Chapter 338: Unforeseen Circumstance
Li Langfeng’s cough seemed to have become worse. His face was as pale as paper. From the look of it, he seemed to be in a worse condition than he had been in before he had left.
His already-skinny body had become even more emaciated. It seemed as if he could easily be blown away by a gale of wind.
However, at this moment, his strength seemed unfathomable to Nie Tian.
Even via his Heaven Eyes, Nie Tian wasn’t able to tell his real cultivation base.
“Worldly realm!” Nie Tian was secretly shocked.
Only those who had entered the Worldly realm and transcended their psychic power into soul power would be able to cloud the Heaven Eyes’ judgment, and thus prevent Nie Tian from learning their cultivation bases.
Before, as powerful as Li Langfeng had been, Nie Tian had been able to perceive his real cultivation base via his Heaven Eyes.
Now that his Heaven Eyes failed to determine Li Langfeng’s cultivation base, it proved that Li Langfeng had shattered the barriers in his cultivation and successfully entered the Worldly realm!
Li Langfeng, who had been coughing with his face lowered, lifted his chin.
Green flames seemed to be burning increasingly fiercely in the depths of his eyes.
Nie Tian’s expression flickered.
He could sense a gruesome aura rushing out of Li Langfeng’s eyes and flying towards one of his Heaven Eyes.
“Now I finally know why you were able to escape from me and the joint pursuit of the Fang and other Hunters so effortlessly.” Li Langfeng looked up at that Heaven Eye and marveled from the bottom of his heart, “Legacies of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace are indeed incredible. They actually allow you to develop the ability to form soul power while you’re only at the Heaven stage.”
Neither the early Greater Heaven stage Pei Qiqi nor the late Greater Heaven stage Xue Long had sensed the existence of his Heaven Eyes.
Before entering the Worldly realm, Li Langfeng also hadn’t been able to perceive the Heaven Eyes that hovered in the air around Nie Tian and kept a close watch on everything in the vicinity.
At that moment, Xue Long heard their conversation and rushed over. He followed Li Langfeng’s gaze as he also looked up into the air and examined the area carefully with his psychic awareness. “He’s able to form soul power at the Heaven stage?”
However, under the scan of his sight and psychic awareness, he didn’t discover any anomalies, and the sky seemed as void as ever.
“Kid, this secret magic you’ve obtained from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace is indeed very profound.” Li Langfeng nodded as he continued, “However, you’ve got to be extra careful in the future when you encounter experts who have entered the three realms and possess soul power. Don’t you think you can observe everything from the dark without being discovered.”
With a bitter smile, Nie Tian asked, “Does every Worldly realm expert like you possess the ability to cloud or disrupt my perception?”
The fact that Li Langfeng had appeared while his Heaven Eyes had failed to capture the slightest sign of him was enough evidence that Li Langfeng possessed such an ability. He had his own ways of keeping Nie Tian’s Heaven Eyes from discovering him.
“I’m not sure about other Worldly realm cultivators,” Li Langfeng answered honestly. “But yeah, I do have my unique methods to confuse the perception of the soul power you’ve released into the sky.
“Also, you’ve got to understand that every cultivator who possesses soul power will be able to discover that eye-shaped cluster of soul power of yours.
“This means that when you encounter Qi warriors at the Worldly realm or higher realms, the secret magics you’ve obtained from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace probably won’t work as well as they normally do.
“Of course, this is based on your current cultivation base. If you enter the Worldly realm like I have, and transcend all of your psychic power into soul power, perhaps your strength will rise to another level, and you will be able to display the true might of those secret magics.”
With those words, Li Langfeng turned to look at Pei Qiqi and asked with a confused expression, “Why is she here?”
“You’re here. Why can’t I be here?” Pei Qiqi’s tone was cold and thorny.
She still remembered the unpleasant incident between her and Li Langfeng. Back when they had been in the mountain valley, Li Langfeng had attacked her with the intention to kill her, which had caused her to suffer severe injuries and pass out. If Nie Tian hadn’t carried her away and found the secret underwater stronghold of the Blood Skull, she probably would have died by Li Langfeng’s hands already.
Everyone in the Realm of Split Void knew that Li Langfeng wasn’t bound by any rules or norms.
Therefore, she hadn’t expected a crazy man like him to give face to her master at all.
“Truth be told, now that I’ve entered the Worldly realm, I won’t need help from any of you,” Li Langfeng said with an expressionless face. “Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng are still at the Greater Heaven stage. The two of them won’t be able to create much difficulty for me if I want to strip that fragmentary star mark from Ning Yang.”
Upon hearing these words, both Xue Long and Pei Qiqi looked displeased.
