After their brief communication, the ninth grade dragon and ice phoenix flew back to Nie Tian’s location.
At this moment, Jing Feiyang and the others were already collecting outsider bodies and their storage rings under Nie Tian’s instructions as their loot from this battle.
Upon returning, McEleney expressed his intent to talk to Nie Tian in private.
Jing Feiyang and the other two Saint domain experts were sensible enough to give them some s.p.a.ce.
After they left, McEleney started telling Nie Tian about the ultimate war that had taken place in this very realm.
Originally, this had been a super-large-scale realm that consisted of two parallel continents.
At the beginning, Ancientbeasts, dragons, and a small number of t.i.tans had lived on the bottom continent.
The top continent, however, had been home to Fiends, Phantasms, Demons, Bonebrutes, Floragrims, and Birdmen. As they had gradually thrived, they had no longer been satisfied with just the top continent, and extended their claws towards the bottom continent.
A war had broken out inevitably.
Since the two sides of that interracial war had been evenly matched, the war had shaped up to become a lasting one.
Both the six races from the top continent and the enormous creatures from the bottom continent had suffered heavy casualties.
Both continents had been badly damaged, so much so that the very foundation of the super-large-scale realm had been threatened.
While the two sides had been stuck in their fierce war, the Star Behemoth that had been slumbering in the depths of the sea had awakened and joined the war.
The might it had manifested had been unparalleled. As large as a medium-scale realm, it rose into the heavens from the depths of the pitch-black sea, and bombarded the top continent into countless pieces with devastating power, instantly breaking the balance.
As the top continent shattered, the Phantasms, Demons, Fiends, Bonebrutes, Floragrims, and Birdmen had suffered great losses.
The prolonged interracial war had ended within a short time. All of the outsider survivors had recognized the Star Behemoth’s invincibility, and had thus fled their shattered homeland.
Some pieces of the shattered top continent had continued to float high in the heavens.
However, the majority of the broken continent had plunged onto the bottom continent, inflicting significant damage, and causing its energy of heaven and earth to dissipate.
After its untimely awakening, the Star Behemoth devoured the energy of heaven and earth in different parts of the continent like a whale taking water into its mouth, which had almost drained its power completely.
Even though its awakening had directly resulted in the outsiders’ defeat and had forced them to leave their homeland, it had practically exhausted every bit of power this continent had to offer.
For this reason, even the dragons, Ancientbeasts, and t.i.tans had found the war-torn realm unfit to live in.
They had realized that if they continued to live and upgrade on this continent, it would never be able to return to its original state.
Therefore, they had reached an agreement with the Star Behemoth.
According to the agreement, they would leave to seek a new home, leaving the corpses of their eighth grade members on the floating continent. When the time was right, they would return to awaken their dead members.
While they were gone, the Star Behemoth would channel power from the depths of the starry river to nourish the floating continent back to health.
Furthermore, the Star Behemoth would be responsible for protecting the corpses, which couldn’t be taken on the exploration trips.
After establis.h.i.+ng a mutual understanding, the dragons, Ancientbeasts, and t.i.tans had left on their trips to search for new domains and realms. Shortly afterwards, they had discovered that there were many others of their kind in the boundless starry river.
They had joined them, and prospered in different parts of the starry river.
In order to prevent the outsiders and Ancientbeasts from returning before the continent recovered its vitality, the Star Behemoth had destroyed or sealed every spatial rift and portal that had connected the floating continent to the outside world, before falling into a deep slumber again.
It had even set a certain drifting direction for it, so that it would float towards a remote corner of the starry river stay, and away from the domains inhabited by living beings.
After that, it had fallen into a deep slumber.
Time had shot past like an arrow. Hundreds of thousands of years had pa.s.sed, and as the floating continent had recovered its strength, the power that had sealed those spatial rifts and portals had gradually faded.
After living there for countless years, the outsiders had planted a number of emergency spell formations on the top continent, some of which had remained intact on pieces of broken land.
They had activated a number of spatial rifts, and transmitted their coordinates to the other outsiders.
