Hatred, fear, despair, rage, and bloodl.u.s.t. The five powerful evil spirits had been bred by the Spirit Pearl after it collected a significant amount of negative energies.
As far as Nie Tian could remember, the five evil spirits would devour nothing but discarnate souls.
The misty cyan s.p.a.ce inside the Spirit Pearl had been divided into five major regions, each of which was dominated by an evil spirit.
It seemed to Nie Tian that they were illusory and in spirit form, and would never devour anything tangible.
However, as he provided them with his Blood Essence, the greed and mad craving they showed for his Blood Essence flabbergasted him.
This was simply unbelievable!
The five drops of Blood Essence that looked like crimson diamonds rapidly shrank as the evil spirits munched on them.
Nie Tian examined the five evil spirits with rapt attention, and discovered that their illusory bodies somehow gave him a sense of reality!
The five of them were exuding extremely faint flesh auras.
“Don’t tell me that...” A shudder ran through Nie Tian as he hastily established communication with the Spirit Pearl. “What will happen to them after they absorb my Blood Essence? Will their intangible bodies be given flesh and blood?”
The Spirit Pearl gave an affirmative answer. “Exactly!”
Nie Tian’s expression flickered with astonishment. “What will happen once they have fleshly bodies?”
“This involves a great secret of the Phantasms,” The Spirit Pearl answered. “However, I don’t know much about it either. I can only vaguely remember that there’s such a secret, but my status wasn’t high enough to know the details.”
The Spirit Pearl’s soul had originally been the discarnate soul of a Phantasm grand patriarch. Only after merging with Nie Tian’s soul imprints had it become what it was now.
Back when he had first gained it, ninth grade Phantasm grand patriarchs had been far too powerful to him. He hadn’t even been able to fathom their might.
However, now that he had a fairly deep understanding of the major outsider races and had become much stronger himself, he had realized that ninth grade grand patriarchs usually weren’t the most powerful experts among the major outsider races.
Their high chieftains were usually tenth grade grand monarchs.
Thinking of this, Nie Tian accepted the reason the Spirit Pearl’s soul had given for remembering a secret of the Phantasms, but failing to provide any more details.
“The five evil spirits developing fleshly bodies has something to do with a Phantasm secret... The Phantasms only have three Spirit Pearls throughout their entire race...” As he thought to himself, Nie Tian suddenly noticed that the five evil spirits had swallowed every bit of his Blood Essence.
Subtle changes had happened to them, as faint flesh auras could be sensed on them now.
It was just that their flesh auras were still far from strong enough for them to transform into a living being made of flesh and blood.
They gazed down at Nie Tian and implored in a low soul voice that only he could hear.
“You want more...?” Nie Tian sighed softly, then took his time to say, “I hope you won’t disappoint me. The Star Behemoth bone, the Flame Dragon Armor, and the flame spark all went through great changes after I infused them with my Blood Essence. You’d better not waste my Blood Essence. After all, they’ve become more and more important to me.”
Even though Nie Tian’s life bloodline had advanced to the eighth grade, he still hadn’t found a way to enter his Blood Realm.
He didn’t know how many drops of Blood Essence were needed for him to enter his Blood Realm again so that he would be able to acquire brand new bloodline magics.
After entering the eighth grade, he had awakened the Profound Truths Crystallization and Life Irrigation bloodline talents, and the total amount of Blood Essence he was able to hold had risen to three hundred drops.
However, neither Profound Truths Crystallization nor Life Irrigation could improve his battle prowess. Only bloodline magics could enhance his performance in battle.
Bloodline magics had to be acquired from his Blood Realm, or derived from the profound secrets of his bloodline.
Furthermore, the mere thought of the amount of flesh power he would have to acquire in order for his eighth grade bloodline to fall dormant and enter the next upgrade cycle made him feel helpless.
Under such circ.u.mstances, every single drop of Blood Essence became of great significance to him.
FIZZ! FIZZ!
Drops of Blood Essence that exuded extremely rich life power flew out of his chest one after another.
He activated Life Irrigation.
The five evil spirits rushed out of the Spirit Pearl once again, their enormous spirit-form bodies instantly wrapping around the drops of Blood Essence.
As soon as that happened, the pure, concentrated life power within the Blood Essence dispersed.
Not only did the enormous evil spirits not grow larger after receiving the nourishment of the Blood Essence, but they actually condensed and shrank in size.
Nie Tian’s pupils shrank as he stared unblinkingly at the five evil spirits. “They’re substantializing!”