“This is for your own good.” Li Langfeng’s face was as indifferent as ever. “Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng have tricky statuses, since they are both abandoned disciples of the Heaven Palace Sect. I know that you’ll be held back by scruples, since you all fear the Heaven Palace Sect. That being the case, you won’t be able to go all-out when we attack them.”
After a brief halt, he added, “I’m not like you.”
Even Nie Tian could see that Li Langfeng was a man with no scruples. Not to mention that Ning Yang and Tong Jianfeng were only former disciples of the Heaven Palace Sect, even if they were core disciples of the Heaven Palace Sect, he would still have the audacity to lay a murderous hand on them.
Xue Long let out a snort and said, “You have your ways of doing things, and I have mine. Since I made a promise to someone, I’ll definitely be a part of it!
“Also, Ning Yang used to be the ‘chosen one’ of the Heaven Palace Sect, and the Heaven Palace Sect hasn’t formally declared that they have expelled him!
“I want you to think about the consequences before you act! The Heaven Palace Sect already intends to give Ning Yang’s fragmentary star mark to Nie Tian. So I don’t think they will mind if Nie Tian acts out on his own and takes it by force. However, if you kill Ning Yang, people from the Heaven Palace Sect will definitely descend upon the Realm of Split Void. At that time, none of us will be able to live in peace in the Realm of Split Void anymore!”
With these words, he took a deep look at Pei Qiqi and said, “Miss Pei, this actually has nothing to do with you. And you won’t be able to make a difference even if you do go. Like Li Langfeng just said, if you insist on joining us and something does happen to Ning Yang, even your master won’t be able to protect you. You’d better think it through.”
“Senior Martial Sister, how about... you go back?” Nie Tian tried to persuade her.
From Li Langfeng’s tone, he realized that this maniac didn’t care about Ning Yang’s life at all.
If Ning Yang infuriated him in battle, he might actually lose it and strike to kill.
Even Xue Long was afraid that he would get into trouble if Ning Yang died by their hands, so he didn’t want to Pei Qiqi to be implicated.
“As I said, me alone will be enough. There’s absolutely no need for you to come along.” Li Langfeng’s attitude didn’t change at all, like a dead pig that was not afraid of boiling water.
“I took Nie Tian’s spirit stones, so I’ll definitely go with him!” said Pei Qiqi.
“Well, suit yourself then.” Li Langfeng looked as if he couldn’t care less. “Let’s head out to that region to the east of Ash City. I’d like to see how strong Ning Yang and Tong Jiangfeng really are.”
Afterwards, under Li Langfeng’s leadership, the four of them marched towards the region where meteors fell from the heavens frequently.
With Li Langfeng, a Worldly realm expert who possessed soul power, there to lead the way for them, they easily steered clear of every Hunter in that area and didn’t attract any unnecessary attention.
Along their way, Nie Tian didn’t unleash his Heaven Eyes, since Li Langfeng’s existence served equivalently as his Heaven Eyes.
Several days later, the four of them finally arrived at the forbidden region.
Without running into any obstacles, they soon reached the heart of the forbidden region.
It was late at night when they found a location to rest and wait for the appearance of a plummeting meteor.
According to Nie Tian, the reason Ning Yang had come to this region was that he wished to uncover methods to learn and refine his fragmentary star mark from within the fallen meteors.
Whenever a meteor fell from the heavens, Ning Yang would rush to the crash site in hopes of learning useful information from within them.
Therefore, they waited.
In the meantime, Nie Tian cultivated with Star Stones and added drop after drop of stardew to his spiritual sea.
Days passed, and it was night again.
A trail of light scraped through the starlit sky as it flew closer and closer before it eventually crashed into the earth in a location several dozen kilometers from where they were.
RUUUUUMBLE!
As the earth trembled nonstop, the four of them couldn’t help but stagger slightly to assume a firm foothold on the ice-cold desert.
According to Nie Tian’s experience, he could tell from the intensity of the rumbling that the fallen meteor would probably be an enormous one.
“Here it comes!”
Li Langfeng couldn’t wait any longer. After getting ahold of his bearings, he was the first to speed off into the distance.
Nie Tian and the others followed along.
Meanwhile, Nie Tian unleashed his seven Heaven Eyes.
Via his Heaven Eyes, he obtained a panoramic view of the area around him.
After a dashing at full speed for a while, they finally caught up to Li Langfeng, who was standing by the edge of a huge crater. From the look of it, he had already been waiting there for some time.
Upon seeing the three of them, Li Langfeng frowned and said with a grim expression on his face, “There’s an unforeseen circumstance.”