Chapter 1376: The Cruelty of Wars
In the starry river outside the Realm of Maelstrom.
After arriving through a spatial rift, Nie Tian looked around with rapt attention, and went blank.
“The battle is over?” Dong Li asked, looking baffled. “But it shouldn’t have.”
Ji Yuanquan and Mo Qianfan also had confusion written all over their faces.
They hadn’t spent very long at the Realm of Divine Seal. This battle had involved three powerful outsider races and many human forces. Normally speaking, it shouldn’t have ended so quickly.
However, upon arriving, they saw wrecked starships everywhere.
Some of them belonged to outsiders, while others belonged to humans.
Dead humans and bits of their shattered domains were scattered everywhere.
Enormous dead outsiders could also be seen floating around in the void.
Ye Wenhan from the Heaven Span Pavilion flew over with a whoosh. “We were wondering about that too. We were in the middle of a fierce battle against the outsiders when they suddenly received some sort of message, and evacuated in a hurry.”
“Nie Tian, you’re okay, right?” Yu Suying asked.
“Where’s Senior Fan Tianze?” Dong Li suddenly asked.
“He went after Luo Wanxiang after Grand Monarch Bloodlust of the Demons left,” Ye Wenhan said with a grim expression. “Now it’s settled. Luo Wanxiang is in collusion with the Phantasms. Not only has he betrayed the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, but he’s betrayed humanity. That’s why Big Brother Fan was so eager to capture him and make him answer for his crimes.”
“Even though they’re both at the middle God domain, Fan Tianze is much stronger than Luo Wanxiang,” Ji Yuanquan said. “However, if Luo Wanxiang is bent on fleeing and avoiding battle, it’ll be difficult to catch him.”
“What on earth happened to you? Where’s Gupi?” Yu Suying asked with increased urgency in her tone.
Ji Yuanquan let out a deep breath and said, “Gupi isn’t a problem now. However, we found that Jiang Yuanchi from the Shadow Society wasn’t possessed by it. He had his own awareness the whole time. So I suspect that Shangguan Zhi from the Shadow Society is still taking orders from him. The situation was very complicated, but thanks to Nie Tian’s master, Wu Ji...”
He and Mo Qianfan went on and explained the unexpected turns they had experienced at the Realm of Divine Seal.
Everyone, including Ye Wenhan, Yu Suying, Li Wanfa, and Zhang Qiling, as well as Nie Tian’s Saint domain subordinates such as Xie Qian and Jing Feiyang, were shocked after hearing their words.
A heated discussion instantly burst out among them.
“What? Wu Yi, that old eccentric of the Heavenly Corpse Sect, was there too?”
“Jiang Yuanchi still has his own will?! And.. he mastered light power with Gupi’s help?!”
“If Jiang Yuanchi practices both light and shadow power, perhaps he’s strong enough to fight Fan Tianze now.”
“But as strong as he is, Nie Tian’s master scattered his dharma idols with a branch of the river of time? Where is Wu Ji? And where did he take Gupi after capturing it?”
Nie Tian, however, stood off to the side, where he released Heaven Eyes to scan this area of the starry river.
A large number of Void and Saint domain experts that had come from great distances to join this battle had perished. Even their souls had been eliminated by Phantasms with their soul-slaying spells.
Close to a hundred ancient starships that belonged to various sects and clans had exploded.
The explosions of flesh aura seas, void and saint domains had filled the area with a vast variety of auras and energies.
Nie Tian remained motionless as he examined the area with his awareness.
“Sectmaster Ling,” he called out softly.
Ling Bingyun from the Ice Soul Divine Sect was flying past, dragging an ice coffin that contained the body of an old woman, Kong Shuangjing.
Grief filled Han Qiong’s face.
Upon hearing his call, Ling Bingyun stopped and said, “She had her ice domain shattered by a Demon grand patriarch, before a Phantasm grand patriarch annihilated her soul. She doesn’t even have a chance to reincarnate now.”
Han Qiong sighed with strong emotions. “Even if she did, she wouldn’t have made it. She was far too old to reincarnate. However, this is war. It’s hard to say when you’re going to be injured or killed.”
Nie Tian frowned slightly. “I...”
