Like a flash, Huang Jinnan shifted to the place where Xing Bo’s Spirit Channeling grade spiritual sword lay.

As he made a grabbing motion, the spiritual sword flew up into his palm, as if it were a piece of metal attracted by a magnet.

Trembling, the spiritual sword let out low sobs, hoping to struggle free.

However, as Huang Jinnan gave a low chuckle, a wisp of golden light flew out of his fingertip into its sharp blade.

The spiritual sword stopped sobbing in the next moment. Wreathed in misty golden light, the spiritual sword seemed to be instantly tamed, as it stopped struggling in Huang Jinnan’s hand.

“The soul of this spiritual sword seems to be the soul of an eighth grade Gold Horn Beast. Gold Horn Beasts are metal-attributed spirit beasts. The soul of a Gold Horn Beast has greatly improved the sharpness of this sword, making it a decent Spirit Channeling grade weapon.” Stroking the sword blade, Huang Jinnan shot Nie Tian a sideways glance, and smiled. “Nie Tian, do you mind giving this spiritual sword to me?”

As the metal element section Divine Son of the Five Elements Sect, the power he practiced was none other than metal power.

This spiritual sword fused with an eighth grade Gold Horn Beast’s soul agreed with him perfectly. Besides, it would be even more powerful in his hands than it was in Xing Bo’s.

Nie Tian then said, “Sure. You helped me get rid of the others. You can have it if you want.”

Huang Jinnan let out a long laugh. “I won’t take it without paying.” With these words, he took something out and threw it to Nie Tian. “Take it. I got it during one of my exploration trips, but it doesn’t agree with me. I can tell that you practice fire incantations as well, so I bet it’ll be useful to you.”

Curious, Nie Tian grabbed and looked down at it closely. He discovered that it was a piece of a crimson turtle shell.

Even though it was only the size of a man’s palm, it was as hot as a cluster of blazing flames.

The natural patterns on the turtle shell looked like flaming lines that carried the profound truths of flame power.

“That was taken from a ninth grade Scarlet Turtle,” Huang Jinnan explained. “Even though Scarlet Turtles aren’t exactly an ancient species, this one had cultivated for a hundred thousand years, and eventually entered the ninth grade, which was impressive work, even for an ancient species from the Desolate Antiquity Era. One of the seniors of my sect fought it and broke this piece off its shell.

“Small as it is, it contains a shocking amount of flame power. The patterns on its surface also hold profound knowledge. It’s just that they’re very hard to perceive.

“Even though it might not be as valuable as the spiritual sword, I believe it’ll be of value to you. I hope you’ll like it.”

Nie Tian laughed. “Of course I do. It happens to be something I need.”

He didn’t do anything after catching the piece of turtle shell with his hand, but he sensed that as his vortex of flame power spun in his spiritual sea, it continued to channel wisps of rich flame power from the turtle shell.

After the flame power infused into his vortex of flame power, it actually helped accelerate the refinement of his vortex of flame power.

That was when he realized that this small piece of shell from a Scarlet Turtle would be able to help him refine his vortex of flame power to its limit within a short time.

He believed that it would at least help him as much as the flame power he had obtained from one of the Fortune Wells, if not more.

As for Xing Bo’s spiritual sword, since it was metal-attributed, even if he kept it to himself, he would only be able to trade it for spiritual materials that agreed with him in the future. Besides, there would be no guarantee that he would come across something as good as this piece of shell again.

“I’m glad you like it.” With these words, Huang Jinnan jumped back onto his golden chariot. “That man got what he deserved. We’ve already wasted quite some time on him. Let’s head out now.”

Nie Tian nodded as he flew onto his Star Boat as well, and said, “Alright, let’s go.”

Then, as Huang Jinnan flew out again on his golden chariot, their exploration of the Stone Golem capital continued.

Nie Tian flew after him on his Star Boat while sparing some of his attention to refine the residual power within the piece of Scarlet Turtle shell he had just gained.

Soon, he discovered that there was not only residual flame power within it, but residual flesh power too.

Without making a sound, he activated Life Drain and rapidly drained it of its residual flesh power, which ended up being devoured by the green aura in his heart.

Afterwards, he took his time to channel flame power from this piece of Scarlet Turtle shell.

After wisps of flame power poured into his vortex of flame power, they rapidly turned into sparks that sank to the bottom. As that happened, his vortex of flame power gradually expanded, as if it were being baptized by divine flames.

