Chapter 312: Arrival of An Old Acquaintance (1/2)

In the hilly area…

In a cave on a small hill, Song Li and Han Mu were standing in front of a small-scale teleportation portal with grim expressions on their faces.

Moments later, the teleportation portal began to shine with dazzlingly bright light.

The figure of a man suddenly appeared in the middle of the portal.

“Big brother! How come it’s you!?” After seeing the man, Song Li was startled at first, and then her grim face instantly turned warm.

The man laughed loudly and said, “Yeah. I heard that you’ve run into some trouble in the Realm of Split Void. As your big brother, it’s my responsibility to come and check on you. Since I screwed up my mission in the Heaven Gate and don’t have much to do, I figured I might as well come to the Realm of Split Void and take my mind off of it.”

If Nie Tian were present, he would have recognized this person instantly. He was none other than the winner of the Heaven stage area, Dong Baijie!

Dong Baijie had obtained a fragmentary star mark once in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace after wiping out numerous enemies in the Heaven stage area.

However, he had sustained severe injuries in order to get that fragmentary star mark. Later, when he was bombarded by Nie Tian’s spiritual energy balls, he couldn’t hang on, and thus gave up his fragmentary star mark to avoid being killed.

Han Mu, who was standing next to them, bowed towards Dong Baijie to show his respect. “Greetings, Young Lord!”

Upon seeing Dong Baijie, Song Li, whose real name was Dong Li, smiled so heartily that even the corner of her eyes seemed happy. It seemed that, as brother and sister, they were truly close.

Sounding a bit frustrated, Dong Li said, “It seems we’ve both had bad luck lately, you and me. We both failed at the jobs our clan gave us. However, when you fail, you fail. The way I see it, my journey to the Heaven Gate was by nature a trial for me.” Dong Baijie didn’t collapse after a single setback. On the contrary, he looked rather spirited. “Without the bloody battles I went through during the Heaven Gate trial, I wouldn’t have broken through my bottleneck and entered the Greater Heaven stage so quickly.”

“Congratulations, Big Brother.”

“Congratulations, Young Lord.”

Dong Baijie waved his hand and said quietly, “I heard that you suffered great losses from an early Heaven stage young man. That shouldn’t be the case, is it? I know what you’re capable of. With Han Mu here to assist you, even if you were facing an early Greater Heaven stage cultivator, you shouldn’t have suffered such crushing defeats, much less from a man who was only at the Heaven stage.”

“Don’t bring him up.” A frustrated expression could be seen on Dong Li’s face. “That young man was full of tricks, and he had a special tool that could be used to learn about my deployments every time we made a move.”

“Sorry, Young Lord. We failed our miss.” Han Mu expressed his apologies.

“What does he look like?” Dong Baijie asked casually.

Without any delay, Han Mu took out a portrait of Nie Tian and handed it to him, saying, “This is him.”

With a single glance at the portrait, Dong Baijie shuddered while a flabbergasted expression appeared on his face.

“Big brother?” Dong Li noticed Dong Baijie’s strange reaction, so she asked softly, “Do you know this person?”

Dong Baijie didn’t answer immediately. Rather, he grabbed the scroll that carried a vivid portrait of Nie Tian’s face. After staring at it for a long time, he turned to Han Mu and said, “Leave us.”

Han Mu turned around and left without uttering a word.

When the brother and sister were the only ones in the cave, Dong Li asked eagerly, “Who is he, Big Brother? Even though I haven’t known him for a long time, I know he’s definitely not a nobody as he let on. Not only does he possess outstanding battle prowess, but he was also a master of various spiritual incantations and escape magics!”

Dong Baijie sighed. “I never anticipated that you and me would have suffered losses from the same person. Interesting.”

Dong Li was taken aback. “What?! He’s the ‘Nie Tian’ you talked about?!”

Dong Baijie took a deep breath and said, “Exactly. You probably know that he has become famous throughout the nine realms of the Domain of the Falling Stars, and people from the Heaven Palace Sect are looking for him everywhere. He was the one who took my fragmentary star mark from me while we were in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace. Even Ning Yang seems to have gone against the Heaven Palace Sect’s will and hidden away after failing to find him.”

Dong Li immediately understood. “Hua Tian is Nie Tian!”

With a bitter expression on his face, Dong Baijie said, “It’s not shameful for you to suffer defeats from him. Now that I think about it, he must have learned and refined part of his fragmentary star marks. I once owned a fragmentary star mark for a while in the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace, and I vaguely sensed the immensity and profundity of it.

“The magics recorded in the Fragmentary star marks were incomparably deep and mysterious. I bet Nie Tian’s strange movement magics you said he used to escape came from one of his fragmentary star marks.”

Now that Dong Li realized that Hua Tian was Nie Tian, her frustration was relieved to a great extent.

She knew very well that all those who had acquired the eligibility to participate in the Heaven Gate trial had been the most talented young men and women from the strongest Qi warrior sects in the Domain of the Falling Stars.

The fact that Nie Tian had emerged and obtained two fragmentary star marks under such extraordinary circumstances was enough evidence that Nie Tian was one of the best.

Moreover, such a talented person had recently added a few magics from the Fragmentary Star Incantation to his skillset. Losing to him didn’t seem so unacceptable to her now.

A light flashed across Dong Li’s eyes as she said, “Big brother! Since we’re probably the only ones who know Nie Tian and Hua Tian are the same person, perhaps we can make something of it!”

Dong Baijie grinned as he nodded at her and said, “Where is he now?”

“In Shatter City,” Dong Li said.

Dong Baijie immediately made a decision. “I’ll pay him a visit in Shatter City and learn more about his situation.”