“Yeah! Nie Tian!”

Shen Xiu also sounded deeply confused. “Little Tong said Nie Tian claimed that he obtained a Fruit of Life during the Heaven Gate trial and after taking it, his blood now carries life power. And it was his blood that awakened the Bone Blood Demon and brought it under his command.”

“Didn’t you trap the Bone Blood Demon’s mutilated soul in the Blood Spirit Pearl?” Sectmaster Li Jing said.

“Yeah, but it escaped from the Blood Spirit Pearl and merged with its fleshy body.” Bitterness could be seen on Shen Xiu’s face as she continued, “Little Tong’s cultivation base is too low and her understandings of demon controlling magics are still shallow. If I were there, I could have overpowered its soul and brought it under my control.”

“I see...” Still wreathed in a dense blood aura, Li Jing pondered for a moment and said, “If it were another time, I would never allow someone from the other sects to control the Bone Blood Demon that we cultivated with heart and soul. But these are different times.”

Li Jing shifted her gaze away from Shen Xiu and focused on Groete and Sarah, who were standing quite a distance from her.

“It could be a good news for us. Tell Little Tong that we need Wu Ji’s disciple to bring the Bone Blood Demon here as soon as possible.

“Even though the Bone Blood Demon can’t fully restore its eighth level bloodline power, it’s still strong enough to keep that Sarah outsider busy.

“At that time, I’ll jump in and fight her together. I believe by doing that, we’ll be able to force the outsiders to raise their siege.”

Shen Xiu’s spirit was greatly lifted as she replied, “Got it!”

With these words, she casted her secret magic and communicated Li Jing’s plans with Yu Tong via the Blood Spirit Pearl.

...

In the place where the demon Qi had dispersed.

Feng Luo, Hong Can and all the others were gathered around Nie Tian, waiting for him to absorb the Soul Restoring Pills and restore his psychic power.

Holding the Blood Spirit Pearl in her hands, many expressions flashed across Yu Tong’s delicate face as she received her master’s message.

Moments later, she put away the Blood Spirit Pearl and said to everyone, “Things are not looking good in our sect!”

“Did you just connect with your master via the Blood Spirit Pearl?” Elation could be seen in Feng Luo’s eyes.

Hong Can and the others were also intrigued as they all shifted their gazes away from Nie Tian onto Yu Tong.

Some of them knew that the Blood Spirit Pearl belonged to Shen Xiu, so she could communicate with Yu Tong via it when it was within certain distance.

Furthermore, none of them had an idea of what was going on in the Blood sect.

Therefore, they were rather eager to get a hold of the situation over there.

Yu Tong held nothing back as she answered Feng Luo’s question. She told him about the difficult situation they were in, including that a few high-tier outsiders laid siege to them and that they were about to run out the stored spirit beast blood.

She also relayed Li Jing’s message that she hoped Nie Tian could lead the Bone Blood Demon to the Blood sect and assist her in battle as quickly as possible.

Everyone let out sighs of relief after hearing Yu Tong’s words.

The situation over in the Blood sect was a bit better than what they had expected. After all, most of the powerful experts were still alive and they could hold their ground since the grand spell formation hadn’t yet been breached by the outsiders.

“She said that as long as Nie Tian could bring the Bone Blood Demon to the battlefield, she’ll have a way to turn the situation around?” Hong Can exclaimed.

Yu Tong nodded. “Yes, that’s what our sectmaster said.”

“Good!” With a deep breath, Hong Can looked over at Nie Tian and said, “We’ll protect Nie Tian; march out to the Blood sect together as soon as he wakes up!”

“Time is of the essence. We’d better hurry.” Seeing that Nie Tian was still not awake after quite some time, Yu Tong became somewhat anxious. “My master said that they’re running out of spirit beast blood. Once they drain the blood storage, the blood shadow will no longer be able to protect them with the blood shield. At that time, nothing will be able to stop the flood of countless low-tier outsiders and many of our sectmates will die!”

Upon hearing her words, a desire to wake Nie Tian rose in Feng Luo’s heart.

At that very moment, Li Fan from the Cloudsoaring sect frowned and said, “He took far too many Soul Restoring Pills. We’d better let him awake by himself. Right now, all his attention is concentrated on refining the pills. If we interrupt him at such a moment and he falls into a Qi deviation, will you be responsible for the consequences? Even though you don’t care about him, you should consider how it would affect the situation over in your sect!”

After hearing these words, Feng Luo swallowed the words that were already at the tip of his tongue.

He was aware that Li Fan’s comments made sense. After all, with his low cultivation base, Nie Tian was trying to refine multiple Soul Restoring Pills at the same time to recover his psychic power in the shortest time possible. He didn’t want to achieve the opposite result by waking him prematurely.

