Chapter 186: Another Step Forward! (1/2)

Upon hearing Qiu Heng’s words, everyone subconsciously turned to look at him, and uneasiness could be seen in their eyes.

After being invaded by the Blood sect and Ghost sect, the Spiritual Treasure sect was now the weakest of the seven sects, and it had almost fallen out of the same league as the other six sects.

Since the Earth Flame Beast had broken free from the deepest parts of the Scarlet Flame Mountain Range, the entire mountain range had undergone an upheaval, and the grand Heaven Burning Earth Flame formation, which the Spiritual Treasure sect’s livelihood depended on, had also been completely destroyed.

That was why every disciple of the Spiritual Treasure sect had become anxious whenever they thought about their future.

Before entering the Heaven Gate, when Qiu Heng had learned that demons would descend upon the Realm of Flame Heaven, he imagined that the Spiritual Treasure sect would probably not have the ability to hold off their invasion now that the Heaven Burning Earth Flame formation was gone.

The reason why he wasn’t so eager to go back to the Realm of Flame Heaven was that he worried that returning to his sect might put an end to his life.

He was truly terrified.

Although many of the others despised Qiu Heng, a few of them fell into silence after hearing his words.

They all believed that the Realm of Flame Heaven was in an abyss of suffering. Even worse, it might have been taken over by the demons already…

If that was the case, their returning now was none other than going to their own grave.

“What’s the matter?” Hong Can from the Hell sect frowned as he looked at those who had lost their fighting spirit and said, “You all agree with Qiu Heng?”

Feng Luo snorted coldly and said, “The realm of Flame Heaven is in turmoil so it needs us now more than ever! We have to return as soon as possible! Without it, we’ll be nothing but a handful of drifting ghosts. Each and every one of us was raised and favored by our sects. It’s only right that we protect them when others want to take them away from us!”

Li Fan nodded in assent.

However, Zou Yi from the Ghost sect and Guan Gu from the Grayvale sect, together with a couple of others, still remained in silence.

After a while, Zou Yi suddenly said, “After the trial, some of us may now be on the verge of breaking through. I’d say it’s better that we make the breakthrough here and return with more strength. From the way it looks, the teleportation portal is going to last for a while, so we still have some time before we have to go back to the Realm of Flame Heaven.

“We can use this period of time to draw enlightenment from our experiences over the past few months, and study the good fortune that we’ve obtained here.

“Perhaps, returning when our strength has reached a maximum would be a better choice. After all, that way we’ll be able to contribute more.

“What do you all say?”

Zou Yi’s gaze swept through the crowd.

Guan Qiu, Qiu Heng, and two disciples of the Mystic Mist sect nodded in assent.

Hong Can took a glance at them, and after a moment of pondering, he said, “Alright, let’s take a while to adjust ourselves, but hurry. I’ll keep an eye on the teleportation portal and remind you when it shows signs of running out of energy so that we can teleport back to our realm before the it closes.”

“Ok, let’s get started,” said Feng Luo.

Everyone sat down by the side of the ancient teleportation portal. People from the same sect gathered into small groups and started contemplating their gains in the Heaven Gate trial.

Nie Tian sat with Li Fan and Jiang Lingzhu. Calming himself and narrowing his eyes, he used his psychic awareness to examine his spiritual sea.

Two vortexes of spiritual power, one vortex of flame power and one vortex of wood power, were rotating at a high speed within his spiritual sea.

It seemed that the misty, white spiritual power within them had already been refined to the fullest after numerous rounds of refinement, and he wouldn’t be able to further refine it before his spiritual sea upgraded.

He was aware that he had reached a bottleneck, and given the right stimulation, he would instantly make the breakthrough and step into the next stage.

He continued to observe his spiritual sea as he took out a spirit stone. As soon as he started absorbing energy from it, he felt a strange sensation.

He looked down at the Heaven Gate pattern on the back of his hand.

The two hexagrams within the pattern started to shine with faint starlight.

Then, eyes wide, he looked up into the starry sky.

Countless stars were hanging high in the ice-cold starry river; some of them were glittering with bright light, while others looked rather dim.

Some stars seemed extremely distant and were only the size of grains, while others were the size of grapes.