Just like that, the outsiders had found a way to return to the floating continent.
The dragons and the Ancientbeasts had also left teleportation portals behind.
As the sealing power over the teleportation portals had faded, they had returned to service as well.
The dragons and Ancientbeasts had sensed the changes in their teleportation portals, and had thus planned to revisit the floating continent to recover the dead members they had left here back in the day, so that their ninth and tenth grade seniors would be able to reignite the flames of their life force and bring them back to life.
They hadn’t expected that the outsiders had beaten them to it.
“So the purpose of you coming here was to recover the dead members that were buried here?” Nie Tian said, looking somewhat puzzled. “But why was it just the two of you?”
McEleney pondered in silence for a few seconds before answering, “We didn’t know what changes this floating continent had gone through, so we were just here to check out the situation. We planned to bring our powerful members here later. You might not be familiar with this, but every time our ninth or tenth grade seniors try to make a breakthrough in their grade, it’ll take countless years.
“Sometimes, even their naps can last several years.
“So we didn’t want to interrupt them before we had a good understanding of the situation on this continent.”
After a moment of pondering, Nie Tian asked, “So do you mean your people don’t intend to move back here?”
“Of course not,” Stella, the ninth grade ice phoenix, said without thinking. “Even after hundreds of thousands of years of recovery, the floating continent is still far from returning to its original state. Compared to it, the domains we now live in are much better for our subsistence and development. Why would we want to limit ourselves by coming back here?”
Only after leaving this continent had their people realized how vast this starry river actually was.
There were countless domains in this boundless universe, and many that suited them.
If this floating continent had returned to its original state, they might consider moving back to their ancestral home.
However, it was now far from getting there.
“My sect, the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, also...” Nie Tian said in a low voice.
McEleney seemed to see right through his mind as he explained, “The Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s unique incantations give them advantages in exploring this vast starry river. I suppose your sect’s founders discovered this place while they were exploring a remote corner of the starry river, but I don’t know who it was exactly.”
Gazing into the depths of the gray clouds, he added, “One thing I’m sure of is that whoever found this place found out about the Star Behemoth too. He must have made some kind of deal with it, so that it agreed to allow members of your sect with low cultivation bases to come here every once in a while.
“Those members could only channel a very limited amount of the energy of heaven and earth here. And even if they got into fights here, the damage they could cause the floating continent would be next to nothing.
“However, if Saint or G.o.d domain members were to act unruly here, they’d damage the structure of the floating continent and set its recovery back.
“The Star Behemoth wouldn’t allow this to happen.”
After hearing his words, Nie Tian pondered briefly, then nodded in agreement.
He knew a bit about the agreement between the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace and the Star Behemoth. Every hundred years, the Star Behemoth would allow a group of Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace disciples to take on a trial on this floating continent.
All of those disciples would be young, and have low cultivation bases. No matter how they sparred with each other, they wouldn’t cause any damage to the foundation of the continent.
The Star Behemoth had already viewed this continent as its habitat. The wondrous features of super-large-scale realms allowed this realm to channel energy from the starry river when it was slumbering.
Therefore, by making this agreement with the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, not only had the Star Behemoth ensured the continuous recovery of the floating continent, but it had also solved the problems it might face from the outside world.
“Will the outsiders be able to open new spatial tunnels in the future?” Nie Tian asked.
McEleney nodded. “That’s a possibility, but since they had eight spatial tunnels destroyed and suffered quite some losses this time, they probably won’t try again in the near future. Besides, now that they know the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace and we are all watching this place, they’ll be more careful.
“Even if they open new spatial tunnels, it’ll take them a long time. During that time, we’ll seek revenge with those two Demon grand patriarchs! Their days won’t be easy. Trust me!”
This conversation deepened Nie Tian’s understanding of what had happened in this realm, and the Star Behemoth’s arrangements.
He suddenly turned to Stella and said, “Years ago, you took an ice-sealed girl away from the Realm of Maelstrom. What happened to her in the Shatter Battlefield? Also, did you see an old man deriving enlightenment from the river of time in the depths of the Shatter Battlefield?”