martial uncle, and he had been treating her well over the years.
However, he had vanished when he learned that Gan Kang, whose status was even higher in the sect, had set his mind on An Shiyi and had been doing everything he could to force her to marry him.
He was aware that he couldn’t afford to upset Gan Kang and make him an enemy just for An Shiyi.
However, when he learned later that Gan Kang had attempted to abandon the Spiritual Treasure sect, he surfaced again and started showing his concern for An Shiyi.
Then, when he realized that An Shiyi had also obtained a Heaven Gate key in the wasteland outside of Black Cloud City, he grew increasingly warm towards her.
“He’s not dead. I have faith in him,” An Shiyi said with a cold tone, looking askance at him with loathing flickering in her eyes.
She knew perfectly clearly that he and Gan Kang were the same, as they were both after her beauty.
Even though Qiu Heng had never said anything, she was smart enough to see what he was thinking.
After all, when the Green Illusion dimension trial mishap had happened, she was degraded by the sectmaster and harassed by Gan Kang and the other old, licentious elders while he was nowhere to be found.
The reason was none other than that he was afraid of retaliation from Gan Kang and the others.
On the other hand, ever since Nie Tian had gone to the Spiritual Treasure sect, he had always been there for her every time she had run into a crisis.
In order to protect her, not only did Nie Tian make enemies with Gan Kang, but he even turned his back on the Spiritfount Pill, which was of great importance to him.
Furthermore, Nie Tian had gone out of his way several times to help her, and he even ended up putting himself and his companions in danger because of that.
Compared to Nie Tian, Qiu Heng and his words meant nothing to her.
She tried to ignore him when he said those things about Nie Tian and expressed his pretentious concerns. She actually had to hold herself back, because otherwise, she would have lashed out at him already.
Qiu Heng put on a false smile as he said, “Well… please don’t think being Wu Ji’s disciple makes him invincible. Wu Ji might be a good mentor, but he made a huge mistake sending Nie Tian to the Heaven Gate trial. Letting him participate in the trial with his Lesser Heaven cultivation base… either Wu Ji is already a dotard, or Nie Tian is blindly brave.”
“Qiu Heng! Who are you talking about?!” Li Fan’s cold snort rang out not very far away.
Even Feng Luo shot a cold look at Qiu Heng and said, “Will you shut up?”
Zheng Bin glared at him and muttered in a disdainful tone, “What a clown.”
Hong Can from the Hell sect, Zou Yi from the Ghost sect, and Guan Qiu from the Grayvale sect also let out cold harrumphs as they cast their unpleasant gazes towards Qiu Heng.
Qiu Heng sensed the burning gazes and soon realized that everyone was looking at him with disgusted looks on their faces, so he instantly stopped talking.
He had no idea why they all seemed unpleasant upon hearing his comments.
Of course, he didn’t know that Feng Luo, Hong Can, Zou Yi, and Guan Qiu had all fought side by side with Nie Tian once, and they had all come to admire Nie Tian, even though he was only in the Lesser Heaven stage.
Hong Can from the Hell sect said with an unpleasant tone, “Although Nie Tian’s cultivation base isn’t impressive, he helped us kill three foreign Greater Heaven stage experts! Who are you to say those things? How many foreign Greater Heaven stage experts did you kill? What makes you think you’re better than him?”
“I bet if that kid had the same cultivation base as you, he’d be able to finish you with one strike,” Feng Luo said coldly.
“Umm…” Targeted by all those people, Qiu Heng’s face was filled with embarrassment.
He immediately grew timid and didn’t dare to say another word, and the way An Shiyi looked at him grew increasingly disdainful.
At that very moment, a cluster of seven-colored light appeared in the sky above the dilapidated city, and a figure gradually grew clearer within the bright light.
“It’s Nie Tian!”