Chapter 975: The First Target

There were hundreds of poor humans like Su Lin on this island.

If an ancient starship was available, it could ship them all to the island where Nie Tian and the others had first arrived at once.

However, the teleportation portals that connected the Realm of Split Void to this dimension couldn’t allow something as large as an ancient starship through.

If they were to use air-transportation spiritual tools, one air-transportation spiritual tool could only carry about ten of them at a time. They would need dozens to ferry them all.

Since Void and Saint domain experts didn’t usually have air-transportation spiritual tools on them, they couldn’t put forward such a large number of air-transportation spiritual tools all of a sudden.

After a discussion, they realized that their only option was to leave them on the island for the time being.

After all, even if they figured out a way to bring them along, they would become a huge liability and might jeopardize Nie Tian’s mission, which had been given to him by the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.

Therefore, they left them enough food and spirit stones for the previously enslaved to last ten years, before flying off again by themselves.

Along their way, they discovered a few more islands, where hundreds of human slaves were working under the close watch of a small number of outsiders. 

Jing Feiyang, Quan Zixuan, and Qu Mingde launched thunderous attacks and killed all of the outsider overseers in the time it takes a spark to fly off of a piece of flint, making sure that none of them had time to react.

As for the humans they freed, they still left them enough food and spirit stones to last them ten years before moving out again.

Their plan was to come back and get them when they finished killing the outsider intruders and were ready to return.

Nine days passed.

Jing Feiyang suddenly came to a stop in midair. Eyes narrowed, he gazed at a distant island and said in a low voice, “That’s our first target. Even though we’re still rather far away, I can already sense unusual spatial fluctuations coming from there. That must be one of the portals through which the outsiders came to this floating continent.”

“What’s the grade of the most powerful outsider stationed there?” Nie Tian asked in a serious voice.

“The eighth grade,” Jing Feiyang answered, looking rather grim.

Nie Tian frowned. “The eighth grade is only equal to the Void domain... Will that be a problem?”

After pondering pondering briefly, Jing Feiyang said, “That’s a high-tier Demon. I can sense his profound flesh aura from here. I’m afraid we’ll be exposed if we get too close to him. I don’t doubt my ability to kill him. What I worry about is if we can’t annihilate him in an instant, he might send word of our arrival to the other outsiders.

“If the other outsider experts know that we’re here, they’ll be prepared.

“Then it’ll be much more difficult to finish our mission.”

After hearing this, everyone pondered the matter with furrowed brows.

“What if you seal that island first?” Dong Li asked.

“That eighth grade Demon will know what’s going on,” Quan Zixuan said. “He’s not like the other outsiders we’ve killed. The strongest outsiders we’ve encountered on our way here were only at the seventh grade. Since there was a great gap between their strength and ours, we were able to hide from their bloodline detection when we struck.

“But that’s not the case with eighth grade outsiders. That eighth grade demon will definitely be able to sense us before we complete the seal.”

Hearing these words, Nie Tian also had a headache over the tough situation.

Failing to snipe every outsider on this island including the eighth grade Demon would reveal them. Once the powerful outsiders that were scattered in other locations learned about their arrival, they would be prepared.

That meant they would have different options to deal with Nie Tian and his men.

If they were discrete, they could return to their domains through the other portals.

If they were ferocious, they could summon reinforcements from their clans.

If worst came to worst, the ninth grade grand patriarch would be able to gather their remaining forces and fight to the death.

If it came down to that, even though Nie Tian’s group would eventually win the battle, they would suffer much heavier losses.

Therefore, the ideal way to finish this mission was to secretly destroy the portals one by one and killed the outsider intruders separately.

That way, even if the outsiders discovered them after their portals had all been destroyed, they would have to fight with their remaining forces, and eventually be wiped out by Nie Tian and his men.

After pondering for a moment, Nie Tian summoned power from his star souls and true soul, forming a Star Eye. “Let me see if there’s a better way to do this.”

Carrying his soul awareness, the Star Eye then dove into the black sea.

He let out soul calls through it.

Soon, the Star Behemoth’s immense soul awareness rose from the depths of the unfathomable black sea.

Nie Tian explained the problem they were facing to it.

“Hmm... to seal the island...” The Star Behemoth’s soul awareness muttered in a low voice. 

