“Bitch! Wait till we get back to the Spiritual Treasure sect! See how I’ll deal with you then!” Anger filled Qiu Heng’s cold eyes as he watched An Shiyi walk side by side with Nie Tian, talking and smiling.
At that time, the Heaven Gate in midair had already disappeared.
All the disciples from the other sects followed along after Hong Can and his fellow sect members had dashed off in the same direction as Feng Luo.
Qiu Heng was the only one left behind.
After inwardly cursing An Shiyi for a while, he looked up and saw the surging demon Qi. He couldn’t help but start to feel terrified.
He was well aware that it was very unlikely that he could safely return to the Spiritual Treasure sect by himself.
Even if he ran into only one outsider on his way back, considering his cultivation base, he probably would end up killed.
After hesitating for a while, he let out a sigh and sped off after everyone.
Nie Tian marched side by side with An Shiyi behind Li Fan and the others. He turned to her and asked, “What’s wrong with that guy? It seems that he doesn’t like you very much. Isn’t he a senior of the Spiritual Treasure sect? He should protect you and help you all the time, but why did he force you to do and say things that he was unwilling to?”
Actually, Nie Tian had long noticed the unpleasant look in his eyes since he came back from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace and landed in the teleportation portal.
Afterwards, he discovered that Qiu Heng had disagreed with everyone else in many occasions, and whenever they faced danger, he would do everything to keep himself safe.
He had behaved exactly the same when the others were determined to go to the Blood sect. However, he didn’t have the courage to say his opinion, so he beckoned for An Shiyi to do it for him.
From what Nie Tian could tell, even though Qiu Heng had a rather high status in the Spiritual Treasure sect, he was small-minded and hard to get along with.
“Oh, him?” An Shiyi’s slender eyebrows furrowed as she said in a low voice. “He’s thinking the same thing Gang Kang did.”
“Gan Kang!” Nie Tian suddenly realized what was going on and said, “So that’s how it is…”
He had long since learned from An Ying what intentions Gan Kang had with An Shiyi and how he had tried to force her to marry him.
Now that An Shiyi told him that Qiu Heng harbored the same intentions as Gan Kang, Nie Tian immediately knew what kind of person he was.
He looked deeply towards An Shiyi.
She was wearing a long, rose-red dress, which brought out her curvaceous body. Every smile and move of hers was elegant, and her captivating eyes could easily sink any man.
She was in her prime, as beautiful as a blossoming flower, which many men wished to pick.
Being so charming, but not from a powerful family, no wonder men from the Spiritual Treasure sect pursued her all the time.
Nie Tian had long since heard that countless men from the Spiritual school and Treasure school drooled over her beauty, and many of them held lofty positions in the sect.
“Gan Kang is dead, and now comes this Qiu Heng person…” Nie Tian gave a snort and said, “If he dares to step over the line and mess with you, I’ll make sure he goes to meet Gan Kang in hell!”
“Gan Kang is dead?” An Shiyi’s jaw slightly dropped, rounding her red lips.
She only knew that Gan Kang had abandoned the Spiritual Treasure sect and disappeared from the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range. She thought he had left the Realm of Flame Heaven and gone to the Realm of Dark Underworld with Lai Yi.
As long as Gan Kang was alive, he would always be a giant stone weighing down on An Shiyi’s mind.
Especially now.
According to the foreign trial takers, powerful experts from the other realms had been plotting against the Realm of Flame Heaven and would surely invade, or already had.
The Realm of Dark Underworld was one of them.
An Shiyi had been worrying that Gan Kang would return to the Realm of Flame Heaven with powerful backers one day, and take her or force her to marry him again.
Therefore, upon hearing about his death, she was surprised and happy and also found it a bit hard to believe.
Nie Tian nodded and reassured her in a low voice, “Someone brought me his and Lai Yi’s heads.”
An Shiyi’s deep eyes were wide as she looked at him, face full of disbelief. “Was it senior Wu Ji?”
“No.” Nie Tian shook his head and didn’t want to say anything about Hua Mu. “Anyways, you just need to know that Gan Kang and Lai Yi are both dead now.”
