Eventually, Li Langfeng consoled Hu Han and urged her to stay with the others.

Nie Tian’s breakthrough was a matter of great importance. He knew that Nie Tian had his secrets, and thus insisted on her leaving, so that she wouldn’t see anything she shouldn’t.

Therefore, all of the survivors that had fled to this location from Ash City settled down in a place far from Nie Tian’s Wood Thriving Formation.

Time flew. Three days passed.

During this time, not a single outsider or mutant spirit beast had come to their location.

However, the dozen survivors still suffered a great deal.

As the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth grew thicker and thicker, they started to have a hard time warding it off.

Since this wasn’t Ash City, and there wasn’t a grand spell formation that could ward off the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth for them, they had to contend against it themselves at all times.

Fu Heng’s cultivation base was fairly higher, and he possessed unique spiritual tools. Therefore, he didn’t seem to be in trouble.

However, Hu Han’s younger brother’s cultivation base was very low. Even though the gadget he used to form a protective spiritual power ward had worked fine in other areas, it started to flicker now.

Anxious, Hu Han could only infuse it with her own spiritual power to help him ward off the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.

A few others also had bitter expressions on their faces as they struggled to ward off the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.

If they couldn’t find a solution soon, it wouldn’t take any outsiders or mutant spirit beasts to come; their skin and flesh would be corroded by the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth, and they would die miserable deaths.

Li Langfeng, however, ignored their plight. He still stood guard for Nie Tian and waited silently for him to wake up.

Two more days passed, and Nie Tian had finally formed his ninth vortex of spiritual power, which marked his successful breakthrough into the late Greater Heaven stage.

However, a shudder ran through him as soon as he made the breakthrough.

He examined himself, and noticed that the numerous crystal-like chains within the green aura, which had lain dormant in his heart for quite some time, had suddenly started to flicker.

Like fish made of stars, thousands of them flickered with bright, cyan light as they swam within the green aura. With his psychic awareness, he watched closely as the green aura went through these changes. All of a sudden, a brand new bloodline talent was awakened.

“Blood Essence Extraction!”

In that moment, everything about this bloodline talent was eternally branded in his mind.

Blood Essence Extraction was the secret magic of extracting essence from his own blood.

From the knowledge that was branded in his mind, he knew that he could only form up to ten drops of Blood Essence in his heart.

That would be his limit.

To extract one drop of Blood Essence would take one hundred drops of his blood.

However, he was still somewhat blurry on how to use the Blood Essence afterwards.

However, he remembered that, during his conversation with Armes, Armes had told him that, for outsiders, Blood Essence was the essence of their blood. Many powerful bloodline magics and profound bloodline talents would need it to perform.

Back then, Armes had consumed all of his Blood Essence to unleash that heaven-shaking, earth-shattering attack with the Nethersoul Saber.

Therefore, Nie Tian knew that Blood Essence was of great significance to all outsiders.

The reason why he didn’t know how to use Blood Essence was because he wasn’t from a outsider clan. None of his seniors had taught him about the profound uses of Blood Essence. If he wanted to learn about it, he would have to either learn from outsider experts, or learn by making attempts.

An idea suddenly occurred to him, “My master might know how to use Blood Essence!”

With this thought, he settled down and launched Blood Essence Extraction. In the next moment, his blood suddenly started to rush back into his heart.

At the same time, his heart pounded violently. As Blood Essence was extracted from the blood that rushed back to his heart, the green aura also glittered with dazzlingly glorious light.

Soon, ten drops of Blood Essence that looked like red agates came to form in his heart.

As they did, he was struck by an intense powerless feeling.

He examined himself, and realized that a large portion of his blood had been summoned into his heart, where it was turned into ten drops of Blood Essence.

The sudden blood loss was the reason why he felt so weak and tired.

He snapped his eyes open and laid his gaze on the numerous dead mutant spirit beasts that were piled up outside his Wood Thriving Formation. Then, he said to Li Langfeng, “Get those corpses in here for me, will you?”

With these words, he reached out with one hand, and one of the tree branches that formed the Wood Thriving Formation left the earth and flew into his palm

The ward instantly disappeared.

The fact that this Wood Thriving Formation had lasted this long was because he hadn’t channeled much wood power from it during his breakthrough into the late Greater Heaven stage.

The Wood Thriving Formation would only madly draw power from the vegetation in its surroundings when he channeled wood power from it, or it was attacked by external forces.

During this time, he had been busy with his breakthrough. None of those conditions were met, so the spell formation had lasted a fairly long time.

Li Langfeng seemed overjoyed as he exclaimed, “You’ve made your breakthrough!” Then, he turned to gaze into the distance and added, “People are here...”

The moment Nie Tian had opened his eyes, he had reestablished his connections with his nine Heaven Eyes. Thus, he had already noticed the group of people who were struggling to ward off the tainted spiritual Qi of Heaven and Earth.

He nodded slightly at Li Langfeng, showing that he understood.

After Li Langfeng dragged the enormous mutant spirit beast corpses into the spell formation, Nie Tian said, “Tell them to move farther away. I don’t want them to see me.”

