Chapter 25: A Different Place
FIZZ!
The condensed drop of blood in the animal bone flared up when Nie Tian’s mind drifted into it.
In the blood, his saw strands of fire suddenly twisting and interweaving with each other, forming a strange animal pattern.
The pattern was in the shape of a dragon, but it was constantly changing and full of mystery.
“Whoah!” Nie Tian exhaled softly and tried to calm his mind.
It was as if a secret switch had been activated. The animal bone flew from his palm and quietly floated up in front of his chest, emanating scorching flames.
His mind instantly returned from the animal bone to reality, however his eyes were still focused on it.
WHOOSH!!
Strands of flames started to swirl around the animal bone and seemingly produced a terrifying gravitational force.
After a few seconds, the animal bone and the lines of fire evolved into a flame vortex.
CRACKLE!
The formation of the flame vortex was followed by a strange sound from the surroundings, where numerous colorful spatial rifts appeared.
Surrounding objects within his room, such as the tea set on the stone table and the clothes on the bed, were forcibly sucked into the spatial rifts, and vanished in the blink of an eye.
A moment later, even the stone table and the stone slab on the ground were sucked into the rifts.
CREAK! CREAK!
The bed Nie Tian was sitting on began to buckle because of the immense suction, as if it was also about to fly into the spatial rifts with him in tow.
Suddenly, fear sprang up in his heart, as if he were suddenly aware that he might never see his grandfather and Nie Qian ever again..
Even as fear overwhelmed him and he was about to cry out for help, the flame vortex became like the mouth of a ferocious monster and gulped him down.
Then, the flame vortex drastically shrank down into a grain-sized spark of fire.
The spark of fire flickered a few times, and then disappeared into thin air.
WHOOSH!
The gravitational force increased dramatically and the flashing spatial rifts swallowed everything in the room before closing up one by one.
Only after the flame vortex and the oddly flashing spatial rifts vanished, was the small room suddenly peaceful once again.
However, the stone table, stone chair, wooden bed, and everything else was gone along with Nie Tian.
Shortly, the voice of Nie Qian came from outside. “Little Tian, are you sleeping?”
Nie Donghai, despite having voiced his belief that Nie Tian could control the animal bone, was still worried about him, especially after being told of the terrifying qualities of the animal bone by Nie Qian. As such, he had come along with Nie Qian. He wanted to use his experience and vision to explore the secret of the animal bone again.
Nie Qian called a few times, but when she got no response, forced Nie Tian’s door open.
“Ah!” she screamed as she stepped into the room, finding everything in the room was gone.
Blue veins bulged on Nie Donghai’s forehead. “How dare the Yuan clan kidnap Little Tian from our home!” he raged, not even taking the time to think about the situation.
He instantly assumed that Yuan Qiuying, after discovering that her two assassins were missing, had sent other powerful experts to take Nie Tian away.
“Father, what should we do?” Nie Qian shouted in a state of utter stupefaction. “What should we do to get him back!?”
“The Yun clan and Yuan clan must immediately release Little Tian! I am going to talk to my second brother who is the master of the Nie clan. If he is unwilling to stand out and protect Little Tian, I will never spare him! Nie Donghai left in a rage and rushed to find Nie Beichuan in the hope of freeing Nie Tian as soon as possible.
“Yuan Qiuying, should anything untoward happen to Little Tian, I will go after you till my last breath!” Nie Qian swore in sadness.
…
In the unknown world, the density of the spiritual energy defied any imagination.
Eight dragon skeletons could be seen, each around a thousand meters long. They were arranged in an octagonal pattern, with their heads all pointing toward an old, dilapidated altar, a structure stained with blotches of blood that made it seem as if it had been mercilessly eroded by time.
A spark suddenly gleamed from within the heart of the altar, which rapidly swelled into a fireball.
BANG!
The figure of a child could be seen flying out from the fireball down onto the ground.
CLANK!
Then, the gigantic fireball shrunk into a small piece of bone and dropped down near the foot of the kid.
