That person was Kan Xingming, a middle Greater Heaven stage Qi warrior from the Realm of Earth Sieve.

His cultivation attribute was the wood power, one of the five fundamental element powers (see note 1). The three people that besieged him came from the Ghost sect and Grayvale sect, and all of them were in the early Greater Heaven stage.

Kan Xingming wore a bizarre set of spiritual armor, which appeared to be made of petrified vines and willow leaves and apparently contained the essence of plants and vegetation.

The aura that he emanated was full of a special kind of life force, as if it could nourish plants and had other mysterious uses.

The spiritual weapon that he used was a wooden staff that was dark-green in color. It also carried a strong life force, and within its natural wood vein pattern seemed to lay the true essence of wood power.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

One after another, numerous rattan vines flew out of his spiritual armor and effortlessly intercepted the violent attacks of the three people surrounding him.

He stealthily glanced at Nie Tian.

Although all three of his opponents were in the Greater Heaven stage, there were only a total of five scarlet light spots within the Heaven Gate pattern on the back of their hands.

This meant that even if he slaughtered the three of them, he would only be able to obtain five light spots.

However, not far away from him was Nie Tian with seven red dots on the back of his hand, while he was only in the Lesser Heaven stage.

As long as he could kill Nie Tian, the gains he would obtain would far surpass those from painstakingly killing those three powerful experts.

Therefore, he moved closer towards Nie Tian in a slow and inconspicuous fashion, while shielding off the attacks of the three people around him.

Greed and a strong killing intent shot out of his eyes.

“Go!” All of a sudden, a fresh, green leaf broke away from the chest area of his spiritual armor. It was as if the leaf itself possessed a consciousness as it floated straight towards Nie Tian.

It seemed that the fresh, green leaf was floating and shaking as it flew forward, but actually it traveled at an extremely fast speed.

In only five seconds, the leaf was already quite close to Nie Tian. It also rapidly expanded to the size of a palm-tree leaf and intended to wrap Nie Tian within it.

Only by that point did Nie Tian, who was slowly stepping towards the dilapidated city, suddenly sense the unfavorable situation.

However, it was too late. The large leaf continued to expand and swiftly attached itself to Nie Tian’s chest.

As soon as it made contact with Nie Tian, it immediately grew roots, which reached deep into his flesh, as if it had turned into a terrifying plant.

The flesh power within his body was pulled by a bizarre force as it madly flowed toward that leaf.

As the green, fresh leaf greedily absorbed Nie Tian’s flesh power, it mutated at an astonishing speed, and soon turned into a strange plant, enveloping Nie Tian.

One sharp thorn after another grew from the plant and penetrated into Nie Tian’s flesh.

The newly-born plant madly sucked on Nie Tian’s life essence and flesh power.

Kan Xingming’s eyes were brimming with brutality and mania. With a deep laugh, he licked his lips and said with a complacent tone, “Not bad. The essence within the kid’s flesh and blood is quite pure. I never anticipated that a Lesser Heaven stage brat would possess flesh power so rich and copious. I just hit gold!”

Apparently, the leaf that he had unleashed could grow into a strange plant that fed on the flesh power of living creatures.

Moreover, the flesh power the plant had absorbed could be guided into Kan Xingming’s body through secret arts, which enabled him to rapidly replenish his own injuries and also enhance his battle prowess.

Originally, he had thought that Nie Tian, who was only in Lesser Heaven stage, wouldn’t possibly have such rich flesh power within him.

However, when he noticed that the leaf kept sucking flesh power out of Nie Tian’s body for quite some time, he laughed more and more happily.

“Awesome! This is awesome!” From what he saw, it would not be too long before Nie Tian’s flesh power would be completely drained.

By that time, not only would he be able to obtain plentiful flesh power from Nie Tian, he could even collect seven scarlet light spots by killing Nie Tian.

With seven more light spots, Kan Xingming would be able to take in even more magical symbols, and therefore gain more fortune.

Off to the side, Li Fan, who had been constantly dodging the attacks of the green flames, glanced over towards Nie Tian while fighting, and saw the dangerous situation that he was in. “Nie Tian!”

At that moment, Nie Tian had already been wrapped up by a huge plant and his robust body was becoming more shriveled by the second as the pure life essence within every corner of his body was rapidly being drained.

With a loud shout, Li Fan alerted Feng Luo and Liu Yan. The two of them immediately noticed Nie Tian’s situation.

Feng Luo looked slightly surprised. He seemed to feel that Nie Tian shouldn’t be so easily stopped and controlled.

However, he didn’t seem very anxious after seeing that Nie Tian had almost been engulfed by the large plant.

The reason was that he discovered that Nie Tian’s expression wasn’t filled with fear and despair.

