As soon as Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair left, all of the b.l.o.o.d.y Despair Brotherhood members scattered and fled like startled birds.
After losing all of its blood essence to Nie Tian, the Blood Seal also lost its effect.
The Bone Blood Demon’s blood flow returned to normal.
Eyes narrowed, Nie Tian felt the green aura’s kipping joy, realizing that it wouldn’t be long before it acc.u.mulated enough flesh power for its next upgrade.
In fact, he hadn’t had confidence that he would be able to channel power from Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair’s peculiar blood domain using Life Drain either.
The cl.u.s.ters of blood that formed his blood domain had all been taken from seventh or eighth grade Ancientbeasts or outsiders, which were extremely helpful for the growth of his bloodline.
Just as he was carried away by these happy thoughts, Jing Feiyang let out a cold harrumph and jerked his head back. “The White Rose?!”
A tall, white figure that looked like a cold, white rose flew ethereally through the starry river, and arrived in front of them in the blink of an eye.
Upon arriving, the White Rose bowed her head slightly towards Jing Feiyang. “Greetings, Sectmaster Jing.”
But immediately afterwards, she turned to Nie Tian and clasped her hands. “I’m here to apologize.”
Jing Feiyang was taken aback. “Apologize?”
Nie Tian was also confused.
Just recently, the White Rose had convinced Old Shadow Eccentric to capture him alive. How come she suddenly wanted to apologize to him instead?
Looking somewhat embarra.s.sed, the White Rose bowed gently. “To tell you the truth, someone promised me handsome rewards for me to capture you alive. I had never seen that man before, and I couldn’t figure out who he was.”
Nie Tian let out a loud harrumph. “You really don’t know who he is?”
The White Rose smiled bitterly. “Really. And I was wrong for taking his offer. I’m hoping that you’ll accept my apologies. Fortunately, Old Shadow Eccentric failed. To show you how seriously sorry I am, I’m willing to give you a piece of information you’ll want.”
Brow furrowed, Nie Tian asked, “What information?”
“A group of cultivators from the Domain of the Falling Stars are currently imprisoned in the Realm of Crystal Snow in the Domain of Endless Snow, and Patriarch Icy Crystal, an early Saint domain expert, is guarding them personally,” The White Rose said with a sincere tone. “Since I’m also from the Heavenly Ice Sect, I still have informants in the Domain of Endless Snow. Even though Patriarch Icy Crystal isn’t as powerful as Patriarch Snowy Peak, he’s just as hard to deal with. You’d better be careful.
“Besides, the news of Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair suffering a sound defeat at your hands will soon spread across the nearby domains. I suspect that the Heavenly Ice Sect will hear about it before you even arrive in the Realm of Crystal Snow. Perhaps Patriarch Snowy Peak will even wait for you personally in the Realm of Crystal Snow.”
Jing Feiyang let out a cold snort. “We’re going to the Domain of Endless Snow to ask for Nie Tian’s people back, not to start a fight. Patriarch Snowy Peak from the Heavenly Ice Sect might be daring enough to set you up, but I doubt that he’ll have the audacity to make a move on Nie Tian.
“If he’s really that audacious, he would have killed those people from the Domain of the Falling Stars already, instead of keeping them alive to this point.”
The White Rose let out a soft sigh. “Good point.”
“Alright,” Jing Feiyang said. “Since you’ve come here to apologize and told us where those people are imprisoned, I think we can let you off this time. You’d better not do something like this again.” Even though he said these words to the White Rose, he kept his eyes on Nie Tian.
Nie Tian nodded at him.
“Many thanks!” The White Rose expressed her grat.i.tude again before flying off into the distance.
Jing Feiyang seemed genuinely sorry for what had happened to her as he said, “This woman is actually treated harshly by life. She had a good chance of becoming the sectmaster of the Heavenly Ice Sect, yet her good heart and gullibility got her into trouble. At the end, she was set up by Patriarch Snowy Peak, and ended up having to lead the life of a Hunter.”