Nie Tian, dizzy and racked with pain all over, was lying with his back on the altar and limbs spread wide.
Gazing at the overcast sky with his wide eyes, he gradually came to his senses. “What the hell is this place?”
A few seconds ago, he was in his room. He only remembered that the animal bone had transformed into a flame vortex and then gulped him down.
Then, he was here.
Despite lying on the altar, he could immediately detect that the gravity here was even stronger than the tenfold gravity field generated by the Mystic Amber Shield!
He lay there, his back tightly pressed against the cold, hard stone slab. Finally, he rose up to a sitting position, an effort which required all the strength he could muster.
“The amount of spiritual energy here is ten times thicker than Cloudsoaring Mountain!”
In the middle of breathing, he felt the spiritual energy of Heaven and Earth in the air trickling down into the spiritual sea of his dantian.
Elated, he looked around curiously.
Almost immediately, he caught the sight of the eight huge, hill-like dragon heads surrounding him. “Dragon heads! There are eight huge dragon heads there!”
The eight dragon heads were bereft of any flesh or blood, leaving them as nothing but bare, bleached bones.
The dragon’s eyeballs had long since ceased to exist. All of the empty sockets were facing him as if they were quietly analyzing him, which made his blood run cold.
He quickly shifted his view to the distance and realized that the eight huge dragon skeletons stretched a thousand meters away.
Further in the distance, numerous mountain peaks sat under the murky-gray sky, each of them as tall as Cloudsoaring Peak.
After carefully studying them, he was completely overwhelmed by astonishment to find that the objects, that had at first resembled mountain peaks, were in fact huge arms!
The huge arms were dark-yellow. Some had fists tightly clenched, as if they were unleashing endless fury; some fingers were widely opened as if to clasp the sky; some palms were imprinted with what seemed like the supreme theory of Heaven and Earth.
In the distance, those huge arms looked like giant mountain peaks towering up into the sky.
The other side of the arms were like the roots of towering old trees, buried deep into the earth.
It was as if the real bodies of the huge arm’s owners were within the earth, attempting to rid themselves of the burial and fly up into the sky!
Just the arms exposed outside were as enormous as mountains, Nie Tian could not imagine how colossal the bodies were of the owners were who were buried under the earth!
“One, two, three… thirty-two!” He counted and found that there were at least 32 huge arms visible.
That meant that there were at least 16 colossal creatures buried deep in the earth!
“Eight huge dragons and also at least sixteen terrifyingly colossal creatures,” he thought. “What is this place? Am I dreaming?” Then, he bit his tongue suddenly and felt an excruciating pain.
“I’m not dreaming? This is different from my previous experience, so it must not be a dream!”
He still remembered that after he battled Nie Hong, he had a high fever for quite a long time and frequently fell into different dreams.
The unknown world he saw in his dream was somewhat similar to the sight in front of him.
However, he always knew that all those dreams were simply dreams, not realities.
But this time, he was not in a dream but rather a real world, which was completely unknown to him.
WHOOSH!
The animal bone that brought him into this place was lying at his side, flickering with plumes of flame.
He subconsciously looked at it.
For an unknown reason, he felt an infinite sadness from within those flames.
The glowing flames seemed to be recounting something…
“Dragon?” Prompted by his memory, he recalled that his inner awareness had seen this strange world in the drop of blood condensed from the animal bone when he was in Mine #73.
That world bristled with countless raging flames that converged into a colossal dragon of flame.
On their way back to Black Cloud City, the animal bone had transformed into a dragon-shaped flame when he threw it at the two men dressed in blue.
After carefully thinking for awhile, he came to realize that the animal bone was from a great fire dragon.
At the side of the altar, there were eight great dragons with only skeletons left. He speculated that they used to be fire dragons as well, belonging to the same species as the one from which the animal bone was taken.
“I should go around and have a look,” he thought to himself. “This world must be bigger than what I have seen. There might be more secrets in this place beyond my view.”
As he attempted to stand up, he found that the gravity of the earth had pinned him down to the ground.
He couldn’t even rise to his feet!
…