Under his gaze, the evil spirits that were originally a hundred meters tall gradually shrank down as they wolfed down his Blood Essence.
The shrinking stopped as soon as the Blood Essence was finished.
Nie Tian pondered briefly before providing them with more.
The evil spirits then started munching again.
“These evil spirits were born within the Spirit Pearl, a powerful magical treasure of the Phantasms, and they represent five extremely negative emotions. It’s said that the Phantasms wors.h.i.+p and make offerings to evil G.o.ds from ancient times. Are those evil G.o.ds in flesh form or soul form? Have they died already, or...?”
Memories of Phantasms and their history started flas.h.i.+ng before Nie Tian’s eyes. “Evil G.o.ds, Phantasms, evil spirits...”
At the same time, he would draw more Blood Essence from his heart once he noticed that the evil spirits stopped shrinking, baring with the heartache of losing Blood Essence as he did.
The Blood Essence stock in his heart rapidly ran low.
Soon, there were only about a hundred drops left.
However, there were no signs of the five evil spirits finis.h.i.+ng their transformation anytime soon.
Even so, the feeling they gave Nie Tian now had become completely different from before!
Not only had their originally vague soul bodies become exceptionally distinct, but they also gave Nie Tian a feeling that they had flesh and blood now, as if they had become five living Phantasms.
Some of them had sharp claws and teeth. Some of them had cyan wings growing out of their backs. Some of them were covered in scales, while others had sinister, sharp needles growing out of them.
In Nie Tian’s senses, each and every one of them had become extremely dangerous, so much so that he felt as if he were face-to-face with five ancient evil G.o.ds that were wors.h.i.+ped by the Phantasms.
They seemed to be every bit as formidable as G.o.d domain experts or tenth grade outsider grand monarchs.
“Do evil G.o.ds belong to a species of living beings that are born from negative energies?” Nie Tian wondered. However, his loss of Blood Essence seemed to stop him from thinking straight.
SHEW!
All of a sudden, a bolt of lightning shot from the distant sky.
Stopping in front of him, it morphed into Mo Qianfan, the sectmaster of the Heavenly Thunder Sect.
Eyes wide, Mo Qianfan looked up at the five creatures floating over Nie Tian, each of which was ten meters long and wreathed in thick Phantasm Qi, as if they represented the ultimate evil. Astonished, he exclaimed, “These are the evil G.o.ds that were born early in Phantasm history!”
The five evil spirits were still busy munching on Nie Tian’s Blood Essence. Upon sensing his aura, they subconsciously jerked their heads towards him.
Their pupils were no longer too blurry to see. Instead, they were either blood-red, emerald-green, or ghostly white. A mere look at their eyes sent a chill down Mo Qianfan’s spine.
For some reason, even the early G.o.d domain Mo Qianfan felt insecure and uneasy.
He examined the five sinister beings in front of him with rapt attention, and discovered that neither their soul power nor their faint flesh power were strong enough to threaten him.
After going blank for a few seconds, Mo Qianfan suddenly realized what was happening. “What makes me feel threatened isn’t what they are now, but rather what they’ll grow into!
“If they continue to grow, they’ll definitely grow into the evil G.o.ds the Phantasms have wors.h.i.+ped since ancient times, or perhaps something even stronger! But I don’t understand why I’m sensing flesh auras from them...”
While he felt confused, the five evil spirits’ eyes suddenly lit up with an evil light.
Blood-red, emerald-green, misty cyan...
Huge waves of hatred, fear, despair, rage, and bloodl.u.s.t flooded Mo Qianfan’s sea of awareness in a split second. For a few seconds, he almost gave in to the strong urge to spill blood everywhere.
Only after numerous lightning bolts struck in his sea of awareness did he snap out of his daze. “Unbelievable!”
WHOOs.h.!.+
He jumped back to get ahold of himself. Then, with a grim expression, he looked at Nie Tian and the evil spirits floating over him, and said, “I practice lightning incantations. Technically speaking, I’m a natural bane for those soul-form creatures floating over you. Even tenth grade Phantasm grand monarchs will feel threatened if they have to fight me.
“However, those five creatures with faint flesh auras don’t seem to be afraid of the lightning power I command.
“They actually dared to attack my sea of awareness with their negative energies.
“You’ve got to know that my sea of awareness is even more deadly than thunder seas in the highest heavens.”
Mo Qianfan’s voice went higher and higher.
“Sectmaster Mo, would you tell the Primal Yang Sect and the other local forces in the Domain of Primal Yang to get me some high-grade spirit beast meat and high-grade outsider corpses?” Nie Tian asked.