Upon killing the Fiend, Nie Tian attempted to drain the Fiend’s flesh power with Life Drain the same way he had drained the flesh power from the other outsiders he had killed.
However, it turned out that even the Fiends’ flesh power contained toxins.
As wisps of flesh power poured back to him, not only did he not benefit from it, but he even suffered internal damage. Astonished, he hastily ceased the effort.
“The Fiends are indeed the strangest race in this world,” Nie Tian thought to himself. “Not only do they thrive in poisonous waters and swamps, but everything they possess is poisonous.”
Considering this, he had to give up on the idea of draining the Fiends’ flesh power.
After killing another two Fiends, he found himself rather close to the spell formation he had previously formed with the seventy-two tree branches.
The other Fiends were both shocked and furious upon seeing their friends being slaughtered one after another.
Even Sylon, who was controlling the poisonous mist from the outside, looked very grim upon seeing the deaths of his clansmen.
“A Son of the Stars is indeed far more powerful than those other puny human Qi warriors from the Domain of the Falling Stars! The kid is true to his t.i.tle.” With these words, intense killing intent burst forth from within Sylon’s eyes as he suddenly charged into the thick, green mist and rapidly approached Nie Tian.
“Bloodline magic: Eye of Wither!” he yelled.
All of the remaining drops of extremely poisonous liquid that were still floating in the thick mist answered the summons of his bloodline talent and instantly converged on him.
In a flash, tens of thousands of drops of poison condensed into a giant eyeball.
The eyeball reflected multicolored light as it slowly rolled about. All of a sudden, its gaze landed on Nie Tian.
For some reason, upon seeing that Sylon had unleashed another profound bloodline magic, the other Fiends quietly backed away from Nie Tian.
Curious, Nie Tian, who was moving towards his spell formation, looked over his shoulder at the uncanny eye.
However, the moment his eyes met it, a violent shudder ran through him.
A vicious and destructive force seemed to have instantly pa.s.sed to him through the exchange of looks.
At that moment, the originally huge Eye of Wither started to shrink in size, which meant its power was being consumed at a very high rate.
In a way Nie Tian couldn’t fathom, its vanis.h.i.+ng power was somehow inflicting damage and negative influence on him.
The spiritual power ward Nie Tian had formed with his powers of various attributes didn’t seem to be able to defend against this influence at all.
Nie Tian was soon struck by a feeling that the rich flesh power that swam around in his internal organs was rapidly slipping away from him, like an ancient tree that had existed for thousands of years rapidly losing its vigor.
The rapid loss of flesh power gave him the terrifying feeling that he was going to die soon.
Gasping with astonishment and fear, he hastily broke eye contact with the Eye of Wither.
As soon as he did, its evil, blighting power seemed to have a weaker effect on him.
However, it seemed that as long as he remained in the sight of the Eye of Wither, he would still continue to lose his flesh power.
He also noticed that all of the other Fiends, who had originally backed away, were now gathered around and guarding the Eye of Wither.
“It seems that I’ll have to destroy that Eye of Wither if I want to get rid of its negative influence completely,” he thought to himself. “The fact that all the Fiends are now there to protect it indicates that it’s fairly fragile. Otherwise, they wouldn’t have been so eager to form defenses around it.
“But how should I do it now that the Fiends are guarding it, let alone Sylon, who seems unfathomable, and has been controlling everything from the outside?”
After a moment of pondering, he decided that it would be too risky to do that, and thus gave up on the idea of rus.h.i.+ng over to destroy it. Instead, he turned back around and sprang towards the Floragrims’ ancient spell formation that he had established with the seventy-two tree branches.
He had confidence that the spell formation that contained endless profound mysteries would ward off everything that was harmful to him.
Even though the thick, poisonous mist Sylon had created had already pervaded heaven and earth over a very large area, the dark green ward over the ancient spell formation had managed to ward off the poisonous mist, not letting a single wisp through.
FIZZ! FIZZ! FIZZ!
Light flickered at the points where the thick mist made contact with the dark-green ward as, in areas close to the ward, the mist faded slightly.
After entering the ancient spell formation, Nie Tian found to his delight that the Eye of Wither’s damage to his flesh, bones, and insides instantly stopped.