After a moment of hesitation, Feng Luo sat back down and said with a helpless tone, “Let’s wait then. I hope he can wake up sooner rather than later. He is the only hope for the survivors of the Blood sect. They desperately need him to step up now.”

Meanwhile, Nie Tian immersed himself in his soul to observe the seven fragmentary stars. As the efficacy of the Soul Restoring Pills kicked in, they were constantly expanding and shining with even brighter starlight.

The starlight seemed to have merged with his psychic awareness and caused it to upgrade into something more powerful, like an eye in the sky.

With it, he could now micro-detect the movement of nearby creatures’ muscles and blood, through which he could briefly tell the person’s cultivation base.

Before, he could only use his psychic awareness to sense, but couldn’t see through the surface.

After his psychic awareness was mixed with the starlight, both his sensing ability and perception had heightened.

This made him realize that the power the seven fragmentary stars unleashed was a different kind of power from his original psychic power.

He had a feeling that the power that resided in those fragmentary stars was none other than soul power!

Normally speaking, only Worldly realm Qi warriors would be able to upgrade their soul and transform their refined psychic power into soul power.

The idea that he had obtained soul power through the seven fragmentary stars would be shocking to every Qi warrior in the Realm of Flame Heaven.

From the look of it, the Fragmentary Star Incantation, legacy of the mysterious Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, was indeed the ultimate reward of the Heaven Gate trial.

Immersed in excitement and elation, he observed as the wisps of power that Soul Restoring Pills generated poured into the fragmentary stars.

Some time passed and he could no longer detect any more wisps of psychic power ascending to his mind. Only at that time did he open his eyes.

As soon as he did, he saw everyone gazing at him, anxiety filling their eyes.

“Something’s wrong?” Surprised, he asked.

“Have you fully recovered your psychic power?”

Feng Luo hastily asked.

Nie Tian nodded.

“Good!” Not wanting to wait another second, Feng Luo said, “We march towards the Blood sect now. They need you and the Bone Blood Demon that you control!”

“Why the hurry all of a sudden?” Nie Tian was confused.

“I’ll tell you on the way!” Feng Luo said loudly.

“Alright. " Nie Tian rose to his feet and rapidly followed the others towards the area that was filled with raging demon Qi.

Before entering the demon Qi, they once again enveloped themselves with light shields of different colors, so that demon Qi couldn’t infiltrate their fleshy bodies and make them slaves to the outsiders.

With a brief movement within his mind, a wisp of spiritual power flew out of Nie Tian’s spiritual sea and spread out into a thin, white light shield around him.

Under Feng Luo’s lead, everyone traveled rather slowly within the demon Qi.

As they went deeper into the demon Qi, the demon Qi became denser and denser, and they had to consume more of their spiritual power to keep themselves unharmed.

About fifteen minutes later.

Zheng Bin and Jiang Lingzhu were the first ones to experience discomfort. Face ghastly, they had to stop.

They had consumed more than half of their spiritual power and had to recuperate with spirit stones before they could continue their march.

An unhealthy redness could also be seen on Yu Tong’s face, and the blood-colored light shield enveloping her also started to flicker.

“Their cultivation bases are too low.” Feng Luo frowned and said, “Little Tong, give me the Blood Spirit Pearl. You should stay here and recover. If you think staying here is too consuming, follow the same route back, and wait for us in the area where there’s no demon Qi.”

Hong Can rubbed his chin before pointing towards An Shiyi and a few other Heaven stage cultivators and saying, “Considering your cultivation bases, I’m afraid you won’t be able to make it to the sect gate of the Blood sect either. I suggest you do the same. Stay here or go back to where we came from.”

He hadn’t anticipated that as they went deeper into the demon Qi, the drain on their spiritual power would become so great.

“Alright." As she had been instructed, Yu Tong handed the Blood Spirit Pearl to Feng Luo and said, “Uncle Feng, Nie Tian’s cultivation base is pretty low too. Is he gonna be alright?”

“We’ll protect him and use our strength to separate him from the erosion of the demon Qi,” Feng Luo said as he grabbed the Blood Spirit Pearl.

“You’d better make it to our sect!” Yu Tong said, glaring at Nie Tian.

“I will.” Nie Tian’s voice was firm and determined.

No one objected Hong Can’s proposal. Even An Shiyi, who was rather worried about Nie Tian’s safety, had a feeling that she might not be able to hold on for much longer, and thus chose to stay behind.

That said, protected by the handful of Greater Heaven experts, Nie Tian marched on to the Blood sect.

“Nie Tian, how do you feel? Do you need us to help you?”

“No. I’m good for now.”

A moment passed. “No need to force yourself, Nie Tian. Let us know if you need help.”

“Don’t worry. I’m okay.”

A while later. “Seriously, Nie Tian, do you need help?

Don’t push yourself to the limit. I don’t want you to collapse the moment we get there!”

“I can hold on for a little longer.”