Chapter 948: Setback
Brow furrowed, Lou Hongyan jerked her head back. Looking deeply worried, she said, “Our teleportation portal has been destroyed! This is not good!”
A teleportation portal couldn’t possibly be established within a couple of days. Even with all of the necessary spiritual materials, one would have to find a suitable location to cautiously set up a teleportation portal.
The whole process would usually take two to six months.
The forger’s cultivation base and skill level would determine how long the process would take.
She knew that it had taken Huang Jinnan’s subordinates six months to set up that inter-domain teleportation portal.
Losing it meant that their communication with the Five Elements Sect would be interrupted for at least six months.
After storming the teleportation portal and killing all of the Void domain guards, the two ninth grade Lizardmen must have learned about their arrival.
She even suspected that the Lizardmen had long since learned about their arrival. Otherwise, why would they have shown up so soon after they had left that teleportation portal?
Now that they were officially exposed, it wouldn’t be long before the powerful Lizardmen from the other two realms rushed to this realm.
They hadn’t learned the strongest Lizardmen warriors’ battle prowess firsthand.
If their information was correct, and they indeed had seven or eight ninth grade warriors that were as powerful as Saint domain experts, it would be very likely that they would all die in this strange domain.
If they still had that teleportation portal, worst come to worst, they could at least send people back to their headquarters and ask their God domain seniors to come to their aid.
But now...
The moment they learned that their teleportation portal was gone, they were struck by the feeling that the hunters had become the hunted.
This feeling made everyone extremely insecure and uneasy, including the two divine children of the Five Elements Sect.
“We can run a little test to find out if the Lizardmen knew about our plan the whole time,” Lou Hongyan said with a thoughtful expression.
Then, she turned to her three Saint domain subordinates and ordered, “Spread out and check if there are still Lizardmen in the nearby villages.
“Got it!” Like lightning bolts, the three of them flew out in three different directions before disappearing into the distance in the blink of an eye.
Then, Lou Hongyan said with a suspicious expression, “Come to think of it, we’ve encountered far too few Lizardmen along our way. Many of the villages only had a couple of Lizardmen in them. I’m afraid the Lizardmen we killed were only bait that they used to cloud our judgment!”
Huang Jinnan’s expression flickered. “Do you mean that the Lizardmen discovered us long ago?”
Lou Hongyan gazed into the distance and sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I’m thinking. We’ll find out if I’m right soon enough. If I’m right, now that our teleportation portal has been destroyed, the Lizardmen won’t need to feed us bait anymore. That means there won’t be any Lizardmen in the nearby villages and cities.
“Instead, they have probably been evacuated to their capital or other safe locations by their powerful warriors.”
A hour passed...
The three Saint domain experts returned successively. All of them looked very grim.
“We did a thorough search in a five hundred kilometer radius around us, and failed to find a single Lizardman. All of the villages and cities we found were empty. Clearly, they have evacuated.”
“It seems that we’ve indeed been discovered by the Lizardmen.”
“Now, with that teleportation portal gone, our connection with our headquarters is completely cut off. We can’t summon experts to our aid, which puts us in a very bad situation.”
Upon hearing this, some of Lou Hongyan’s Void domain subordinates no longer acted respectful towards Huang Jinnan. Instead, they started to accuse him.
“You were too sloppy, Divine Son!”
“You got us into this mess!”
Knowing that he was in the wrong, Huang Jinnan didn’t say anything back.
“That’s enough!” Lou Hongyan exclaimed.
All those who were placing blame shut up instantly.
After everyone calmed down, she continued, “What’s done is done. What we need to do now is think of a way to get us out of this unfavorable situation. Now, we’re certain that the Lizardmen have found out about us.
“In fact, powerful Lizardmen warriors might be gathering to this realm from the other two as we speak. So we can’t split up again, lest they take us out one at a time...”
Huang Jinnan and Lou Hongyan then entered a discussion regarding their next move.