Afterwards, he took Nie Tian back to their ancient stars.h.i.+p.
As soon as they returned to the main cabin, Duan s.h.i.+hu, Jing Rou, and Jing Feiyang started asking him what he had just done to almost disintegrate Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair’s blood domain.
Nie Tian couldn’t give them an answer even if he wanted to. He only knew that he carried a special bloodline.
Now, the elders of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had already learned his ident.i.ty as a hybrid.
He also hoped to learn the origin of his bloodline, so he wasn’t as discrete about his bloodline as before.
Aside from that, he had another hope, which was that his father, who he had never met, would come find him, along with his mother, after hearing about him.
Now that the battle had come to an end, their ancient stars.h.i.+p set out again for the Domain of Endless Snow. The White Rose and her people no longer followed them.
After everyone had left, a burning meteor suddenly flew to their original location.
That cl.u.s.ter of Divine Flame flickered actively within the meteor, vesting it with a soul, as it scanned the battlefield where Nie Tian had drained power from Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair’s blood domain, as if it was hoping to find something.
After a long time, Nie Tian’s residual aura vanished completely into the starry river, and the burning meteor flew off again.
...
In the Domain of Heaven Python, Qu Mingde, the sectmaster of the Golden Vast Sect, was sitting in the middle of a grand hall that seemed to be forged from pure gold. Eyes wide, he stared at Quan Zixuan, who was here to visit, and exclaimed, “What?! Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair was defeated?!”
Quan Zixuan, the sectmaster of the Thousandsword Mountain Sect, still seemed rather weak, as if he hadn’t fully recovered from his injuries yet.
Face somewhat pale, he nodded gently. “The message is one hundred percent reliable.”
Qu Mingde took a deep breath and said with an intense look on his face, “Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair has spent his whole life roaming the starry river between these domains. He moves furtively, and his blood domain is strangely powerful. How could he be defeated so easily? Even if Jing Feiyang fought him personally, it should have been a well-matched battle. He doesn’t have what it takes to severely injure Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair, does he?”
Quan Zixuan sighed. “According to what I learned from the White Rose, it wasn’t Jing Feiyang who crushed Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair. It was the seventh Son of the Stars.”
“Nie Tian?!” Qu Mingde exclaimed.
Several Void domain elders of the Golden Vast Sect, including Wu Yun, also exclaimed in disbelief, “Nie Tian?!”
A clamorous discussion then burst out among the Golden Vast Sect experts, none of them believing that the news was truthful.
“How’s that possible?!”
“Is it possible that the White Rose got their news wrong, Sectmaster Quan? The seventh Son of the Stars has just won the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s acknowledgment. He’s only at the Profound realm now!”
“Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair’s blood domain is a mixture of all kinds of Ancientbeast and outsider blood. Even high-tier outsiders and powerful Ancientbeasts can’t break it easily. How could he do it?”
“I don’t believe it! Who would believe it?”
“Was the White Rose fed incorrect information?”
With a dilemmatic expression, Quan Zixuan said, “But the White Rose was there. She saw it herself, and then told her subordinates. If she wasn’t there, or it wasn’t her who said it, I wouldn’t believe it either. But that is the truth. Nie Tian actually broke Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair’s peculiar blood domain through some unique means, which crushed his confidence and caused him to escape in sore straits.”
Qu Mingde took a few deep breaths to calm himself.
Only after quite a while did he mutter in a low voice, sagging his head, “Did we made a mistake by refusing to become his subordinate sect?”
Quan Zixuan remained silent, yet his face grew very grim.
...
At the same time, similar conversations took place inside many powerful sects in the Domain of Heaven Python, the Domain of Heaven’s Boundaries, the Domain of Endless Snow, and even the Domain of Vast Darkness, which was farther away.
