“What happened?" Abreu asked, looking grimly at a female Birdman. “Where’s my brother?”

Awkward and nervous, the female Birdman said, “Lord Armes went after that human named Nie Tian.”

After a brief pause, she added, “And he forbade us to interrupt his battle with him. I think Lord Armes found that man a worthy opponent, so wanted to finish him off alone?” 

“How is that possible?” Tago, the Demon leader, blurted with a frown. “How can some human intrigue Lord Armes?”

Upon hearing these words, all of the Phantasms and Demons fell silent, somewhat confused.

At that moment, a dilapidated teleportation portal flew over with a burly Stoneman on it.

Upon his arrival, the large Stoneman leader asked for a description of Nie Tian and said, “That same person damaged our teleportation portal on that nearby island. It was him who forced us to come back.”

Tago gasped. “That’s the guy you told us about?”

The Stoneman leader, who was named Stonemountain, nodded vigorously. “I wouldn’t be mistaken. Of all the humans we met, that person is the only one that possessed such battle prowess. He destroyed a layer of our teleportation portal with what seemed to be a human’s Spirit Channeling grade treasure.”

“Is he really that good in battle?” Tago asked, frowning.

“He’s very hard to deal with,” Stonemountain said with all seriousness. “He killed several of my men without breaking a sweat. I don’t even think I’d be able to take him by myself.”

Tago was astounded. “What?!” 

All of the other outsiders also gasped with astonishment.

Admittedly, Stonemen were a minor race, yet Stonemountain’s strength was superior to the others of his generation, making him like a crane in a flock of chickens.

Even Tago and Abreu didn’t think they would be able to beat Stonemountain in a battle, considering they hadn’t awakened their races’ most powerful bloodline talents.

The Stonemen might not be a powerful race, but Stonemountain had already awakened most of his race’s powerful bloodline talents, which made him one of the top fighters at his grade.

Various expressions flashed across Abreu’s face. “No wonder he intrigued my brother...” 

Then, after a moment of silence, he seemed to loosen up and said, “Anyways, since my brother has set his mind on this guy, he’s going to die beyond the shadow of a doubt.

“As you know, the reason why he didn’t come here with us was because he was busy awakening one of our race’s core bloodline talents.

“The fact that he managed to come through that unstable spatial rift means that he has already finished awakening that bloodline talent.”

Upon hearing these words, all of the other outsiders looked deeply surprised.

Phantasms were a very powerful race, and Armes was one of the most promising of their younger generation.

It seemed that all of the outsiders present, no matter the race, had great respect for Armes’ formidable strength. They agreed with Abreu that whoever he meant to kill wouldn’t get to live another day.

After a moment of hesitation, Abreu went on, looking somewhat apprehensive, “You know my brother’s temperament. Since he told us to stay out of it, we’d better just do that. Even I will be in serious danger if I dare to disobey him, not to mention you guys.”

The crowd of outsiders couldn’t help but shudder slightly upon the thought of Armes’ ferocity and brutality.

With a dark smile, Abreu added, “We have nothing to worry about. Now that my brother wants that guy dead, that Nie Tian person will have no chance of escaping death, no matter how good he is. He might be able to hide his traces from us, but he can never fool my older brother!”

All of the other outsiders nodded slightly. Apparently, they were no stranger to Armes’ shrewd perception and formidable battle prowess.

…

SHEW!

With a few Starshifts, Nie Tian had long since escaped the blockade formed by the converging outsiders like a flash of starlight.

He arrived in a dense forest on the other side of the vast black lake.

With his Heaven Eyes hanging high in the sky, he was keeping a close watch on everything around him.

Through them, he overheard the conversation between Abreu, Tago, and the others, and discovered that they had actually stopped helping Armes fight him just because Armes had told them to.

They all seemed to be very confident that now that Armes had made him his target, he would die beyond the shadow of a doubt.

“This Armes must be like the chosen ones from human clans and sects, and has been cultivated as their race’s future leader.” 

