The Flame Bird came to a stop next to the Star Boat.

The girls leapt off of the Flame Bird and landed lightly in the Star Boat.

Eyes fixed on the Star Stones that covered the bottom of the Star Boat, Yin Yanan’s expression flickered as she said, “This air-transportation spiritual tool actually runs on Star Stones! Does that mean this guy has something to do with the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace?”

“He does practice star power!” Qiao Yunxi chimed in.

She had traveled with Nie Tian for some time and sensed star power on him on several occasions.

Earlier, when Nie Tian had activated Primal Chaos, she had noticed sparks of starlight in it, along with many other types of power.

It was just that the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace wasn’t the only sect in this universe to practice star power.

Several minor sects had also found ways to channel star power and created star power incantations.

However, their understanding of star power lagged far behind the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, and their influence wasn’t even worth mentioning when compared to the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.

She had thought Nie Tian to be from one of those sects.

However, the Star Boat...

This air-transportation spiritual tool was indeed more advanced than her Flame Bird. Besides, Nie Tian had Spirit-channeling grade spiritual tools like the Flame Dragon Armor and powerful puppets like the Bone Blood Demon in his possession.

All of these indicated that Nie Tian had a powerful background. Adding in Yue Yanxi’s reminder, she had to connect Nie Tian to the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace now.

Yin Yanan gasped with astonishment. “Don’t tell me that he’s actually from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace!”

“That’s actually quite likely,” Qiao Yunxi said.

“Then why didn’t he say so?!” Yin Yanan said angrily. “If he had stated his identity back when we were at that lake, Senior Hong, Wei Yun, and Chu Xuanji wouldn’t have treated him like that!”

The Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s name alone inspired awe throughout the starry river. The sects in the Domain of Heaven’s Boundaries were far weaker.

Those experts probably wouldn’t have dared to touch him if they had known who he was.

A sense of frustration rapidly filled Yin Yanan’s heart as a train of thoughts entered her mind. “If he’s really from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, my sect won’t be able to do anything to him even though he’s killed Senior Hong and many others... Not to mention that he had an excuse to do so. After all, Senior Hong and the others demanded soul crystals from him first.”

“Let’s drop that matter for now,” Qiao Yunxi said with knitted brow. “That Phantasm soul is attacking him now. What do we do? Once he’s possessed, you and I will also be in trouble.”

Yin Yanan’s cheeks flushed slightly as she grunted, “You should know what will happen if we try to help him.”

With a bitter expression, Qiao Yunxi said, “Of course I do. However, I believe we can avoid the situation from last time if we can withdraw our soul awareness from his mind quickly enough.”

After hesitating for a long time, Yin Yanan laid her eyes on Nie Tian, whose face was twisted, as he seemed to be having a hard time handling the Phantasm soul’s attacks. She gritted her teeth and said, “Alright, let’s help one last time!”

The girls once again sent their soul awareness into Nie Tian’s sea of awareness to help him defend against the Phantasm soul’s invasion.

As soon as their soul awareness entered, they saw the Phantasm soul storming Nie Tian’s sea of awareness with all kinds of profound soul magics.

A misty ward was shining brightly as it protected Nie Tian’s sea of awareness.

Without any hesitation, the girls’ soul awareness started attacking the Phantasm soul, but they also spared some attention to observe Nie Tian’s sea of awareness.

They vaguely saw nine clusters of dazzling light at the center of Nie Tian’s sea of awareness.

It seemed that Nie Tian was relying on them to defend his sea of awareness against the Phantasm soul’s waves of fierce attacks.

They sensed an everlasting aura from within the clusters of dazzling light, which strengthened their conviction: Nie Tian had something to do with the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace.

Since they only knew that experts from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had visited the Domain of Heaven’s Boundaries a very long time ago, and they didn’t know much about the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, they didn’t know what those clusters of dazzling light were.

“He is from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace!!” Exclaiming inwardly, the girls did everything within their power to help Nie Tian fight the Phantasm soul.

The Frost Blood Python’s soul power split into countless wisps of aura that morphed into Frost Pythons and Blood Stripe Pythons, which became the main force to contend against the Phantasm soul.

