Chapter 160: Mysterious Symbols
Nie Tian noticed that after Li Fan cut off the infected flesh, it fell to the ground and completely rotted away in seconds.
“Miao Chen’s spiritual power is tainted with poison!” Nie Tian’s expression changed drastically.
He inwardly respected Li Fan’s decisiveness as he was fairly certain that if he didn’t act so fast, the fester would have spread out rapidly to his whole body.
Reluctance to get rid of the festered part would have resulted in him losing that arm within a short time.
Standing next to Nie Tian, Feng Luo looked coldly at the Qi warrior with the sword that kept releasing green flames, his face especially grim. “That’s Miao Chen from the Realm of Black Marsh. He’s in the late Greater Heaven stage!”
Since Feng Luo was a senior member of the Blood sect, and the Blood sect was close to the Hell sect, he had heard of many of the Qi warriors that had traveled to the Realm of Flame Heaven through the Hell sect.
Miao Chen was the one who had left him the deepest impression.
“You know that man?” Nie Tian asked.
He didn’t respond to Li Fan and Liu Yan’s warnings, as he had already made up his mind and readied himself for what was awaiting him when he decided to come over with Feng Luo.
He didn’t have even the slightest intention to retreat.
Brow furrowed, Feng Luo said in a manly voice, “Yes, I do. You need to pay extra attention to that man, Nie Tian. Among all the realms in the Domain of the Falling Stars, Qi warriors from the Realm of Black Marsh are the vilest and are extremely hard to deal with. Most of them are experts with poisons and toxins. Every corner of the Realm of Black Marsh is filled with toxic air and miasma, causing the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth they cultivate with to carry toxins.
“As the result, their spiritual power contains various kinds of toxins. Whenever their spiritual power makes contact with a person’s skin and enters that person’s flesh, then…”
Feng Luo looked toward Li Fan, eyes filled with respect. “Remember, if those green flames ever touch your skin, you must immediately cut off that piece of flesh like the way Li Fan did. Only in that way will you be able to minimize the damage and preserve your battle prowess.
“The more reluctant you are to cut yourself, the more the deadly poison will rot away your healthy flesh!”
After uttering these words, Feng Luo pulled out his long saber that radiated blood-colored light. Emanating a strong blood aura himself, Feng Luo dashed toward Miao Chen from the Realm of Black Marsh.
Besieging Miao Chen were Li Fan, Liu Yan, another late Greater Heaven stage expert from the Hell sect, and an early Greater Heaven stage cultivator from the Mystic Mist sect.
Even though he was being attacked by four powerful cultivators at the same time, Miao Chen seemed to have no problem handling the lot of them.
He made Hong Can, the cultivator from the Hell sect, his main target.
Since the other three were only in the early Greater Heaven stage, he didn’t attach any importance to them.
A number of green flames were hovering around Miao Chen. Like fireflies in the night sky, they unceasingly released an uncanny, green light into the surroundings as they slowly swayed in midair.
Only those green flames alone were capable of injuring Li Fan, Liu Yan, and the cultivator from the Mystic Mist sect, keeping them from approaching.
Every now and then, the green flames would suddenly shoot away from Miao Chen and chase after the three of them, as if they had their own consciousness.
Whenever this happened, Li Fan and the other two would hurriedly retreat and avoid their attacks, fearing that they be infected by the fire that seemed to be from the underworld.
FIZZ! FIZZ!
All of a sudden, a cluster of green flame whizzed towards the Qi warrior from the Mystic Mist sect.
Seeing that it flew right towards him, the man hastily condensed all of his spiritual power and formed a shield of white mist around him.
Even though the bright shield seemed as delicate as a cicada’s wings, it could provide very strong defense. However, the moment the green flame made contact with it, corrosion spread out rapidly from the contact point.
No one expected that not only could the green unearthly flame fester human flesh, but it could also corrode the light shield formed by spiritual power.
The man’s face turn pale with fright. He hastily cut the link between him and his light shield, and retreated with all his power. Only by doing that did he barely escape a calamity.
Gasping for air, the Mystic Mist sect cultivator looked at the green flames with an expression of utter terror.