Despite having fought side by side with Nie Tian against Zhao Mo and Du Huang, Feng Luo still wasn’t able to fathom Nie Tian’s true strength. However, he was fairly confident that Nie Tian wouldn’t be killed that easily.

Therefore, he didn’t immediately rush to Nie Tian’s aid, but rather decided to keep observing.

On the other hand, Li Fan and Liu Yan’s hearts were burning with anxiety as they both wanted to rush over and free Nie Tian from the dangerous situation.

Kan Xingming seemed to have noticed their intentions, and called out, “Brother Miao, take good care of your opponents.”

Miao Chen arched his lips as he seemed to think that Kang Xin Ming was giving his opponents too much credit. “Don’t worry. None of them shall even dream of interrupting you.”

With these words, numerous green, ghost-like flame clusters stormed toward Li Fan and Liu Yan.

Immediately after that, Li Fan and Liu Yan were rounded up by the flame clusters and were only able to move about to dodge their attacks within a very small space. From the look of it, there was no chance that they could break free from the water-tight besiegement.

As anxious as the two of them were, they had to figure out a way to handle the corrosive power within the green flames.

Otherwise, before long, they would be devoured by the flames, turned into two set of pale-white skeletons, and broken into pieces after falling to the ground.

“Damn it!” Li Fan cursed. He had long since told Nie Tian to get as far away as he could from this place, but not only did Nie Tian not listen to him, he even was so daring as to approach the dilapidated city, as if he actually had a death wish!

Finding himself at his wit’s end dealing with the flames that had trapped both him and Liu Yan, Li Fan grew increasingly mad at Nie Tian and his blind audacity.

“My life essence is wasting away, my flesh is shriveling and blood is drying up...” Eyes narrowed, Nie Tian sensed the changes within him with rapt attention. He looked relatively calm and no fear could be seen on his face.

Although he couldn’t move his arms and legs, if he wanted to, he was able to summon the Flame Dragon Armor from within his bracelet of holding, or trigger one of the life-saving talismans that his master had bestowed upon him.

However, he didn’t.

The reason was that when he was completely wrapped up by the plant and his life force was slowly sucked away, a strange feeling was born in his heart.

He felt excited!

His heart throbbed vigorously, as if it was yearning for something.

He had always known that he was different from ordinary people.

Compared to others, his psychic power was stronger and his fleshy body was sturdier. He could even continuously temper his own body by consuming spirit beast meat.

Although he had come across great danger in many occasions before, strange changes had alway occurred to his heart when he was on the verge of dying.

All those strange encounters had proven that there were definitely secrets hiding within his body.

Furthermore, Hua Mu had once told him that he might be able to reveal some of his secrets during the Heaven Gate trial.

THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP! THUMP!

His heartbeat grew stronger and stronger as his life force faded away.

Gradually, he started to feel dizzy due to the significant loss of life force. However, he entered a strange state at that moment, and his soul consciousness seemed to have floated to where his heart was.

Muddleheaded, he saw dazzling light suddenly shoot out from the vessels within his own heart.

His blood vessels seemed to have turned into transparent crystal tubes, within which countless strange sparks flickered. The light seemed to be constantly evolving, as if his heart was undergoing a profound change that he couldn’t comprehend.

BOOM!

A violent tremor suddenly struck his mind, and after his soul consciousness returned to his head, he snapped out of the mysterious state.

In the next moment, an aura that was full of violence and domination emerged abruptly from within his heart.

The unusual plant that had wrapped him up suddenly started to wither at a speed that was visible to the naked eye.

The rich life force that the plant had sucked away from Nie Tian’s body returned back into his body in an extremely short time.

His wizened body also expanded rapidly like a ball that was being inflated.

Within only several dozen seconds, he recovered to his original look once again. He was in high spirits and appeared to be uninfluenced in the slightest.

Meanwhile, the plant wilted, was reduced to flying dust, and disappeared completely as he shook his body with relief.

Note:

The Wu Xing is also known as the Five Elements, Five Phases, the Five Agents, the Five Movements, Five Processes, the Five Steps/Stages and the Five Planets of significant gravity (Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Venus, Mars)

It is the short form of the five types of Qi dominating at different times. It is a fivefold conceptual scheme that many traditional Chinese fields used to explain a wide array of phenomena, from cosmic cycles to the interaction between internal organs, and from the succession of political regimes to the properties of medicinal drugs. The "Five Elements" are Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, and Water. This order of presentation is known as the "mutual generation" sequence. In the order of "mutual overcoming", they are Wood, Earth, Water, Fire, and Metal.

The system of five phases was used for describing interactions and relationships between phenomena. After it came to maturity in the second or first century BCE during the Han dynasty, this device was employed in many fields of early Chinese thought, including seemingly disparate fields such as geomancy or Feng shui, astrology, traditional Chinese medicine, music, military strategy, and martial arts. The system is still used as a reference in some forms of complementary and alternative medicine and martial arts.