A shudder ran through Nie Tian, who had connected himself to the black tortoise through his bloodline talent Life Blend, his eyes filled with the light of excitement. “It must carry a Star Behemoth bloodline!”

This feeling hadn’t been so strong before the black tortoise’s bloodline had advanced to the ninth grade.

However, just now, when he had ended his Life Blend state with the Star Behemoth bone and entered a Life Blend state with the black tortoise, a strong sense of familiarity had stricken him.

The two states were similar in many ways.

This had reminded him of the Star Behemoth hiding in the depths of the black sea on the floating continent and the black tortoise’s special features, allowing him to come to this conclusion.

Even if the black tortoise wasn’t a purebred Star Behemoth, it must carry a Star Behemoth bloodline!

It was a hybrid as well!

WHOOSH!

Boundless darkness spread in every direction, with the black tortoise as the center.

Wherever it spread, light went out like blown out lamps. Even the stars shining in the distance went completely dark, as if they had been shrouded by pitch-black cloth.

Dong Li, Ji Yuanquan, Wu Yi, and Pei Qiqi were all engulfed in utter darkness.

Of course, Jiang Yuanchi was no exception!

However, while everyone else lost all of their soul and flesh aura senses in the darkness, Dong Li’s senses were greatly heightened, as if this darkness were water and she was a fish.

Jiang Yuanchi, who practiced shadow magics, and Gupi also lost their bearings in the darkness, without any idea of where they should go.

Nie Tian sensed the area of the starry river with rapt attention. To his surprise, he found Gupi, along with the shadowy Jiang Yuanchi that had merged with it, flying in circles within a small area.

“This dark arcane realm the black tortoise created with its ultimate dark bloodline seems to have a strong subduing effect on the shadowy Jiang Yuanchi!”

“And this ultimate darkness even works on Gupi as well!”

Nie Tian was thrilled by this discovery.

The bright Jiang Yuanchi raised his arms and shouted in the depths of the darkness. “Light: Divine Illumination!”

As he did, a glorious glowing pearl slowly flew out, and started radiating a great amount of light, as if to disperse all this darkness.

Jiang Yuanchi morphed into a streak of light that flew into the pearl that looked like a glowing crystal ball.

His wisps of divine will turned into sparkling bits that shone brightly within the pearl, making it increasingly bright and dazzling.

“Come!” Jiang Yuanchi’s soul voice echoed out from the pearl.

Gupi and the shadowy Jiang Yuanchi instantly had a direction. The Jiang Yuanchi that practiced shadow power separated himself from Gupi and flew to the pearl in the blink of an eye.

“Light and shadow share the same origin!”

With these words, he reached out and grabbed the pearl.

The moment his hand touched the pearl, the two Jiang Yuanchis seemed to come back as one.

BOOM!

Jiang Yuanchi’s enormous dharma idol manifested in the utter darkness like a condensation of the purest light. It was so bright that no one could look directly at it.

Behind it, another shady dharma idol seemed to exist in its shadow. Both of them exuded auras that were unique to God domain experts.

“This beast carries a dark bloodline that’s even purer than those of black dragons and black phoenixes.” As soon as Jiang Yuanchi spoke, his divine voice morphed into bright talismans that fell upon the black tortoise’s vast back like glowing mountain peaks.

Suffering from the crushing pressure, the black tortoise let out low bellows as it did its utmost to draw Nie Tian’s Blood Essence into itself.

WHOOSH!

The dark stone that had been taken from the Demon realms was channeled by its bloodline and flew to it.

In the black hole in the middle of the stone, a gravitational force strong enough to devour heaven and earth was suddenly born.

The gigantic talismans that looked like glowing divine mountain peaks let out remote cries as they were pulled by the gravitational force.

Jiang Yuanchi laughed coldly. “I can’t believe that, as a junior, you can actually exchange a few moves with me with the help of that beast and dark treasure. You should be proud of yourself. However, both your cultivation base and bloodline grade are still far from high enough! Don’t tell me that you actually think you scared us when you marched into the Domain of Jade Heaven.

“I only retreated because I didn’t want unnecessary trouble. But since you’re so eager to die, I’ll grant you that wish.”

More dazzlingly bright talismans descended like a storm. While only a small portion had their light sucked away by the dark stone, the majority of them fell heavily on the black tortoise’s shell.

The black tortoise started to sink bit by bit!

The darkness it had released to devour all light couldn’t spread any further.

Nie Tian, who was in a Life Blend state with it, could feel the great pain and mountain-like pressure it was suffering from. At the same time, he was losing his flesh power at an alarming rate.

Ji Yuanquan let out a soft sigh in the darkness and muttered, “This isn’t going to work.”

Then, he turned to Dong Li and said, “Jiang Yuanchi is far too strong for Nie Tian. Right now, Fan Tianze might be the only available human expert that can fight and suppress him in battle.”

He knew that Dong Li was probably the only one who could hear him in this utter darkness, since she practiced dark power.

PUFF!

Nie Tian’s arm was ripped open, with blood pouring out. The wisps of blood strings through which he was transfusing flesh power into the black tortoise seemed to be clogged by some power.

At the same time, countless rays of sparkling bright light that were as fine as hairs appeared around him.

Before he could react, they wrapped around him in an attempt to shred him.

“Ahhh!”

He let out heart-wrenching cries as his body, which had been tempered a thousand times over, was cut bloody by the rays of bright light.

With a derisive laugh, Jiang Yuanchi said, “No matter how talented you are, you’re still a junior that’s far too weak to handle my attacks, definitely not before your cultivation base advances to the God domain, and your bloodline enters the tenth grade.”