“I heard that Master b.l.o.o.d.y Despair from the b.l.o.o.d.y Despair Brotherhood had his blood domain badly damaged when he attacked the seventh Son of the Stars with his men. Now, he’s cowering somewhere and refusing to show himself again.”
“Is it true that Nie Tian broke his domain with some unbelievable method? But he’s at the Saint domain!”
“This isn’t true, is it?”
“The news came from the White Rose. It should be true.”
All of a sudden, the Nie Tian’s name as the seventh Son of the Stars spread across the nearby human domains.
Even the Pure Heaven Sect and the Trisword Sect from the Domain of Heaven’s Boundaries, which had openly refused to follow Nie Tian, were deeply shaken.
The Jian Clan, the Guan Clan, and the Chu Clan, on the other hand, started communicating with Yue Yanxi from the Divine Flame Sect in secret, hoping to have private talks with Nie Tian after he returned.
...
In the Realm of Crystal Snow.
Among numerous snow-capped mountains, a giant block of ice stood in the middle of a mountain valley that was wreathed in a frosty aura.
The ice was hollow inside, which made it look like an airtight prison made of ice. Fan Kai, Zhao Luofeng, Lei Zhenyu, and some other powerful experts from the Domain of the Falling Stars could be seen sitting inside.
Sitting beside the giant block of ice, Patriarch Icy Crystal was resting his mind with his eyes closed. Even so, frosty breaths with sparkling bits of ice could be seen coming out of his nose.
SHEW!
A piece of icy jade fell out of the sky, and came to a stop right before Patriarch Icy Crystal.
Fan Kai and the others inside the ice prison suddenly sensed the anomaly, and thus cast their gazes towards that piece of icy jade.
Nervous looks spread across their faces.
The icy jade had a message sealed within it, which was probably an order from the Heavenly Ice Sect’s headquarters that would determine their fate.
Zhao Luofeng smiled bitterly. “What can it be? The Heavenly Ice Sect has imprisoned us here for quite some time now, and completely ignored our demands to talk. What is it that they want?”
As the sectmaster of the Heaven Palace Sect, he used to stand at the peak of the Domain of the Falling Stars, and overlooked all other cultivators. Now that he had come down to the point where his life was in someone else’s hands, he realized that perhaps he was still an important figure in the Domain of the Falling Stars, but he wasn’t even worth mentioning when facing powerful sects like the Heavenly Ice Sect.
If they wanted to kill them, they wouldn’t even have a chance to resist.
After all, Patriarch Icy Crystal was a Saint domain expert.
Fan Kai let out a low sigh. “We were limited by our visions before we left the Domain of the Falling Stars. We had no idea how immense this world really was. All we wanted was to get out of the Domain of the Falling Stars to see the world. However, when we finally did, we saw how cruel and dangerous the world really was. Our puny cultivation bases were simply laughable when facing the truly powerful sects.”
The few of them sighed over their ignorance, and the frustrating feeling that they couldn’t see a future.
All of a sudden, Patriarch Icy Crystal asked, “Is that Nie Tian really from the Domain of the Falling Stars?”
Zhao Luofeng instantly grew spirited. “That’s right. Nie Tian was born and raised in the Realm of Flame Heaven. He pa.s.sed the Heaven Gate trial and gained three fragmentary star marks, which allowed his strength to soar to its current level.”
“The Domain of the Falling Stars...” Patriarch Icy Crystal muttered in a low voice. Moments later, he added, “He has been officially accepted by the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace and become the seventh Son of the Stars. Right now, he’s on his way to the Realm of Crystal Snow. You’ll be able to see him soon.”
Upon hearing these words, Fan Kai and the others all sprang to their feet. Excitement filled their faces as they asked, “Why is he coming here, Senior?”
“He came for you of course,” Patriarch Icy Crystal said with an expressionless face.
A shudder ran through Zhao Luofeng. “For us?!”
His cold, hard heart was suddenly warmed. Even his voice changed without him realizing it.