Shortly after they joined the battle, this battle between souls once again ended in the Phantasm soul’s retreat.

Sensing the situation, Yin Yanan and Qiao Yunxi withdrew their soul awareness at lightning speed, not daring to delay one second.

They were worried that the Phantasm soul would once again influence them and plunge them into an abyss of desire.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

At this moment, the six fierce souls caught up to them and started hovering over the meteor they were on.

Nie Tian’s eyes snapped open before he glanced at Qiao Yunxi and Yin Yanan and asked with an unpleasant tone, “Why did you come here?”

“You would have been possessed by the Phantasm soul if we didn’t!” Qiao Yunxi said coldly.

“Are you really from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace?” Yin Yanan asked.

“Why do you care?” Nie Tian asked with an indifferent tone.

Before Yin Yanan could lash out, Qiao Yunxi couldn’t help but shout, “What’s wrong with you?! If we didn’t help you, you would have been possessed already! Not only didn’t you not thank us, but you actually talked to us with such an attitude! Can you not tell good from bad?!”

“I can handle the Phantasm soul just fine!” Nie Tian said with an icy tone.

In fact, he had come up with a plan when he had decided to part ways with the girls. He had planned to use the Flame Dragon Armor to open the gate to the mysterious land where eight sets of flame dragon skeletons lay in a spell formation.

He had refined the discarnate souls in the Spirit Pearl there before.

The Phantasm soul was by nature only a soul. Therefore, he believed that, once he went there, he would be able to get rid of it for good with the spell formation formed by eight sets of flame dragon skeletons.

In fact, this was the main reason why he had proposed to split up with the girls.

Since the Flame Dragon Armor’s former master was the son of the Divine Flame Sect’s sectmaster, he didn’t want to expose the Flame Dragon Armor’s secret, especially to Qiao Yunxi, in case the Divine Flame Sect wanted it back in the future.

Just now, he had actually been waiting for the six fierce souls when the girls had arrived and saw him defending himself against the Phantasm soul with great effort.

He had planned to take care of those fierce souls together.

If Qiao Yunxi and Yin Yanan hadn’t showed up, he would have already opened the spatial portal with the Flame Dragon Armor and led those fierce souls into that magical land, where he would have refined them.

Yin Yanan was so angered that her curvy body trembled slightly. “Fine! You say whatever you want to say! See if I’ll help you when that Phantasm soul invades your sea of awareness again!”

“You should apologize to us, Nie Tian!” Qiao Yunxi demanded.

Nie Tian gave a cold harrumph. “Apologize? Ladies, I’ll say it one more time. I don’t want you to follow me anymore. I don’t want to see you. I’m leaving now. Please let me go!”

With these words, he flicked his sleeve, signaling to the girls to get out of his Star Boat.

“You think you’re such a big deal just because you’re from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace?!” Qiao Yunxi shouted, fuming with anger.

“You’re the most shameless person I’ve ever met!” Yin Yanan said furiously.

“Fine! We’ll have nothing to do with each other from now on! You take your open road, I’ll cross my log bridge! (idiom: you go your way, I’ll go mine)” With these words, Qiao Yunxi stormed back to her Flame Bird and said to Yin Yanan, “Let’s go, Sister Yanan!”

Yin Yanan also flew back to the Frost Blood Python with the Frost Blood Python, her heart filled with disdain for Nie Tian.

Eyes narrowed, Nie Tian put the Star Boat away and also jumped onto the Flame Bird. “I’ll escort you for now. We’ll split up as soon as you’re safe.”

With these words, he closed his eyes, holding the Spirit Pearl in silence.

He knew that as long as he held the Spirit Pearl, the six fierce souls wouldn’t dare to come close.

Qiao Yunxi was also well-aware of this, and thus didn’t throw him out. She refilled the Flame Bird with fire-attributed materials and headed out.

An hour later, the six fierce souls were once again far behind them.

“Goodbye!” Nie Tian summoned his Star Boat and flew off at a speed even faster than the Flame Bird.

Watching the Star Boat disappearing from her sight, Qiao Yunxi cursed in a low voice, gritting her teeth, “Bastard!”

Face as cold as ice, Yin Yanan said, “I didn’t know he was such a big jerk!”