Pieces of broken spirit stones were scattered in front of Nie Tian.
Li Fan and Jiang Lingzhu both realized that he had made the breakthrough and since they didn’t want to disturb him or attract others’ attention, they stopped looking at him.
After glancing around, they discovered that the others were still contemplating or recuperating with spirit stones, and no one seemed to have noticed what happened with Nie Tian.
Only Yu Tong, who was sitting next to Feng Luo, looked over from time to time for unknown reasons.
Since she had considered Nie Tian to be her number one opponent, she never stopped thinking about having a fair fight with him someday.
Because of her repeated losses to him, he had become her mental devil, especially when every time he had defeated her, his cultivation base had been lower than hers.
That fact left her extremely frustrated.
“That guy used so many spirit stones. Don’t tell me he made another breakthrough!” Yu Tong exclaimed in her heart, her eyes filled with deep hatred. However, a while later, her expression grew somewhat complicated.
When she had first met Nie Tian in the Heaven Gate trial, Feng Luo told her, after a brief examination, that Nie Tian had stepped into the middle Lesser Heaven stage.
The fact that Nie Tian had managed to break through into the middle Lesser Heaven and caught up to her stage had already been shocking to her.
No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t imagine what he had experienced in the past three months that led him to another breakthrough in his cultivation base in such a short time.
Nie Tian’s rapid advancement had put her under great pressure, and she feared that it wouldn’t be very long before the gap between their cultivation bases grew larger and larger.
“I won’t fall behind! And I won’t lose to you again!” Yu Tong gritted her teeth as a sense of compet.i.tion rose in her heart.
Then she refrained from thinking more about it, and immediately submerged herself in cultivation.
WHOOs.h.!.+
After an unknown period of time, Nie Tian woke up from his cultivation and let out a mouthful of air.
By that time, there were three vortexes of spiritual power, one vortex of flame power, one vortex of wood power, and a vortex of starlight in his spiritual sea.
The six vortexes that contained different types of power rotated regularly and peacefully.
After the violent movements triggered by the spirit stones was over, his spiritual sea seemed to be ready for more expansion.
He could have taken more spirit stones out of his bracelet of holding and continued with his cultivation.
However, he had a feeling that the seven-colored light shooting out of the teleportation portal had become dimmer, which could be a sign that the energy was running out.
After all, the light had protected him and transferred him from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace back to this place, so a subtle connection had been born between them.
As expected.
Just as he was about to say something, the light gate in the middle of the ancient teleportation portal suddenly became twisted and blurry.
He realized he was right, and the portal really was running out of power.
At that same moment, Hong Can, who had been observing the teleportation portal, came to the same realization and called out, “Wake up, everyone!”
His shout woke everyone from their recuperation or meditation.
Hong Can’s expression was very grim as he said, “We have to go now! Let’s get into the portal one by one! And remember, prepare yourselves!”
Upon hearing his words, everyone sprung to their feet. Even Qiu Heng from the Spiritual Treasure sect didn’t utter a word of objection.
After all, he also knew that when the seven-colored light went out and the teleportation portal ran out of power, whoever chose to stay would very likely be trapped in this dimension forever and would never return to the Domain of the Falling Stars again.
Since there was no life and no spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth in here, he couldn’t cultivate in this place.
With his current cultivation base, he couldn’t possibly travel between dimensions. No matter how many spirit stones he had on him, he would run out one day.
When he did, even the cold wind alone would drain his power and kill him.
After realizing that he had no other choice, he looked back at An s.h.i.+yi and urged her to get in first with a cold tone, “Let’s go!”
An s.h.i.+yi knew that her previous comments had angered Qiu Heng, so she said with no expression on her face, “Fine."
She even expected that Qiu Heng might secretly undermine her after they returned to the Spiritual Treasure sect.
However, since she had made quite significant gains in the Heaven Gate trial, she was confident that she would soon step into the Greater Heaven stage, and by that time, she wouldn’t need to care how Qiu Heng felt any more.