“Understood.” Li Langfeng then marched over to Fu Heng and the others and told them to move farther away.

Meanwhile, Nie Tian stood by one of the dead mutant spirit beasts, placed his hands on it, and unleashed Life Drain.

After his recent refinement of his heart, the efficiency of his Life Drain had improved by leaps and bounds. Within minutes, the fifth grade mutant spirit beast was completely drained of its flesh power.

Wisps of extremely rich flesh power naturally flowed towards his heart after entering his body, where it was rapidly turned into blood that was pumped into his arteries.

It seemed as if the green aura knew that he had lost a large amount of blood and was in urgent need of flesh power. Therefore, it remained silent during this process.

However, Nie Tian was well-aware that, after he recovered, the green aura was bound to once again show its endless demand for flesh power.

Even though the dead mutant spirit beasts had been drained of their blood by the Bone Blood Demon, there were still copious amounts of flesh power in their bones, internal organs, and flesh. Therefore, Nie Tian went on to absorb flesh power from the rest of the mutant spirit beast corpses.

The efficiency of his heart turning flesh power into blood was beyond his expectations.

Rivers of rich flesh power were rapidly being turned into blood in his heart and pumped to every corner of his body.

Soon, as every part of him was once again provided with enough blood flow, his weak and exhausted feeling was greatly alleviated.

After a short while, all of the blood he had consumed to form the ten drops of Blood Essence had been fully recovered.

However, he hadn’t finished absorbing the flesh power of the dead mutant spirit beasts. Two sixth grade mutant spirit beasts were still untouched.

Therefore, he went on to absorb their flesh power with Life Drain.

Just as he had expected, as soon as those wisps of rich flesh power entered his body, they were channeled into his heart by the green aura, where they were madly devoured.

A sixth grade mutant spirit beast was as powerful as a Profound realm human expert. Even though the Bone Blood Demon had drained them of their blood, there were still tremendous amounts of flesh power in their bones, meridians, and internal organs.

Even though the efficiency of Life Drain had doubled, it still took Nie Tian quite some time to drain them of their flesh power completely.

However, even after the two sixth grade mutant spirit beasts had shrunk to one fourth of their original size and become shriveled like dried meat, the green aura in his heart was still yearning for more flesh power.

It was as if the flesh power within the two sixth grade mutant spirit beasts was far from enough to satisfy it.

“It seems that the amount of flesh power it needs multiplies every time a new bloodline talent is awakened.” With this thought, Nie Tian observed the ten drops of newly-formed Blood Essence in his heart, and wondered how he would make use of them.

He had a feeling that those ten drops of Blood Essence, each of which contained extremely pure and refined flesh auras, would be very important to him.

He assumed that one drop would be enough to keep the Bone Blood Demon’s flame of life ablaze for half a year, or even longer.

Somewhat excited, he ended that thought, and jerked his head towards Li Langfeng. “Why are those people here?”

Li Langfeng quickly explained the reason to him.

After Li Langfeng was finished, Nie Tian’s expression turn grim as he said, “I can’t believe that the situation in the Realm of Split Void worsened so fast... All of the Soul realm experts have evacuated... The Void Illusion Mountain Range, Ash City, Shatter City, and the Land of the Abandoned are lost... From the look of it, we won’t even be able to find a teleportation portal to use if we want to leave the Realm of Split Void.”

Li Langfeng sighed and said, “That’s right. Experts from the other realms have destroyed our teleportation portals to stop the outsiders from swarming right into their realms. We’re stuck in the Realm of Split Void.”

Nie Tian let out a cold snort. “That was so naive of them. I can’t believe that they actually thought that destroying those teleportation portals would stop the outsiders from invading their realms. Many of the countless spatial rifts in the Void Illusion Mountain Range lead to other nine realms in the Domain of the Falling Stars. The outsiders are completely capable of invading the other realms through those spatial rifts.”

Nie Tian jogged his memory, and recalled that soon after a few Phantasms had descended in the Realm of Split Void, they had somehow appeared in the Realm of Dark Underworld, where they had recovered their ancient starship.

That meant the outsiders had their means of leaving the Realm of Split Void, perhaps more than one.

“By the way, a woman in that group named Hu Han wanted to see you,” Li Langfeng said.

“Oh... sure,” Nie Tian replied.

Li Langfeng then left and fetched Hu Han.

After Hu Han came, Li Langfeng sensibly left her alone with Nie Tian. Nie Tian was awake, and he had the Bone Blood Demon by his side. He had nothing to worry about.

Watching Li Langfeng disappear into the distance, Hu Han suddenly knelt on the ground. Bowing her head, she said, “I made a terrible mistake, Nie Tian. I set you up to save my younger brother. As long as you let my brother live, you can dispose of me however you want. You can kill me, or have me as your servant, or anything. I won’t say anything.”

Nie Tian gazed coldly at her, not uttering a word.

Seeing this, Hu Han became even more anxious. Biting her lip, she removed her garments one after another. Kneeling naked before Nie Tian, she bowed her head even lower as she said, “I can’t say that I’m a beauty, but I’m still a young woman. If you like, I’d be willing to give myself to you.... as long as you can spare my brother’s life.”