Moments later, an idea seemed to come to it. “You go ahead and do what you have to do. I’ll alter the natural power on this continent slightly to have the island submerged. That way, no living beings’ voices, soul fluctuations, or bloodline power will be able to leave that island.”

“Great!” The Star Eye then flew out of the black sea and dissolved into Nie Tian’s sea of awareness, returning power to his star souls and true soul.

“Let’s strike them in a quarter hour,” Nie Tian said.

Jing Feiyang was taken aback. “Problem solved?”

Nie Tian smiled. “Yeah.” 

Everyone was rather surprised and puzzled. However, since they saw that Nie Tian seemed to have a well-thought-out plan worked out, they didn’t ask any more questions.

They chose to trust him.

All of a sudden, a faint black mist gradually rose from the black sea. Under the Star Behemoth’s control, the black mist started floating towards the island where the eighth grade Demon and other outsiders were stationed.

The mist was faint at the beginning, but as it approached the island, it grew increasingly thick and intense.

Moments later, the mist enveloped the entire island.

At that moment, Jing Feiyang withdrew his soul awareness and said with an astonished expression, “Just now, when I sent my soul awareness into that black mist, I felt completely bogged down. I couldn’t see, hear, or sense anything.”

“Good,” Nie Tian said. “Let’s move out.”

Looking at the boundless sea that was as black as ink, Quan Zixuan felt a hint of coldness from the bottom of his heart. “This floating continent...”

They didn’t need Nie Tian to explain it to them to know that there must be something beyond their understanding in this unfathomable black sea.

Nie Tian was the only one who was able to communicate with it and convince it to help them.

Whatever it was, its soul awareness seemed to fill the entire sea. An existence at such a level put even them in awe.

Since even the Divine Son and Divine Daughter of the Five Elements Sect didn’t know anything about this Star Behemoth, it was only natural that Quan Zixuan and the other experts didn’t either.

However, the more mysterious something was, the scarier it seemed to people.

Everyone fell silent as they flew towards their target island.

...

While the thick black mist formed a dome that sealed the island, Terry, an eighth grade Demon from the Barten Clan from the Fifth Demon Realm, was sitting by a lake.

The lakewater was emerald green. Mysterious spatial fluctuations came from the rippling lake surface.

Clutched in his hand was the jade-like arm of a human girl. In his other hand was a wine cup, from which he sipped blackish-red blood in a graceful manner every once in a while.

Judging from the look in his eyes, he seemed to be enjoying his meal very much.

After savoring another mouthful of blood, he let out a satisfied laugh, the blood at the corner of his mouth so scarlet that it hurt to look at. “Nothing tastes better.”

Sitting around him were several seventh grade Demons and pale bones from the human arms they had finished.

All of those arms had been ripped from teenage girls.

The pale bones, the cups filled with blood, and the high-tier Demon’s graceful eating manners... All of this reflected how indescribably brutal they were.

After gulping down a mouthful of blood, one of the seventh grade Demons suddenly looked around vigilantly. “Lord, all that mist... Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Black mists like this rise all the time on this black sea,” Terry said casually. “There’s no need to be nervous.”

After hearing his words, the other Demons didn’t say another word, and went back to their human delicacies.

However, moments later, an enormous outsider beast that was lying not far from them suddenly lifted its head and growled nervously.

CRACK!

The cup in Terry’s hand shattered, and blood spilled, dripping from his hand.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The three Saint domain experts suddenly charged out of the thick, black mist. Arriving with them was their terrifying momentum.

Terry’s expression flickered drastically. “Humans!” 

After finally getting a good look at Terry, Jing Feiyang couldn’t help but shout furiously, “It’s you!”

“Sectmaster of the Divine Seal Sect from the Domain of Heaven Python!” Terry also exclaimed uncontrollably. “How... How come you’re here?”

A few years ago, a joint army of Demons and Phantasms had invaded the Domain of Heaven Python. Terry had joined the siege of the Divine Seal Sect’s headquarters under the leadership of ninth grade grand patriarchs from his clan.

He had met Jing Feiyang back then.

Who would have thought that they would meet again on this floating continent?

As people said, when enemies come face to face, their eyes blaze with hatred. (Idiom)