“We disciples from the h.e.l.l sect will go first; the rest of you follow us!” After uttering these words with decisiveness, Hong Can took the initiative to enter the seven-colored light gate.
The other h.e.l.l sect disciples immediately followed him into it.
Back when he had descended from the palace, Nie Tian had searched the crowd for Zhao Haifeng.
The fact that he had killed Wu Tao, the guest elder from the Nie clan, in Black Cloud City made Nie Tian engrave his name in his heart.
He knew that Zhao Haifeng and Duan Yuan had both entered the Heaven Gate, therefore he had been secretly trying to find a chance to kill those two.
However, it seemed that foreign Qi warriors had gotten to them before Nie Tian could, and they had died in the trial like many other disciples from the seven sects.
He felt sorry that he couldn’t avenge Wu Tao himself.
No matter what, the Heaven Gate trial had come to an end.
Since the seven sects of the Realm of Flame Heaven were joining hands in fighting their common enemies, and Zhao Haifeng and Duan Yuan were already dead, he decided to put aside his enmity towards the h.e.l.l sect.
At that moment, Nie Tian thought of Liu Yan’s death and roared in his heart, “Tang Yang, I hope we’ll meet again!”
Zhao Haifeng and Duan Yuan had died, but Tang Yang hadn’t. Nie Tian made a promise to himself that he’d use his entire life to hunt down Tang Yang, even if it meant that he would have to kill him in the Realm of Dark Underworld.
Just as he was sorting through his thoughts, many others had already entered the light gate one after another.
He saw An s.h.i.+yi cast him a glance before entering, as if she wanted him to go with her.
However, under Qiu Heng’s urging, she could only step into the gate.
“Let’s go, Uncle Li.”
Nie Tian decided not to wait any longer and stepped into the bright light gate.
Moments later, he disappeared into the light gate.
In the Blood sect’s territory, the Realm of Flame Heaven...
A Heaven Gate that unceasingly radiated blinding light had taken shape over a distant mountain valley for a few days.
WHOOs.h.!.+ WHOOs.h.!.+ WHOOs.h.!.+
One by one, a few figures whizzed out of the light gate and fell into the valley.
As soon as they flashed out of the Heaven Gate, the patterns on the back of their hands grew blurry before they completely vanished.
The Heaven Sparks within vanished with them, not even leaving the slightest trace.
Standing on the valley ground, Hong Can looked down at the back of his hand, which was now as clean as a blank piece of paper, and then looked up at the Heaven Gate in midair, pondering what had happened.
After obtaining a firm foothold on the ground, every trial taker noticed the changes to their Heaven Gate patterns that they had already grown used to.
“The Heaven Gate pattern is gone! The secret magics and incantations stored within the Heaven Spark are also gone!”
“What the h.e.l.l?! What’s going on!?”
“I should have spent more time sorting through the symbols and comprehending the mysteries within the Heaven Sparks in the Heaven Gate dimension!”
“Dammit!"
Looking at the back of their hands, many of them felt regretful and frustrated.
After all, all the fragments of the secret magics they had obtained from the dilapidated city had been stored in their Heaven Sparks.
Each and every one of them had found the magics perfectly agreeable with their cultivation attribute, and thus made significant gains when they learned the profound truths that lay within them.
However, all the things that they had cherished dearly disappeared in a flash.
They all found it hard to accept.
Seconds later, Nie Tian also flew out of the Heaven Gate. After landing close to An s.h.i.+yi, he smiled at her.
The same thing happened to him. The Heaven Gate pattern on his hand also vanished as soon as he flew out of the Heaven Gate.
However, the two hexagrams that were originally in his Heaven Gate pattern didn’t vanish with it, but rather appeared in the middle of his chest, as if they were some kind of tattoos.
He examined them with his psychic power and found that the ancient symbols within the hexagrams were still intact and perfectly aligned, not a single one missing.
The first and middle parts of the Fragmentary Star Incantation were still written clearly within them.
Soon, everyone was out of the Heaven Gate, and everyone had lost their Heaven Gate pattern together with everything within them. Only he got to keep the hexagrams and the legacies within.
He was the special one.