At the same time, he summoned his Spirit Pearl to examine it.

As a wisp of his soul awareness entered it, he was surprised to discover that the map of the Bloody Grave Mountain Range that floated within it had already become clear enough for him to read.

First, he located himself on the map, and then found what seemed to be the outline of the Stone Golem capital where he was.

“The Spirit Pearl has absorbed quite a few evil spirits that roamed this Stone Golem capital. Pieces of their memories must have combined to draw this place with such clarity...” 

With this thought, his soul awareness continued to scan the map.

All of a sudden, a special place caught his attention.

It was a place where six lofty stone pavilions surrounded a spacious square. Numerous stone columns could be seen standing in the square.

The map only gave a rough outline of the place, but Nie Tian noticed that there were a large number of white spots swarming in that area. He pondered briefly, and realized that they were probably ghouls.

It was rather suspicious for such a large number of ghouls to gather in a square where many stone columns stood.

Then, he looked back and forth between his current location and the location of the square to get ahold of his bearings.

Moments later, he withdrew his soul awareness, turned to Huang Jinnan and said, “How about I lead the exploration this time?”

Flying at the forefront of the team, Huang Jinnan went blank briefly before slowing his golden chariot down and asking, “Did you find something?”

Nie Tian nodded.

Huang Jinnan’s eyes lit up as he said, smiling, “That’s great!”

He didn’t doubt Nie Tian in the slightest, as if he believed that since Nie Tian had demanded to lead the exploration, he must know what he was doing.

They had wandered in the Stone Golem capital for some time now, and he had only found one useful thing from the well guarded by that female Demon ghoul.

Right before Nie Tian had initiated this conversation, he had been wracking his mind as to where the valuable spiritual materials might be hidden in this Stone Golem capital.

SHEW!

The Star Boat suddenly picked up speed and flew to the forefront of the team, where Nie Tian adjusted their direction according to the route he had designed.

The golden chariot and the other air-transportation spiritual tool flew behind him at a high speed.

RUMBLE!

Muffled rumbles came from afar, as if lands were cracking and mountains were toppling.

The source of the rumbles even seemed to be very far from the Bloody Grave Mountain Range, as if they were coming from the very center of the Shatter Battlefield.

Gazing off in the direction of the rumbles, Huang Jinnan said with a somewhat grim expression, “It seems that Void or Saint domain experts are fighting eighth or ninth grade outsiders. The fact that the sounds of their battle can travel this far proves how formidable they must be. I just hope the bloody battle taking place in the depths of the Shatter Battlefield won’t affect us.”

Everyone else grew nervous upon hearing the sounds. They couldn’t help but look in the direction of the rumbles from time to time.

Even though Nie Tian also found them fascinating, he didn’t pay too much attention to them. Instead, he kept glancing around and mildly adjusting his direction according to the map within the Spirit Pearl.

Two hours passed...

Six stone pavilions, each of which was about a hundred meters high, entered everyone’s sight. They were considerably higher than any of the stone pavilions they had seen before.

Surrounded by the six stone pavilions was a spacious square, where the Stone Golems seemed to have held sacrificial ceremonies back in the day. At the center of the square, a mysterious altar could be seen among numerous towering stone columns.

Hundreds of ghouls were wandering around in the square and through the stone columns.

The stone columns seemed to be carved with detailed patterns, which, upon a closer look, turned out to have powerful evil spirits sealed within them.

Nie Tian then took a quick glance at them, and discovered that there were a total of eighteen stone columns. Every single one of them had evil spirits swimming within it, as if they were either being imprisoned or bred.

Both the number and strength of these evil spirits and ghouls were far above that of the ones they had encountered before.

Aside from the evil spirits and ghouls, countless corpses could be seen piled up around the central altar. Judging from their figures, some of them belonged to outsiders, while more belonged to humans.

From the look of it, in some distant age, the Stone Golems had held a grand sacrificial ceremony with the corpses of humans and outsider races.

By doing this, they seemed to have asked the heavens or gods of their cultures to protect them.

“That’s probably the most important part of this city.” Huang Jinnan’s expression flickered slightly as he went on to warn Nie Tian against approaching rashly, and suggested that he should conduct a thorough scan of the area first to see what they were dealing with.

After nodding towards him, Nie Tian unleashed his Heaven Eyes and bloodline power to scan the area himself.

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