“Demonic Mirage Pearl!” As Ophelia exclaimed, a round pearl suddenly appeared in her palm.

The mysterious pearl seemed to record the Demon race’s entire history of bloodline development.

SHEW! SHEW! SHEW!

Ophelia’s Demonic Illusion Realm, which was shattered by the huge net unleashed by the Star Behemoth bone, rapidly morphed into streaks of dark purple aura that vanished into the Demonic Mirage Pearl.

Not just that, but the wisps of flesh aura that Nie Tian had reduced all kinds of demonic insects and low-tier Demons to also quickly fused into the Demonic Mirage Pearl.

Like a large, satanic eye, the Demonic Mirage Pearl fixed on Nie Tian.

A peculiar, soul-twisting power secretly infiltrated his mind, stirring up huge waves in his sea of awareness.

“Soul invasion?” Nie Tian grinned, and calmly summoned the Spirit Pearl.

In the next moment, a clamor burst through the human, Demon, and Phantasm experts that were gathered outside the dead realm.

“Is that a Demonic Mirage Pearl?!”

“That’s a Spirit Pearl!”

Apparently, many of them recognized both the Demonic Mirage Pearl and the Spirit Pearl.

Grand Monarch Dark Nether, who was at the early tenth grade, had been overseeing things from within the Demon’s floating stronghold.

At this moment, he couldn’t help but burst into the starry river, the cyan prismatic crystal between his eyebrows blossoming with soul-suffocating light.

Ji Yuanquan, Chu Rui, and Ye Wenhan from the Heaven Span Pavilion, along with other God and Saint domain human experts, fixed their eyes on the incoming Grand Monarch Dark Nether simultaneously.

“Dark Nether! You’re not going to break the rules, are you?!” Chu Rui exclaimed in a deep voice.

Even though Grand Monarch Dark Nether was still a significant distance from the dead realm, the cyan crystal in his brow seemed to have seen every detail of the Spirit Pearl.

Face very grim, he exclaimed back, “That Spirit Pearl is a precious treasure of my people!”

Froste, who had come for this special event from the Phantasm realms, also exclaimed, “It’s the Spirit Pearl again!”

He had schemed against Hou Chulan with the Fiends’ help in the Domain of Heaven’s Origin. However, Nie Tian had ruined his plan. He hated Nie Tian to the bone.

Therefore, upon hearing about the duel between Nie Tian and Ophelia, he had traveled all the way from the Phantasm realms to this place just to witness Nie Tian’s death.

However, the sight of the Spirit Pearl filled him with fury.

“So? Isn’t the Heavenly Stellar Stream an Immortal grade tool of my sect?!” Chu Rui, who was a bit chubby, asked rhetorically.

“Calm down. Calm down...” Glancing through the God domain human experts, Grand Monarch Dark Nether reminded himself that this was a duel between the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace and the Demons, not the Phantasms.

If he wanted to take the Spirit Pearl back, he could do it at any other time, but just not now, not here.

WHOOSH! WHOOSH! WHOOSH!

Hatred, fear, despair, rage, and bloodlust, five evil spirits suddenly flew out of the Spirit Pearl. Like five terrifying illusory shadows, they bore their fangs and brandished their claws as they madly unleashed negative emotions.

In a flash, the heavy pressure the Demonic Mirage Pearl had put on his mind was lifted.

Now, it was Nie Tian’s turn to fix Ophelia with a stare, with the five evil spirits’ negative powers swirling and mixing in his eyes.

The moment Ophelia’s eyes met his, she was engulfed in hatred, fear, rage, bloodlust, and despair.

“Die! Die!! Die!!!” Ophelia said through gritted teeth.

Her battle armor that was engraved with countless exquisite patterns lit up as she shifted to Nie Tian’s side in the blink of an eye.

“Indestructible Form!” As Ophelia exclaimed, power erupted within her lean, agile body.

She put the Demonic Mirage Pearl aside, along with her various profound bloodline magics, and dashed over to fight Nie Tian at close quarters by relying on nothing but her fleshly strength.