He could see that Sylon’s Eye of Wither was still staring directly at him, yet its blighting power couldn’t seem to infiltrate the Floragrims’ powerful ward in the slightest.
“What a brilliant spell formation!” Nie Tian marveled inwardly as he dropped to the ground in a relieved fas.h.i.+on, and started recovering strength with spiritual materials, completely ignoring the outsiders outside the ward.
Seeing that Nie Tian had retreated to the spell formation, Sylon muttered, looking rather frustrated, “That spell formation...”
“That’s the spell formation the Floragrims used to protect their ancestral land!” Abreu said with a very grim expression. “But he’s human! How did he get it?”
Tago also seemed deeply confused as he chimed in, “That grand Wood Thriving Formation was the work of several Floragrim monarchs. They copied the mysterious tree patterns of the ancient tree of life and refined them into the spell formation with their own blood essence. Its most curious feature is that it can automatically power itself by channeling wood power from its surroundings. What did that kid do that made the grand spell formation acknowledge him?”
At this point, Armes, who had already restored part of his strength, suddenly sprang to his feet, gave a cold harrumph, and said, “The Wood Thriving Formation can ward off not only our bloodline power, but even our detection with soul awareness. But even so, that doesn’t make it impregnable, especially now that it’s in the hands of a human. There’s no way he can display its full might.”
After a brief pause, Armes glanced around and added, “The Wood Thriving Formation greatly relies on the woods and plants in its surroundings, which serve as its source of power. Considering his knowledge regarding wood power and the grand spell formation, I bet this spell formation can only absorb wood power from within a five kilometer radius, or maybe even less.
“If it were operated by a Floragrim monarch, every tree and plant on this entire island would become its source of power.
“If that were the case, we could forget about breaking it. However, since it’s a human that’s operating it now, things are completely different.”
Upon hearing these words, Sylon suddenly became refreshed as he said in a loud voice, “That’s right!
“This grand spell formation was originally used to protect the Floragrims’ ancestral land, where they grew heavenly trees. Every heavenly tree contained incredibly rich wood power, so they could provide the Wood Thriving Formation with unlimited power.
“If the grand spell formation were in that state, even our seniors with eighth grade bloodline power wouldn’t be able to breach it given thousands of years, not to mention us.
“However, now that there aren’t any heavenly trees here, and Nie Tian is the one who’s using it...”
Abreu came to some realization and jumped in, saying with a comprehending smile, “We can continue to bombard it to wear it out! When it’s used up the wood power it’s drawn from the vicinity, it’s gonna lose its effect!”
“Exactly!” With these words, Sylon waved his large hand, and the Eye of Wither, which was the condensation of countless drops of deadly poison, rapidly floated to the area above the Wood Thriving Formation. “Not to mention that our race’s blight power has a naturally strong destructive effect on the Floragrims’ spell formations. Let’s bombard it together. I don’t believe this spell formation will hold forever!”
Upon hearing this, Armes thundered, “Get on with it, all of you! Exhaust this Wood Thriving Formation’s power as soon as you can!”
Numerous outsiders of different races circled around the Fiends’ poisonous mist and approached the Wood Thriving Formation from another direction.
It wasn’t long before all sorts of bloodline magics and magical tools stormed towards the Wood Thriving Formation.
As they did, the dark green ward instantly blossomed with dazzling light. Glorious sparks of various colors sputtered off the parts where the outsiders’ attacks shot into the bright ward, as if they were the most beautiful fireworks in this world.
Meanwhile, the trees, bushes and other plants in the vicinity started to darken and wither at an alarming rate as they were rapidly drained of their wood power by the Wood Thriving Formation.
Sitting in the spell formation, Nie Tian soon discovered that he was no longer able to gain copious wood power from the spell formation.
That was when he realized that all of the wood power the spell formation had absorbed was being used to defend against the outsiders’ storm of attacks. There was simply none left for him.
“I’ve got to recover my strength soon!” With these thoughts in mind, Nie Tian focused all of his attention on replenis.h.i.+ng his spiritual power, hoping he would be able to restore his battle prowess to a high level before the spell formation shattered.