Lou Hongyan thought they should head towards the Lizardman capital to gain a full understanding of their strength.
Huang Jinnan, however, thought that the capital might be where all of the Lizardmen warriors were gathered, and that it wouldn’t be wise to approach it.
He suggested that they stay where they were, and wait for the Lizardmen to come to them.
Even so, it could be heard from their conversation that they didn’t think these local inhabitants would be very difficult to handle.
Instead, they seemed to assume that the six Saint domain experts they had on their team would be powerful enough kill all of the powerful Lizardman warriors from the three realms.
The two of them argued. Neither of them bothered to ask Nie Tian’s opinion.
Nie Tian actually enjoyed being a tagalong for a change.
As divine children from the Five Elements Sect, they never considered their option to evacuate from this domain.
All of these members they had brought with them were at the Void or Saint domain. Even without an ancient starship, they would be able to envelop themselves in their own domains and travel around in the depths of the starry river.
Huang Jinnan’s cultivation base was the lowest, which was at the early Soul realm. However, with these Saint domain experts by his side, traveling through the starry river wouldn’t be a difficult thing.
“Fortunately, they’re not thinking of leaving,” Nie Tian thought to himself. “Otherwise, considering that I’m only at the Profound realm, I’d have to completely rely on the others to carry me through the starry river, which would put me in a very passive position.”
Before long, the two of them reached a mutual understanding. They would garrison this location and wait for the Lizardmen to come to them. Then, they would try to extract memories from their minds to figure out their plan.
Huang Jinnan also suggested that the mountain peak that contained rich Golden Obsidian could be used to form a protective spell formation.
Therefore, he asked the Saint domain experts to peel off the green mountain peak’s rocky exterior to reveal the Golden Obsidian inside of it.
As the Saint domain experts joined hands in carving into the green mountain peak, huge rocks rolled down to the mountain’s foot.
Soon, a shiny, golden mountain peak showed itself, shining dazzlingly and exuding rich metal power.
Huang Jinnan then set out to carve into its shiny exterior with complicated, mysterious spell formations, and vest them with his spiritual and soul power.
At the same time, Nie Tian flew around in the vicinity on his Star Boat.
After failing to find any valuable spiritual materials, he stopped his Star Boat at the foot of the golden mountain peak and started practicing cultivation.
This time, he focused on a soul magic recorded in the second fragmentary star mark.
So far, he had already derived two soul magics from the second fragmentary star mark: Starsoul and Starchain. During the past year or so, his star power sub-soul had analyzed and realigned the magical symbols that detailed the third soul incantation, and finally brought the third soul magic to light.
It was a soul magic called the Sea of Illusory Stars.
The name ‘Sea of Illusory Stars’ had actually come from a mysterious domain which the founder of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace had explored countless years ago. Enlightened by the profound way its realms had been located, he had created this soul magic.
Back then, he had tumbled into that peculiar domain, which had turned out to be a near-death experience. With some luck, he had eventually solved its mysteries, and derived the Sea of Illusory Stars from his experience.
To practice the Sea of Illusory Stars, one would have to summon power from their star souls to form Star Eyes, which were also known as Heaven Eyes.
Forming and aligning ninety-nine Star Eyes in the same way the realms were aligned in that mysterious domain would mark the formation of Sea of Illusory Stars.
Each Star Eye represented a realm in that domain. Once they locked down in that particular formation, they would possess heaven-shaking, earth-shattering power. This was one of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace’s most powerful and famous soul magics.
“I need to form ninety-nine Star Eyes and align them in a particular formation... But how many Star Eyes can I form now with the power from my nine star souls?”
After a moment of hesitation, he went into action.
As he gathered soul power and fused it with wisps of soul awareness from his true soul, nine Star Eyes rapidly came to form.
However, as he attempted to form a tenth Star Eye, he started to experience difficulty.
As he strained himself to finally form ten more Star Eyes, he realized that his true soul had almost been drained of its soul power.
“From the look of it, nineteen is the best I can do now.”