“Soul Strangle!” Chang Yuan let out an explosive shout.

In the next moment, the floating Soul Banners swooped down from the air and surrounded Nie Tian and Qian Xin.

Before Nie Tian could do anything, the discarnate souls floating inside the banners shot out.

Like misty, gray shadows, they grimaced as they pounced on Nie Tian and Qian Xin with their rage and grudges from their former lives.

At the same time, Chang Yuan unleashed another of the Spirit God Sect’s psychic magics.

As he did, Nie Tian widened his eyes, nine tiny glowing spots suddenly appearing in the depths of his eyes.

Afterwards, the psychic magic that was invisible to the naked eye was presented before Nie Tian with great clarity.

He saw the discarnate souls dragging gray, misty tails as they interwove into a giant pair of scissors, which shot towards him in the next moment.

Psychic attacks couldn’t be defended with normal means. Most types of spiritual power wouldn’t have any effect on psychic attacks.

Thunder power was the only type of spiritual power that could be used to defend against psychic attacks and launch effective counterattacks.

“It’s too bad that Haofeng isn’t here!” Qian Xin gritted his teeth as he secretly complained that it wasn’t Gu Haofeng who had come to his aid, but rather this useless Nie Tian.

Gu Haofeng practiced thunder power, making him a nemesis to Spirit God Sect disciples. He would be able to easily annihilate the discarnate souls from the Soul Banners, as well as many of the Spirit God Sect’s secret psychic magics.

Qian Xin could sense that, with his Soul Strangle, Chang Yuan was forming a critical strike against him. However, there was nothing he could do to stop him.

At that moment, Nie Tian’s face split into a cold grin. “Gu Haofeng may not be the only person who can save you.”

Qian Xin was taken aback.

With a swift movement, Nie Tian stood in front of Qian Xin, blocking most of his view.

Facing Chang Yuan directly, Nie Tian unexpectedly closed his eyes.

As the nine fragmentary stars blossomed with dazzling light, he summoned some of his psychic power and mixed it with soul power from the fragmentary stars, forming an intangible Flame Star before him.

As the gray, misty pair of scissors approached, the intangible Flame Star slashed down on it with full force.

Upon impact, invisible sparks were sent flying in all directions, along with other spectacular lights that were invisible to the naked eye.

When the lights faded away, the pair of scissors was slashed in two and crumbled.

After taking the strong blow, the discarnate souls let out sharp, miserable screeches as they disintegrated.

Chang Yuan stood aghast.

He sensed Nie Tian condensing his psychic awareness into a long saber, but he didn’t know that Nie Tian also used soul power.

It flabbergasted him that Nie Tian had neutralized his Soul Strangle and all those discarnate souls with nothing but a single slash of the saber he had formed with his psychic power.

Just as he prepared to form another hand seal, Nie Tian, who was facing him, grinned again.

Nie Tian’s grin sent a chill down his spine, making him feel very insecure and uneasy.

In the next moment, the grinning Nie Tian suddenly vanished into thin air under his gaze.

Nie Tian’s sudden disappearance took Qian Xin by surprise.

With a grim expression, he had secretly formed a defensive ward around him with psychic power, preparing for engagement with Chang Yuan’s Soul Strangle. However, he immediately realized that Chang Yuan’s attack had already been somehow neutralized by Nie Tian.

SHEW!

Qian Xin’s eyes widened as he discovered that the disappeared Nie Tian had suddenly reappeared behind Chang Yuan.

He instantly knew what he should do. With an explosive roar, he stimulated the might of his six pills to the fullest.

Three of the pills blossomed with dazzling sword light, which carried incomparably fierce sword intent.

The other three became thousands of kilos heavy and rammed towards Chang Yuan’s chest and forehead with full force.

Chang Yuan’s expression flickered as he hastily defended against Qian Xin’s raging attacks. One gray banner after another shot forward to ward off the attacks.

At that moment, he felt a familiarly disturbing chill from behind him.

He instantly jerked around and channeled a few banners to form a wall in front of him.