A grim look appeared on Nie Tian’s face as he was convinced of Armes’ lofty status, as well as his formidable battle prowess.

Clearly, Armes’ abilities weren’t at the same level as that of the other outsiders he had met before.

Furthermore, he hadn’t actually unleashed his most powerful bloodline talents or special spiritual tools.

He had only fought him with his explosive power and exquisite close-up battle skills, nothing more.

If he hadn’t launched a Rage Punch to end his battle against him, he would have continued to be dominated.

“It’s true that the Rage Punch that I learned from the titan in that mysterious land is incomparably explosive and powerful, but it takes too much power to use it.” 

Nie Tian thought to himself. After all, with a single strike, he had consumed about a third of his spiritual powers and flesh power.

Now that he had entered the middle Greater Heaven stage, he had confidence that, with the same punch, he would have been able to shatter the body of another human cultivator at his stage.

Even Guan Ye from the Heaven Palace Sect wouldn’t have been able to withstand such an explosive and violent force, and would have been instantly torn to bits.

However, Armes had only spit out a mouthful of blood, and had some of his healed wounds split open. He was still able to move freely.

Furthermore, when Armes had initiated the battle, he hadn’t fully recovered from the injuries he had sustained passing through the spatial rift.

If this Armes person had entered that other island, he would become a god of death. Aside from Dong Baijie, who had become mysteriously powerful, and Dong Li, who had absorbed the strength of an eighth grade black phoenix, none of the others would stand a chance fighting him, not even Xuan Ke from the Ice Pavilion Sect.

Soon, Nie Tian noticed that Armes was rapidly closing in on his location. “What? He’s come so quickly?”

“He wants to finish our battle, doesn’t he? ...Okay then." With a grin, Nie Tian calmed himself to recover strength and prepare himself for the upcoming battle with this formidable opponent.

However, at this moment, a message from Dong Li came from the Sound Stone in his inner pocket.

Dong Li had sent him a message asking about his situation since it had been some time since the last time she had received word from him.

That was when Nie Tian realized that he hadn’t informed her of his battle results after killing those few Birdmen, considering their numbers and strength were both limited.

Later, after Armes had come along, his suffocating attacks had made it impossible for him to send Dong Li any messages. Therefore, it had indeed been quite a long time since he had last contacted her.

As briefly as possible, he informed Dong Li of the current situation, that he had run into a powerful Phantasm, and that they should remain on that other island and wait for his good news.

Afterwards, he quickly sat down in the lotus position and started recovering strength.

To be safe, he summoned the seventy-two tree branches from his ring of holding and established a spell formation around him with them.

As soon as the hemispherical green ward, which contained numerous tree patterns, came to form over his head, he discovered that the wood power of every tree and plant within a five kilometer radius started to converge on it.

Unlike that other island, there were a large amounts of trees, plants, and all sorts of vegetation on this island, all of which contained rich wood power.

The special spell formation he had picked up from the Floragrims’ ancestral land seemed to have the ability to automatically absorb wood power from its surroundings.

Sitting in the spell formation, he didn’t even need to use any wood-attributed spiritual materials. He already felt enlivened and full of vigor just by refining the wood power brought into himself from his surroundings.

As his vortex of wood power spun madly, drop after drop of liquidized wood power formed at the bottom of the vortex, rapidly supplementing the consumption of his Heavenly Wood Heal.

Eyes closed, he examined himself with rapt attention, and discovered that fine ruptures and damage had occurred in many places inside of him.

Once again, he launched the profound Heavenly Wood Heal.

The moment he did, the numerous tree patterns in the green ward over his head started moving about, as if to realign themselves.

In the next moment, a sea of vast wood power rushed out of the center of the green ward and poured down into Nie Tian like a magnificent waterfall of green energy.

In a split second, green sparks of rich life force filled every injury he had sustained from his battle against Armes. Like divine needles and thread, the green sparks fixed the damage at an alarming speed.

“I didn’t know that I could actually couple Heavenly Wood Heal with this spell formation like this!”

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