Flying dust quickly filled their battleground. Numerous large rocks were crushed into powder. Mountains toppled, giving rise to loud rumbles.

Like two balls of light, they madly exchanged punches and kicks in the dead realm, manifesting all kinds of exquisite close-quarters battle techniques.

The observers started whispering among themselves.

“What?!”

“That Nie Tian can actually fight Ophelia at close quarters after she activates the Demons’ Indestructible Form!”

“That’s understandable. The seventh Son of the Stars is a hybrid after all.”

“Even a hybrid shouldn’t have such a tough body and extraordinary fleshly strength!”

“So impressive!”

As that moment, a wooden ancient starship slowly sailed over from the distant starry river.

It was a Floragrim starship.

Instead of arriving through the teleportation portal in the Demons’ stronghold, they had sailed all the way to this part of the starry river, which was a bit strange.

Fata appeared on the ancient starship. Pointing at the dead realm where the duel was taking place, he said to an old Floragrim next to him, “Doyen, that one fighting Ophelia is Nie Tian.

“I met him in the Shatter Battlefield. He possesses a Wood Thriving Formation, which is branded with the patterns of Trees of Life and unique to our people.

“Not just that, but he has even mastered our secret incantations that we don’t ever pass on to outsiders!”

The Floragrim elder, who seemed to have lived innumerable years, gazed raptly at Nie Tian from afar, his eyes glittering with divine light. “You’re right! I sense our Heavenly Wood Heal within him! Not only does he practice it, but he’s even entered the fourth stage: Flesh Tempering!”

Fata smiled bitterly. “I haven’t even finished that stage yet.”

The elder, who he had referred to as ‘Doyen’, continued to measure Nie Tian with his gaze. Moments later, his expression flickered as he exclaimed, “He also has a Godspirit Tree in his wood power core!”

The Floragrims’ arrival caught Hou Chulan’s attention. She and a few elders of the wood element sect fixed them with vigilant gazes, as if they were faced with formidable foes.

All of them sensed anomalies in their wood power cores.

Wisps of faint wood power started flying uncontrollably out of them towards the Floragrim elder, as if they were subject to some natural attraction.

However, the Floragrim elder had clearly not come to undermine the disciples of the Five Elements Sect.

His eyebrows flickered slightly as he shielded his natural aura that he was exuding unconsciously.

The wisps of wood power that had left the wood power cultivators instantly flew back into them.

“It seems that the seventh Son of the Stars has some profound connections with our race.” The Florigrim elder thought to himself. “Godspirit Tree, Heavenly Wood Heal, and Wood Thriving Formation... These were treasures, spell formations, and incantations that we’d never let out our race. However, not only did he get them, but he even mastered them. This is...”

“Doyen,” Fata exclaimed softly. “Ophelia is a formidable opponent. What if Nie Tian dies in the duel?”

“If he dies, then the answers to his secrets will die with him,” the Floragrim elder said. He secretly glanced at the powerful human experts and important outsider figures that were gathered here, and added in a low voice, “That Nie Tian has already reached the fourth stage of Heavenly Wood Heal. Even if he dies in battle, it’ll be salvageable.

“We’ll be able to bring him back to life as long as we can secure his body.”

Fata’s eyes lit up. “You’re right! Since he’s reached the fourth stage of Heavenly Wood Heal, we can actually bring him back to life with our divine tools!”

With such thoughts in mind, the two of them instantly felt relaxed.

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Mountains toppled and the earth split. Grayish-brown dust and sand formed a sandstorm that engulfed the entire dead realm.

The Demonic Mirage Pearl and the Spirit Pearl floated in midair, facing and contending against each other.

Nie Tian and Ophelia, however, fought at close quarters, their exceptionally tough bodies clashing repeatedly.

Thanks to her demonic armor, Ophelia didn’t sustain any noticeable injuries. However, Nie Tian was gradually covered in fine, bloody wounds.

He frowned, and prepared to summon the Flame Dragon Armor.