For all intelligent beings, once their fleshly bodies perished, their souls would also gradually dissipate into heaven and earth.
The same went for Lizardmen.
In fact, the Lizardmen’s souls weren’t weak at all. It was just that their understanding of soul power was still rather shallow, and so they still didn’t know how to make use of their powerful souls.
They only knew how to use their soul power to defend against soul attacks, nothing more.
Now that an eighth grade Lizardman had been slaughtered by Huang Jinnan’s subordinates, the five evil spirits rose from the Spirit Pearl, and arrived before his discarnate soul dissipated.
The faint gray discarnate soul was ripped apart and devoured by the five evil spirits in the blink of an eye.
As they did, the various kinds of negative energies that had formed right before the death of that Lizardman became nourishment that helped the evil spirits grow.
Mixed with them were pieces of memories from when he had been alive.
Thanks to the subtle connection between the five evil spirits and the Spirit Pearl, the Spirit Pearl’s soul received the memory images before the evil spirits even returned.
Most of the images were broken and disorderly.
However, Nie Tian, who was fighting seventh grade Lizardmen with the help of the Star Boat, suddenly heard a soul call from the Spirit Pearl.
At this moment, the Spirit Pearl was floating right above his head. Without leaving the Spirit Pearl, its soul sent a series of images into Nie Tian’s sea of awareness.
As the images flashed before his eyes, Nie Tian’s expression suddenly flickered.
The images clearly depicted another Lizardman realm.
The entire realm seemed dark and gruesome. There was a vast marshland, where bubbles were rising from green water. The entire marshland was enveloped in a thick, greenish acidic mist.
Three ninth grade Lizardmen were floating over the marshland and calling in their own language.
Immediately afterwards, ripples spread out from the depths of the marshland.
A very aged outsider emerged from the rippling water.
He looked very different from any Lizardman Nie Tian had ever seen.
All of the Lizardmen he had seen had huge lizard bodies and human heads.
However, that aged outsider was basically in human form, which was very similar to high-tier Demons and Phantasms.
But he was covered in scales like the other Lizardmen.
As the aged outsider walked out of the marshland, the three ninth grade Lizardmen bowed respectfully towards him and asked him something in their language.
Several eighth grade Lizardmen could be seen waiting in a farther location.
These images deeply shook Nie Tian.
“That seems to be an evolved Lizardman! Such evolution is similar to the way low-tier Demons lost their significant size and evolved into elegant high-tier Demons through countless years. That Lizardman must be the first to finish this evolving process!
“He’ll probably join this battle soon.
“Or perhaps he’s already on his way to this realm!”
Nie Tian was no longer at ease.
When they had first entered this realm, Huang Jinnan’s subordinates had said that they had peeled memories from the Lizardmen they had killed, according to which there were only eight powerful Lizardman warriors.
Now, all eight ninth grade Lizardmen were gathered in this place.
Apparently, the Lizardman that had evolved and developed a human form wasn’t here.
The Lizardmen Huang Jinnan’s subordinates had killed when they had first set foot on this piece of land had only been at the seventh grade, the sixth grade, or even lower.
Considering outsiders’ rigid hierarchy, it was very likely that low-tier Lizardmen didn’t even know of the existence of such a unique patriarch.
The eighth and ninth grade Lizardmen might have been keeping it a secret.
“Even if that human-form Lizardman isn’t at the tenth grade, he must be at the peak of the ninth grade, and only a step away from entering the tenth grade. His grade defines the grade limit of their race. He must be the most powerful individual of the Lizardman race!”
At this point, Nie Tian already had a fairly deep understanding of outsiders’ bloodlines.
Every outsider race had a so-called grade limit.
Grade limits would determine how high the experts of a race could rise in grade.
Of the outsider races he was familiar with, Birdmen, Stonemen, and Blackscales all had the ninth grade as their races’ grade limit
This meant that their most powerful experts were at the ninth grade, and no one in their history had ever entered the tenth grade.
