Chapter 510: Sorting Out the Truth
The Lightning Shuttle shot up into the void.
Standing on it, Nie Tian was lost in a myriad of thoughts as he looked down and watched the floating continent crumble and sink.
Earlier, he had captured a large number of broken images from the mysterious spell formation of the seventy-two tree branches.
Now, as he slowly sorted through them, his heart was increasingly shaken.
By putting the broken images back together, he finally obtained a fairly clear and thorough understanding of this strange dimension.
At the very beginning, there had been only two extremely vast continents in this dimension, one on top and one on the bottom.
The two of them had been connected by mountain peaks that were unimaginably high.
The continent on the bottom had been inhabited by gigantic creatures, like spirit beasts and dragons that were a thousand meters long, and titans that were as enormous as mountains.
Meanwhile, the continent on the top had been home to high-tier Demons, Phantasms, Fiends, Bonebrutes, Floragrims, and other intelligent outsider species.
Wars never ended between the inhabitants of the two continents.
The intelligent beings from the top continent had always desired to enslave the gigantic beings from the bottom continent, and they had made endless attempts and exhausted all methods to bring the spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth from the bottom continent up to the top continent.
Eventually, the final war inevitably broke out between them.
After that war, the huge mountain peaks that had connected the two continents exploded, which caused the two vast continents to break into pieces.
The so-called intelligent beings not only hadn’t gained any benefit from the war, but had also been forced to migrate due to the shattering of the top continent.
The structure of the bottom continent had also been permanently destroyed, which had caused the extinction of many large beings.
The great upheaval had caused the energy of heaven and earth from the top continent to mingle with that of the bottom continent, rendering the environment uninhabitable for the surviving species from both continents.
Therefore, all of the outsiders that had luckily escaped doom drifted away to other realms and dimensions.
The floating continent he and Pei Qiqi had discovered was a broken piece from the top continent, which had been home to Floragrims.
Before their evacuation, the Floragrim survivors had preserved their homeland with their special magics.
The ward around the floating continent had been the protective spell they had left. However, since he had learned its secrets and channeled those mysterious tree patterns into the seventy-two tree branches, the Floragrims’ ancestral land had lost its protection and sank to destruction.
However, the conflicts between the two original continents had been between outsider races and enormous creatures. The Human race had never appeared in this realm.
Now, after what could be tens of thousands of years, the originally prosperous realm became what it looked like now.
For the first time in the history of this realm, humans came to explore it.
Eyes glittering, Nie Tian stared blankly at the crumbling continent and watched it gradually disappear into the gray mist underneath, which, according to what he had just learned, was actually the ruins of the destroyed bottom continent.
Since the destruction of the bottom continent’s structure and the infusion of the energy of heaven and earth from the top continent, great changes had taken place and made it unrecognizable.
All of its previous enormous inhabitants had been forced to leave, as it had become unfit to live in.
Meanwhile, was it a coincidence that all of the major powers in the Domain of the Falling Stars had found those six spatial rifts and entered this realm, or had they actually been lured here? All of the broken lands and floating boulders had been created when the top continent had exploded.
Why had those spatial rifts suddenly appeared in the Void Illusion Mountain Range in the Realm of Split Void?
Why were they the only ones that had seemed to enter this strange realm? Where were the outsider races that had evacuated from this realm in the first place?
He wondered whether there were still more profound secrets of this realm that he hadn’t uncovered yet.
A series of questions flashed across his mind. The more he thought about it, the more suspicious he became.
While he was carried away by his thoughts, the Lightning Shuttle flew up to the location where members of the Dong Clan and the Water Moon Chamber of Commerce were gathered.
Dong Tuodi and Qin Yi had already returned to the crowd after seeing them boarding their Lightning Shuttle and Rainbow Lightning and leaving the sinking continent.
Anticipation filling his eyes, Qin Yi asked, “Did you discover anything?”
He was still under the impression that Qin Yan had discovered something, which might have somehow caused the floating continent to shatter and the ward to go up.
Under his anticipating gaze, Qin Yan forced a smile and shook her head. “It wasn’t me.”
“Then who did?” Qin Yi asked.
Feng Ying shot a glance at Nie Tian and said in a low voice, “Mu Han did.”
The gaze of every member of the Dong Clan and the Water Moon Chamber of Commerce instantly converged on Nie Tian. Every one of them measured him up curiously.
Not many people present knew Nie Tian’s actual identity. Dong Tuodi, Dong Li, Dong Baijie, and Qin Yan were the only ones who did.
After a moment of awkward silence, Dong Tuodi cleared his throat and said breezily, “Alright, alright. Since Mu Han is with Qiqi, he must have come here on Master Zhen’s team. Plus, he’s friends with Little Li. Our clan will never try to take whatever fortune he’s obtained. You’ll give face to Master Zhen, right, Brother Qin?”
“Of course I won’t try to take things from a junior.” Qin Yi said. “I’m just very curious about the secrets of that floating continent.”
Nie Tian was torn with indecision.
On the one hand, he didn’t want to share the secret images he had obtained among those tree branches with anyone.