WHOOSH!

Shadows suddenly flew out from a dark place behind Jiang Yuanchi.

Each and every one of them was vested with his profound soul power and shadow power, and carried a deadly secret magic.

Ji Yuanquan couldn’t help but exclaim, “Qiqi!”

However, enveloped in utter darkness, Pei Qiqi wasn’t aware of the perilous situation. Even if she was, she couldn’t locate and take Nie Tian and the others to safety within a short time.

Even Wu Yi from the Heavenly Corpse Sect was muddled like a person that was both blind and deaf in the darkness.

Dong Li was the only one who could actually see that Nie Tian was in a dangerous situation. Upon seeing Jiang Yuanchi making his killing move, she screamed and released her black phoenix beast spirit.

With a sharp screech, the black phoenix flew over like a streak of dark aura and spread its wings over Nie Tian’s head to protect him.

However, in a mere second, the black phoenix let out a pained wail as the soul power and dark power it had expended a great effort to refine was crushed and scattered by the shadows.

If the black phoenix beast spirit hadn’t been in this utter darkness, it would have shattered upon contact.

“Nie Tian!” Dong Li let out a panicked wail.

For the first time, she thought Nie Tian might actually die, and that the exceedingly powerful Jiang Yuanchi might kill him right here and now.

FZZZ!

Just as she despaired, a wondrous river flowed over from the distant starry river.

Countless streams of glorious light could be seen flying within the river. Each of them seemed to record a lost time, a past history, or the evolutionary course of a species.

“It’s the river of time!” Dong Li, who was in despair, exclaimed, and her pitch-black pupils burst forth with the light of excitement. “Senior...”

The river that was stretching from the distant starry river seemed to carry unfathomable time power, which rapidly froze the entire area, along with everyone in it.

Dong Li was frozen before she could finish her sentence. Even the huge waves in her sea of awareness seemed to be instantly frozen.

The dazzlingly bright talismans Jiang Yuanchi, who was at the middle God domain, had released also went completely still. Even Gupi stopped moving.

Time went still.

Only the river of time flowed slowly across the area, where a fierce battle had been taking place just now.

As it quietly scraped against Jiang Yuanchi’s dharma idol, the enormous dharma idol exploded like glass that had been dropped to the ground.

In the shadows, Jiang Yuanchi’s other shady dharma idol also collapsed into a pile of sand with a loud boom.

The river of time continued to flow. After winding past Nie Tian, Pei Qiqi, and the black tortoise, who were all completely frozen, it came to the place where Gupi hid within its toxic miasma.

Like a divine rope, the river wrapped around Gupi’s true form and pulled it out of the toxic miasma it surrounded itself with.

The gigantic strange being didn’t move a hair, as if it had died. It didn’t struggle in the slightest as the river of time bound and dragged it towards the distant starry river.

This was because even its soul and mind were completely frozen by time power, causing it to lose all consciousness.

Just before the river of time vanished into the distant starry river, some sand of time that spattered from it fell on Wu Yi from the Heavenly Corpse Sect, who now was in the form of a giant ape-like ghoul. It was unknown whether this was intended, or a coincidence.

Either way, the ghoul’s white fur fell off and flew away like a willow catkin that flew in the wind as its intense corpse aura quietly scattered.

Eventually, the river of time vanished in the distance before anyone could react in any way.

It was as if someone in another space-time had controlled this unfathomably mysterious river to break the boundaries of time and space to enter this part of the starry river at this time, and single-handedly turned the situation around.

“Wu!” The last word of Dong Li’s exclamation finally echoed out.

This meant the end of the time freeze.

As this happened, both the utter darkness and dazzling light dispersed.

The area of the starry river returned to its original state.

“AHH!”

“AHH!”

Jiang Yuanchi’s agonized shriek and Wu Yi’s miserable wail echoed out at the same time.

Ji Yuanquan, Dong Li, and Pei Qiqi were completely unaffected.

Ji Yuanquan and Pei Qiqi didn’t even know what had just happened. Enveloped in utter darkness, they had neither seen the river of time, nor heard Dong Li’s cry.

They felt as if they had awoken from a dark dreamland, and opened their eyes to a clear starry river.

Jiang Yuanchi’s bright dharma idol had been reduced to countless glowing pieces. The precious pearl he had wielded earlier had also exploded and disappeared.

Even his shadow dharma idol had become clusters of shadow that were squirming and slowly gathering back together.

“Where’s Gupi?” Pei Qiqi asked with a surprised look on her face.

“Senior Wu... seems to have swept it away with the river of time,” Dong Li said.

Even Nie Tian was flabbergasted after hearing this. “What?! My master was here?”

He had been busy handling the rays of light that had cut into his flesh, and failed to notice that a glorious river of time had arrived from an unknown part of the starry river.

“I... I saw the river of time, but my awareness was frozen before I could call out ‘Senior Wu.’” With these words, Dong Li let out a breath of relief, a longing expression appearing on her face. “I suppose he’s the only one who has mastered time power and derived enlightenment from the river of time.

“The fact that the river of time was here means his soul will must have been here with it, allowing him to see everything that happened here.”

“AHH!”

Wu Yi let out miserable screams as he looked down at himself and saw that the ghoul he had refined from a tenth grade giant ape of the Ancientspirit family had lost a large part of its intense corpse aura. “Who was it? Who took away the corpse power I expended great effort to refine?”

Even he didn’t know what had happened.

WHOOSH!

Jiang Yuanchi’s clusters of shadow and bits of glowing crystal seemed to have their own awareness, as they morphed into streaks of darkness or bright light that quickly flew away from this area.