“They really are vicious!” Nie Tian’s expression flickered.
By that time, Nie Tian had come to a brief estimation of the situation of the four battles. He was fairly certain that the battle against Miao Chen was the most fierce one.
From what he could tell, the reason why Feng Luo didn’t rush to attack the other three foreign experts, but instead Miao Chen, was that he had also deemed Miao Chen to be the strongest and the hardest to deal with among the four.
WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!
One after another, light beams of various colors once again shot out from within the dilapidated city. Simultaneously, a surge of strange energy fluctuations spread out into the surroundings.
The floating city once again swayed about and shifted its position.
Coincidentally, the city shifted closer toward the place where Nie Tian was standing, causing the energy fluctuations to closely reach Nie Tian before they dissipated into the air.
The moment the eccentric energy fluctuations reached Nie Tian, the seven scarlet, light dots on the back of Nie Tian’s hand suddenly grew scaldingly hot.
At the same time, he had the feeling that the dots on his hand seemed to have absorbed something.
With rapt attention, he looked down at the light dots in the Heaven Gate pattern. Not only did he find them to be even more dazzling and bright, it seemed that they had been imprinted with a number of complicated, mysterious symbols .
Confused and intrigued, Nie Tian lifted his head and looked toward the floating city in front of him. To his surprise, he found that there seemed to be less magical symbols on the city wall than there were before.
“What?!…” He suddenly realized that the strange symbols on the city wall had entered the seven red dots on his hand came.
Furthermore, he believed that only those with Heaven Gate patterns on their hands would be able to obtain the mysterious symbols from the city.
Originally, he only had one light dot in the Heaven Gate pattern on his hand.
After killing Du Huang, he had absorbed six more light dots.
It suddenly struck him that it was very likely that the more light dots one had, the more magical symbols they would be able to receive when energy fluctuations rippled out from within the city and reached their body.
The Qi warriors from the other realms must have always known about the existence of the miraculous, floating city within the Heaven Gate.
They probably also knew about the numerous, magical symbols on the wall of the city, along with the fact that the more light dots one had on their hand, the more fortune one would be able to gain from the city.
That must have been the reason why they plotted with each other and spread out to their assigned territory to slaughter Qi warriors from the Realm of Flame Heaven.
They did all that to gain more benefits from this Heaven Gate trial.
At that very moment, Nie Tian felt a sudden suction force from the seven red dots on his hand, pulling him forward.
He immediately looked towards the dilapidated city.
After standing in place for a long time, he subconsciously started to step closer towards the city under the influence of the energy fluctuations.
He sensed that as long as he remained enveloped by the energy fluctuations, he wouldn’t need to spend any effort and the seven light dots on his hand would automatically take in magical symbols hidden within the energy surge.
Moreover, it appeared that the closer he got to the city, the more intense the energy surge he could receive, therefore the more benefit he could collect.
He finally came to realize why so many powerful experts would slaughter their way towards this city from all directions.
After all, the more light dots one possessed, and the closer one got to the city, the more fortune one would obtain.
In fact, people could have gotten along with each other as they approached the city together and used their own light dots to collect those magical symbols.
However, greed seized them when they learned that those light dots on their hands could be snatched!
It was especially true with the cultivators from the other realms. Knowing perfectly well that they possessed superior strength, they naturally started the massacre after seeing that cultivators from the Realm of Flame Heaven were trying to get a share of their resources.
They did it to obtain more mysterious symbols from the city.
By this point, Nie Tian had fully understood the secrets behind everything.
Without even the slightest hesitation, he stepped towards the floating city. Meanwhile, the burning sensation from the seven dots on his hand grew stronger as he approached the city.
Just as excitement rose in his heart, the energy fluctuations suddenly stopped.
The unprecedented, magical feeling of absorbing the mysterious symbols into his body disappeared with it.
“Yee!?” Off to the side, another foreign Qi warrior caught sight of Nie Tian. Elation and greed immediately filled his eyes.
He noticed that there were as many as seven light dots on the hand of this Lesser Heaven stage youngster in front of him.
“Interesting!” With a chuckle, he instantly made Nie Tian his target.