But on the other hand, Qin Yi had asked him about it. Hence, he pondered whether he should take out a tree branch and show it to them.
Qin Yan seemed to have seen through his dilemma, and thus said to her great-grandfather with a soft chuckle, “It’s natural that people have secrets they’d like to keep. Perhaps what he discovered is very private, so he doesn’t want to share it with others. You might as well not ask about it, great-grandpa.”
Upon hearing her words, Qin Yi, who was very fond of her, nodded and said, “Alright, I won’t ask about it.”
Then, he turned to look at Pei Qiqi and said with a serious expression, “I heard about you being separated from Master Zhen. Your master and I have been friends for many years. Now that you’re in a difficult position, it’s only right that I see to it that you’re safe. If you come with us, you’ll reunite with your master sooner or later. Don’t you worry.”
To Qin Yi’s surprise, Pei Qiqi didn’t instantly respond to his invitation. Instead, she turned to look at Nie Tian, looking somewhat hesitant.
It was as if she were more inclined to take Nie Tian’s opinion on whether they should travel with the Dong Clan and the Water Moon Chamber of Commerce.
After a moment of pondering, Nie Tian said, “Let’s go with them. The situation in this realm is quite complicated. People from all of the major powers are now scattered in different areas. It’s hard to say who we’ll run into in the next moment. If the two of us travel alone and run into people from the Spirit God Sect, the Flame God Sect, or the Poison Sect, it’d be hard to say if we could get away from them.”
Pei Qiqi nodded gently, agreeing with his decision.
Her faith in Nie Tian confused Qin Yi and many other members of the Dong Clan and the Water Moon Chamber of Commerce.
Dong Tuodi chuckled. “Good, it’s settled then. The Cao Clan, Gu Clan, and Pill Pavilion Sect have been urging us to go over to their location for some time now. They seem to have found something.”
Afterwards, everyone left either on the Lightning Shuttle, Rainbow Lightnings, or rocks driven by spiritual power.
Pei Qiqi’s Lightning Shuttle traveled at the end of the formation.
In front of it was Dong Li’s Rainbow Lightning, where Dong Li constantly looked over her shoulder at Nie Tian and Pei Qiqi, as if she was keeping a close watch on them.
Expressionless as always, Pei Qiqi didn’t mind her actions at all, but instead focused on steering her Lightning Shuttle, following the group at a certain distance.
Nie Tian, however, sat down in the Lightning Shuttle. Instead of taking out the tree branches to learn their secrets, he conducted a thorough scan of himself.
A wisp of his soul awareness flew into his dantian region.
He found to his surprise that the liquidized wood power he had consumed to heal Pei Qiqi’s injuries and attack his enemies had already been fully replenished.
He went blank briefly before suddenly realizing that he must have absorbed copious amount of wood power when the mysterious tree patterns had poured down into the tree branches and he captured the broken images from them.
Without him knowing about it, the amount of liquidized wood power in his vortex of wood power had already reached its limit.
He thought to himself that if his cultivation base had been higher than the early Greater Heaven stage, he might have been able to take in more concentrated wood power.
With that thought in mind, he switched his focus to his vortex of flame power and vortex of star power. After a brief examination, he learned that even his vortex of star power also seemed to have reached the breakthrough point.
If he threw in a bit more effort to refine his vortex of flame power, it wouldn’t take long for him to enter the middle Greater Heaven stage.
He was thrilled.
Afterwards, he took out one of the branches and examined it meticulously.
The branch, which had been infused with mysterious tree patterns, felt very heavy. Tree patterns consisting of light strings that seemed to carry the profound truths of wood power could be found in every part of the branch.
Limited by his current cultivation base and understanding of wood power, he couldn’t derive more enlightenment from them yet.
His soul awareness roamed about and examined the interwoven light strings that formed the glowing tree patterns, yet he didn’t discover anything noteworthy.
Then, he took out his Flame Star and clanked it together with the branch. Upon impact, sparks flew out from the contact point, giving rise to a metallic, clanking sound.
Pei Qiqi suddenly looked over and reached out her hand. “Let me see.”
Nie Tian handed the branch to her.
Pei Qiqi summoned her Ethereal Swords, and as she cast a spatial magic, one of her Ethereal Swords slashed onto the branch.
Nie Tian’s expression flickered. “Don’t!”
CLANK!
As soon as the Ethereal Sword made contact with the branch, a great force seemed to burst forth from within the tree patterns in the branches.
The fresh, green branch instantly became translucent and sparkling. Mysterious light could be seen flowing inside of it.
“Even my Ethereal Sword can’t snap this branch. It’s tougher than you can imagine.” With an impressed expression, Pei Qiqi handed the branch back to Nie Tian and added, “Perhaps you can go ahead and use it as your weapon in combat. From the look of it, it’s every bit as sharp as my Ethereal Swords, if not sharper.”
Nie Tian’s eyes lit up.
He grabbed the branch from Pei Qiqi’s hand and took out a spirit stone. Without infusing the branch with his wood power, he slightly stabbed the spirit stone with it, and the spirit stone was penetrated like a piece of tofu.