Grade limit would put a cap on the whole race’s potential. If an outsider race had never seen a tenth grade expert, then it couldn’t be viewed as a powerful race.
For this reason, Birdmen, Stonemen, and Blackscales couldn’t compete with Demons, Phantasms, Floragrims, and other races that had tenth grade grand monarchs.
However, grade limits weren’t unbreakable.
If someday a Birdman, Stoneman, or Blackscale entered the tenth grade, then their entire race’s bloodline would transcend.
Once a member broke through into the tenth grade, the other ninth grade members of their race would have a much better chance at entering the tenth grade.
Not only would the first one’s success give confidence to their successors, but their experience would also help them find the key to making such a breakthrough.
Those who broke the grade limit for their race would naturally enjoy a transcendent status. Even after their deaths, they would be remembered as breakers of shackles, and wors.h.i.+pped by their kind.
“From the look of it, it won’t be very long before that aged outsider breaks through into the tenth grade.
“If he succeeds, all eight ninth grade Lizardmen will receive guidance, which will greatly improve the odds of them advancing to the tenth grade and becoming grand monarchs themselves someday!
“He must be practicing cultivation year-round in that marshland, hoping to make the breakthrough as soon as possible.
“But our arrival has disturbed his inner peace...”
With these thoughts, Nie Tian instantly made a decision: stop tangling with the seventh grade Lizardmen and urge everyone to leave this place right away.
Even though he had only seen a few broken images, he had a feeling that the aged human-form Lizardman was much stronger than Yang Fan, who was at the late Saint domain.
He even suspected that two experts like Yang Fan wouldn’t be able to handle him in battle.
Even though the humans had the advantage in this battle, it was a narrow advantage.
Once that Lizardman expert arrived, the scales of victory would be instantly tipped towards the Lizardmen.
One expert as powerful as him would be enough to turn the situation around!
SHEW!
Like a bolt of lightning that split the heavens, the Star Boat flashed across over the heads of the seventh grade Lizardmen and arrived in the area where Huang Jinnan and the Void domain experts were engaged in a fierce fight against eighth grade Lizardmen.
“Brother Huang!” Nie Tian called out.
At this moment, Huang Jinnan was mobilizing the mountain of Golden Obsidian to bombard an eighth grade Lizardman. The mountain of Golden Obsidian had lost a third of its power, and had shrunk considerably in size.
Golden lotus petals were still flying out of the golden mountain, inflicting serious damage on the Lizardman warrior.
Taken aback, Huang Jinnan asked, “What’s wrong?”
“Your men’s information wasn’t accurate. The most powerful Lizardman expert hasn’t arrived yet!” Nie Tian shouted at the top of his lungs in human language. He did this so that Lou Hongyan and the other experts in distant locations would also be able to hear him. “The evil spirits I released devoured the discarnate soul of the eighth grade Lizardman who died just now. And from it, I got images...”
Nie Tian spoke loud and fast, launching all the information he had learned like a streak of cannonb.a.l.l.s.
All of the Saint and Void domain Qi warriors gasped with astonishment upon hearing his words.
“A human-form Lizardman at the peak of the ninth grade?!”
“He’ll be the one to raise the grade limit of the Lizardman race a whole new level?!”
“Do the Lizardmen have such a hero?!”
“This isn’t good! Those who can push their race’s grade limit must be their most extraordinary members!”
Even Lou Hongyan lost her composure, a myriad of expressions flas.h.i.+ng across her eyes.
Lou Hongyan adjusted her plan surprisingly decisively. “If that’s the case... We need to get out of this realm as quickly as we can.”
Then, she went on to shout to the others, “Let’s put an end to this battle and leave this domain! We can’t wait for that expert to get here!
“Take Nie Tian with you, Uncle Yang! We’re leaving now!”
She finally thought that it was about time that they evacuated from this domain.