With a grim expression, Nie Tian asked, “Are you serious?” He looked coldly at Dong Li, who had already put some distance between them, but he wasn’t in a hurry to launch attacks.
After all, he wasn’t sure what Dong Li was up to.
In his eyes, Dong Li was extremely cunning and vicious. She would never do something without a plan, and she was never fond of solving problems through battles.
Since Han Mu already controlled the team from the Cloudsoaring Sect, all she had to do was issue commands via that bracelet of hers and force Nie Tian to do as she said. Why would she do such a thing?
He suspected that she had ulterior motives.
Dong Li let out a cold snort, raging hatred appearing on her gorgeous face. “Of course I’m serious! I wanted to have a fair battle with you when we were in the Realm of Split Void. However, all you did was escape and kill my subordinates. You didn’t have the courage to fight me fair and square. I was very disappointed.”
Nie Tian smiled coldly. “Back when we were in the dense forest, we could have had a sound battle if your men hadn’t rushed to your aid. The whole Void Illusion Mountain Range was filled with members of the Fang. How could I not leave?”
“Very well.” The look in Dong Li’s eye grew increasingly frigid. “Now we’re alone. You can attack me freely. But you’ve got to hurry though. If you fail to capture me by the time Han Mu arrives with your grandfather and the others, don’t blame me for not being polite to them.”
Dong Li, who had suffered repeated losses from Nie Tian, wouldn’t be satisfied with breaking Nie Tian in effortless ways.
If it were someone else, she probably wouldn’t even want to make an effort. Considering she had the leverage now, with a single command, she would be able to watch the man suffer.
However, Nie Tian was different to her.
She had long since taken Nie Tian as a challenge, one she didn’t plan to deal with using her usual means.
Only by inflicting serious pain on Nie Tian with her own strength could she let Nie Tian taste the flavor of a absolute defeat, and she would get to vent her rage.
“As you wis.h.!.+” With a long roar, Nie Tian expanded his shrunken chaotic magnetic field to cover a ten meter radius around him.
The tall bushes enveloped by the magnetic field started to rattle and explode into shreds.
Fine rain was still drizzling down as a two-meter-long blade light suddenly extended out from the Flame Star in Nie Tian’s hand.
FIZZ! FIZZ!
Like a spirit snake, the blade light wiggled at the tip of the Flame Star, thrumming with various types of fierce spiritual power.
SHEW!
The blade light split the falling rain and slashed towards Dong Li’s face.
Meanwhile, Dong Li was enveloped by Nie Tian’s chaotic magnetic field. Every plant and bit of vegetation around her was reduced to flying shreds.
CLANK! CLANK! CLANK!
Every time the blade light swished down , Dong Li managed to ward it off precisely with her bone s.h.i.+eld.
The area around Dong Li was quickly filled with sparks created by the contacts, and her internal spiritual power began to rush around inside of her.
However, she didn’t move a bit, and not the slightest panic appeared in her eyes.
Even though her cultivation base was only at the early Greater Heaven stage, slightly higher than Nie Tian’s, she managed to ward off Nie Tian’s raging attacks and hold her ground in his chaotic magnetic field at the same time, which Guan Yue, a Qi warrior at the middle Greater Heaven stage, had failed to do!
Sneering, Dong Li took a deep breath. “Is this all you’ve got, the man who received legacies from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace?!
“Let me show you how powerful our clan’s Beast Spirit Incantation is!”
She pursed her s.e.xy lips and let out a animal-like shriek.
A thick pillar of pitch-black spiritual light suddenly beamed into the heavens from behind her back. As it did, the aura Dong Li released into her surroundings went through a overwhelming change.
Under Nie Tian’s amazed gaze, the pillar of spiritual light started to morph.
In a few seconds, an enormous, black phoenix came to shape and spread its huge wings.
The black phoenix seemed as if it were forged out of a black metal. With a few flutters of its wings, the heaven and earth around it were filled with a boundless and ancient energy.
As that happened, Nie Tian started to lose control of the chaotic magnetic field he had summoned all sorts of spiritual power to form.
“Beast Spirit Incantation!” Nie Tian exclaimed.
He suddenly remembered the battle between him and Dong Baijie when they had encountered each other for the first time in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace during the Heaven Gate trial.
Back then, Dong Baijie had gone through a series of tough battles, and he only had about ten or twenty percent of his spiritual power left in him.
Even so, a pillar of gray smoke had shot up from the top of his head, which had then morphed into a gigantic gray wolf and started inflicting pain on him.
The reason why he had managed to beat Dong Baijie was that Dong Baijie had suffered too many injuries and consumed too much of his strength.
When Dong Baijie had given up the Heaven Gate pattern on the back of his hand, he had said to Nie Tian that if he had been in a better condition, Nie Tian wouldn’t stand a chance fighting him one on one.