“It’s not senior Wu Ji?!” A light flashed across An Shiyi’s eyes as she now found Nie Tian even more mysterious and unfathomable.
The one thing she was certain about Nie Tian was that he was a person of many secrets.
She had known Nie Tian for years.
When she had first met him, he was still a boy, a boy she found interesting, but after the tempering of the Green Illusion dimension trial and Heaven Gate trial, he had already grown to a burly young man, much bigger than other boys his age.
Aside from the physical changes, Nie Tian had also taken on a few qualities of a mature man.
Compared to before, he was more confident, determined, and daring. As his cultivation base advanced by leaps and bounds, he was now a powerful young Qi warrior.
For unknown reasons, An Shiyi now found him more like a real man now, a man who had saved her quite a few times and asked for nothing in return, giving her a sense of safety which she had never felt with anyone else.
“Interesting guy!” An Shiyi seemed carried away by her thoughts as she slightly bit her lower lip like a teenage girl.
At that moment, people in the front suddenly stopped.
Nie Tian and An Shiyi also came to a stop. After glancing around, they found themselves in the middle of a valley.
Gravel could be seen everywhere around them. Not far ahead of them, Feng Luo and Yu Tong’s faces were grim as they stood in front of hundreds of dried-up, stone-made ponds.
All those ponds should have been filled with blood, which disciples of the Blood sect could use to cultivate.
However, not only was every single one of the blood ponds now empty, but they couldn’t even find a single disciple of the Blood sect.
This place was very close to the gate of the Blood sect. Normally, disciples of the three Heaven stages could be seen here around the clock, tempering their body in the blood pond or practicing magics with the blood.
After seeing that Li Fan, Guan Qiu, and the others had also arrived, Feng Luo looked a bit surprised. “I didn’t expect that you guys would come, but anyways, I, Feng Luo, want to thank you all for coming to the Blood sect at such a difficult time. If the Blood sect somehow lives through this calamity, we will surely come to your aid whenever your sects are in danger.”
“No need to thank us,” Li Fan said. “We’re in the same boat now. We fought side by side in the Heaven Gate trial, and managed to kill those people from the other realms. I believe that as long as we stand as one, neither the outsiders nor the foreign Qi warriors will be able to take the Realm of Flame Heaven. We will persevere!”
Brow still deeply furrowed, Feng Luo nodded and said, “I hope you’re right.”
Hong Can from the Hell sect also had a grim expression on his face as he looked in the direction of the Hell sect’s main gate and said, “From the look of it, the Blood sect had probably been attacked by the outsiders. I can sense that the demon Qi over at the gate of the Blood sect is very strong. It’s just that, limited by my cultivation base, I can’t tell if there are auras of outsiders within that Qi.”
“Neither can I,” Feng Luo let out a sigh and said. “The Blood sect definitely has been attacked. It’s just that I can’t tell how bad it was. After all, the era when outsiders walked this realm was too far from us, and thus we know nothing of them.”
“However,” Hong Can said worriedly, “what I can tell is that the demon Qi is gradually polluting the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth in the Realm of Flame Heaven. By the time that all the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth in the Realm of Flame Heaven has been polluted and turned into demon Qi, we will have an even smaller chance of winning this war.”
“Damn them!” Jiang Lingzhu said angrily with a cold snort. “People from the other realms knew that outsiders would invade the Realm of Flame Heaven, but not only did they refuse to help us, they even wanted to get a piece for themselves!”
With a serious face, Hong Can said, “They have been drooling over our realm for a long time now. The Hell sect has been overseeing the Realm of Flame Heaven for centuries. We know what they’ve been thinking. Unfortunately, since our seven sects aren’t strong enough, they never gave up the idea of taking the Realm of Flame Heaven.”
BAM!
All of a sudden, a subtle sound rang out from under the valley ground they were standing on.
As soon as they heard the sound, Feng Luo and Yu Tong exchanged a look and strange lights could be seen in their eyes.
In the same moment, Nie Tian’s heart began beating unusually as the sound echoed out.