PUFF!

A translucent, sparkling, green tree branch penetrated the banners like they were made of paper, and pierced into Chang Yuan’s chest.

Screams escaped his mouth as a stabbing pain came from his chest. “How did you appear behind me?!”

With a murderous look in his eyes, Nie Tian didn’t utter a word. With another vigorous thrust, he drove the branch deeper into Chang Yuan’s chest.

At the same time, he unleashed Heavenly Wood Thorns. As liquidized wood power was rapidly drained from his vortex of wood power, a wisp of extremely concentrated wood power infused into the branch.

To his surprise, in the next moment, green, blinding light burst forth from within the tree branch.

In Nie Tian’s senses, the wisp of wood power flashed through the branch at lightning speed, and the mysterious tree patterns inside the branch enhanced its might as it did.

As soon as the wisp of wood power entered Chang Yuan’s chest and made contact with his flesh and blood, it instantly displayed its devastating, destructive force.

An emerald green bud instantly came to form, and as it continued to devour Chang Yuan’s flesh power, sharp thorns and branches rapidly grew out of it, which easily penetrated his internal organs.

As it continued to absorb Chang Yuan’s flesh power and spread inside of him at an alarming speed, new branches and thorns ravaged his insides, causing blood and white foam to spill from his mouth.

At the same time, his eyes gradually lost their radiance.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

At that moment, the banners he had used to defend against Qian Xin’s attacks exploded one after another.

Without any more obstacles, three of Qian Xin’s pills slammed onto the center of his back, and the fierce sword intent unleashed by the other three rendered his whole back a bloody mess.

However, Qian Xin stood aghast. Not a shred of excitement could be seen in his eyes.

He discovered that Chang Yuan had actually already died when his pills breached his defenses.

Flabbergasted and confused, he gazed blankly at Nie Tian. “Soul Strangle is a very powerful attack magic that Spirit God Sect disciples use a lot. Those who practice Soul Strangle can usually acquire the Grand Soul Grinder rather smoothly once their psychic power transforms into soul power. How in the world did you neutralize his Soul Strangle?”

“That’s not important,” Nie Tian responded with a plain tone as he stepped forward and pulled the tree branch out of Chang Yan’s chest.

In no more than two seconds, every last bit of Chang Yuan’s blood rolled down the branch and dripped onto the ground, not leaving a single stain.

That was when the tree branch turned from translucent and sparkling back to normal-looking.

However, Nie Tian’s eyes were filled with the light of excitement as he looked down at it and thought to himself, “I can’t believe that not only can the branch be used with Heavenly Wood Thorns, but it can also enhance the might of Heavenly Wood Thorns! Fascinating!”

From the look of it, every one of the seventy-two tree branches could be infused with wood power and used as sharp weapons.

He speculated that there might be some profound connections between the Heavenly Wood he had acquired from the magical land, which had turned out to be on a titan, and the mysterious tree patterns that the Floragrims had used to form the defensive ward around their ancestral land.

While he was lost in thought, the thorns in Chang Yuan’s chest lost their supply of flesh power and rapidly withered away.

Chang Yuan had long since stopped breathing, bereft of any life force.

With plenty of questions on his mind, Qian Xin from the Pill Pavilion Sect stepped over to Chang Yuan’s corpse. He looked into Chang Yuan’s wide, lifeless eyes, and could still see intense fear in them.

Putting his six pills away, he said, “He already died before my pills could get to him.”

Instead of giving an explanation, Nie Tian said, “Yang Kan from the Flame God Sect is probably spilling others’ blood at the end of this segment as we speak. I need to get there as soon as possible.” 

With these words, he turned around and sped away. After a few bounces off floating boulders and ancient starships’ remains, he disappeared in the distance.

Gazing in the direction Nie Tian had left in, Qian Xin thought to himself with a knitted brow, “This Mu Han person masters strange battle skills and has a fierce nature. He can’t just be a nobody... But why haven’t I heard of his name before? Both Dong Baijie and Dong Li seem to attach great importance to him. Who is he?”