Thinking about Dong Baijie’s vicious gray wolf and looking at the black phoenix fluttering its wings above Dong Li’s head, Nie Tian instantly realized that this was a formidable incantation that people from the Dong Clan practiced.
His speculation was correct.
The number of spirit beasts in the Realm of a Hundred Battles roughly equaled the total number of spirit beasts in the other eight realms. The Dong Clan had been the among the first pioneers to come to the Realm of a Hundred Battles and explore.
Generations of the Dong Clan had gone through countless battles against spirit beasts in the Realm of a Hundred Battles, from which they had gradually developed and mastered a unique incantation: the Beast Spirit Incantation!
The Beast Spirit Incantation allowed members of the Dong Clan to refine spirit beasts’ blood and spirits, and use them to condense a beast spirit inside their bodies.
Dong Baijie’s gray wolf and Dong Li’s black phoenix were both beast spirits formed with the refined blood and spirit of formidable spirit beasts.
The stronger the spirit beast was, the stronger the beast spirit would be.
Dong Li had formed her beast spirit from the blood and spirit of a sixth grade black phoenix, whose strength equaled that of a Profound realm human Qi warrior. After powerful experts from the Dong Clan had helped her kill the black phoenix, Dong Li had refined it into a beast spirit using the Beast Spirit Incantation, and sealed it inside of her.
As her cultivation base advanced, she was able to refine new beast spirits and seal them inside of her as well.
As her strength grew, she would be able to display the strength of her beast spirits better. By the time she was able to fully display the strength of her beast spirits, or her own strength exceeded her beast spirits’ original bloodline strength, she would be able to discard them and hunt for more powerful ones.
The reason why she had gone to the Realm of Split Void had been to acc.u.mulate her own strength and temper her subordinates’ battle prowess, since she understood that only when she entered the Greater Heaven stage would she be able to fully display the might of her black phoenix beast spirit without suffering a backlash.
It was her black phoenix beast spirit’s fully explored strength that had given her the courage to cast her bracelet aside and fight Nie Tian head-on.
WHOOs.h.!.+ WHOOs.h.!.+
As the black phoenix behind Dong Li continued to flutter its wings, it created black gales that flattened the one-man-tall bushes in the vicinity.
Even Nie Tian’s chaotic magnetic field flickered due to the black gales and hardly had any influence on Dong Li.
Smiling, Dong Li fixed her black pupils on Nie Tian.
Holding the bone s.h.i.+eld in one hand and the cyan awl in the other, her attractive body slowly rose into the air.
She came to a stop when she was one meter above the ground and floated there.
Nie Tian’s pupils contracted as his expression grew increasingly grim.
Normally speaking, only Qi warriors who had entered the Profound realm would have the ability to soar through the air without a.s.sistance.
He had heard that some people were able to float in the air with the help of their special spiritual tools before they had reached the Profound realm.
However, he had never met such a person.
Dong Li was the first person he had ever met who was able to float in the air before reaching the Profound realm.
She relied on her black phoenix beast spirit to accomplish that.
SHEW!
With a low sneer, Dong Li’s curvaceous body suddenly flew towards Nie Tian with the black phoenix’s support, her face filled with arrogance and mockery.
As the violent gales beat her to Nie Tian, Nie Tian found it difficult to even maintain his footing.
He had already canceled the chaotic magnetic field around him. With cold snort, he channeled the various types of spiritual power from his spiritual sea into the Flame Star, with which he split the strong wind and slashed towards Dong Li.
CLANK! CLANK!
Sparks sputtered everywhere as Nie Tian and Dong Li exchanged attacks in close quarters.
Even though the bone s.h.i.+eld in Dong Li’s left hand flickered violently every time the Flame Star slammed into it, her cyan awl could always slide through the narrowest s.p.a.ce in Nie Tian’s defense and pierce towards his vital parts like a spirit snake.
Nie Tian, on the other hand, moved about rapidly to avoid the cyan awl and attack Dong Li with the Flame Star from different angles.
Time after time, Nie Tian sprung into the air and landed on the ground.
Within a few dozen seconds, his Flame Star made hundreds of exchanges with Dong Li’s bone s.h.i.+eld and cyan awl.
Soon, he started to experience numbness in the web between his thumb and forefinger. Every time the Flame Star made contact with Dong Li’s spiritual tools, Nie Tian felt as if he were hacking into a mountain made of iron. Not once had he felt an advantage in physical strength.
While fighting, Dong Li constantly flexed and straightened her seemingly soft body, unleas.h.i.+ng terrifyingly pure strength.
As tough as Nie Tian’s body was, he would shake violently when his fist strike made contact with Dong Li’s elbow.
Gradually, Nie Tian had a feeling as if he weren’t fighting a human lady, but rather an ancient, female beast!