Just as he was about to say something comforting, Ling Bingyun stopped him by saying, “It’s okay. Wars between us and the outsiders have always been like this. My sect has been very supportive of our battles in the Dead Star Sea since ancient times. For us, it’s not a grievance to die fighting outsiders. Instead, it’s an honor. Also, many died in this battle, not just experts from my sect..”
Without saying another word, she flew towards the Realm of Maelstrom with Han Qiong.
Nie Tian looked around again, and discovered that a few more groups of people had found the bodies of their dead experts and were taking them back to the Realm of Maelstrom.
There were also a large number of bodies that had been badly mangled by outsiders.
Their fellow sect members, family, and martial brothers and sisters sighed mournfully as they collected their remains. Some older people did so with numb expressions, as if they had seen far too many deaths.
After watching Ling Bingyun leave with the ice coffin, Fu Yusen from the Heavenly Illusion Sect turned to Nie Tian and said, “Don’t blame yourself, Nie Tian. We all came here voluntarily.
“This battle might be the beginning of another war between us and the outsiders, and it just happened to take place in the Domain of Heaven Python.
“When wars break out, deaths are inevitable. The outsiders also suffered heavy losses.”
With these words, he snorted. “In fact, it’s easier for us to recover from our losses. This battle might have hurt them more deeply than us.
“Interracial wars are bitter indeed,” Dong Li said in a faint voice. “We lost fifteen Saint domain experts, and forty-three Void domain experts. As for the outsiders, they had nine grand patriarchs and over twenty eighth grade members killed in battle.
“It seems our casualties are heavier than theirs.”
“Well, this is actually a rather favorable result,” Zhang Qiling said with an expressionless face. “We’re the side that suffers heavier casualties in most of our battles against the outsiders.”
“However...” He continued. “We enjoy a larger population, and it takes us much less time to grow into Void or Saint domain experts than it takes outsiders and Ancientspirits to advance to the eighth or ninth grade! Outsiders and Ancientspirits procreate and grow much slower than we do.
“Because of this, every time a powerful outsider dies, it’ll take them a longer time to fill the void.
“Therefore, over the course of time, our battle force in general has surpassed that of the outsiders. Now, they have to join up with the Ancientspirits to defend against our attacks in the Dead Star Sea.”
Dong Li took a moment to mull over his words before nodding slightly. “It’s just... It’s just hard to see so many of us fall in battle, many of whom were even Saint domain experts.”
Nie Tian felt the same way.
“There’s something familiar about the auras here!” He slowly closed his eyes and focused on sensing the mixed auras in the battlefield with his soul awareness and flesh aura.
The battle had ended not long ago. All sorts of energies and power from shattered domains and scattered flesh aura seas filled this area of the starry river.
“Previously, when I fought You Qimiao from the Remote Beginning Heavenly Sect, he channeled a stream of chaotic mixed energies from some unknown place, and shot it out of his cuff.
“He couldn’t refine those chaotic energies into himself, so he could only cast them out to attack others.
“I, on the other hand, was able to gather them with Primal Chaos. And as I traveled through the starry river, the energies continued to accumulate. Eventually, they became so mighty that I was able to shatter the Realm of Jade Billows, and force Song Chequan from the Jade Heaven Sect to retreat with them.
“Those mixed energies are actually quite similar to what I’m sensing here right now.”
With these thoughts, he continued to sense his surroundings with rapt attention.
“Don’t tell me those chaotic energies You Qimiao used to attack me came from a battlefield similar to this one? Was it a place that had just witnessed a battle, or a place where battles took place ages ago?
“But I didn’t sense such chaotic energies in the Shatter Battlefield. Was it because the battles happened far too long ago, so the energies had dissipated?”
Gradually, Nie Tian followed his heart and summoned a small amount of each type of his power to form a Primal Chaos.
A twisting and ripping magnetic field rapidly formed around him.
Since he had suffered heavy blows from his very consuming battle against Jiang Yuanchi, this Primal Chaos was much smaller than it usually was.
However, no matter how small, its core profound meaning, which he had derived from that magical land, remained the same.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
Wisps of power from shattered void and saint domains, along with flesh power from eighth and ninth grade outsiders that had died fighting in the starry river, suddenly converged on him from every direction.
Nie Tian was taken aback. “They’re gathering towards me on their own.”
After going blank for a brief moment, he drove all other thoughts out of his mind and focused on feeling the changes.