“Divine Son, there are three realms in this domain. This realm where we set up our teleportation portal is only one of them.”

“Lizardmen seem to be the only intelligent inhabitants of these three realms, and this realm is where the most powerful Lizardman warriors are gathered.”

“The Lizardmen we’ve encountered so far are all fairly weak, and we killed them all. We haven’t seen any truly powerful Lizardman warriors yet. From the look of it, the Lizardmen haven’t discovered us yet. But since we’ve killed some of them, it’s only a matter of time before they realize that something is wrong.”

“And we haven’t had a chance to scan the three realms to see what kinds of resources each of them holds...”

Huang Jinnan’s subordinates went on and explained everything they had learned about this domain to him.

This appeared to be the first time Huang Jinnan had set foot in this remote unexplored domain as well, as he also needed to get an overall understanding of it through his subordinates.

Nie Tian listened attentively.

This was the first time he had gone on an exploration trip to a brand new domain with someone, and this domain was home to a handful of powerful Lizardmen that were as formidable as Saint domain human experts. If things somehow went wrong, the follow-up forces he planned to summon from the Domain of Heaven’s Boundaries, the Domain of Heaven Python, and the Domain of the Falling Stars might suffer heavy casualties.

He had gone to great lengths to silence the different voices within these domains. If the first exploration trip he organized ended with his subordinate sects suffering heavy casualties, his reputation would take a strong hit, and it would be much harder for him to lead these sects and domains in the future.

While he listened to Huang Jinnan’s subordinates explain the special features of this domain, the teleportation portal behind them became active again.

With a surprised expression, he turned around to look at it.

“She’s here!” Huang Jinnan said, looking spirited.

SHEW! SHEW! SHEW!

One figure after another flew through the teleportation portal, the first one being a tall, red-robed young woman with average looks.

At the early Void domain, the woman thrummed with a strong flaming aura.

Huang Jinnan laughed cheekily upon seeing her. Apparently, they were very close. “Senior martial sister! I thought you weren’t interested in exploring this domain with me.”

Nie Tian was dumbstruck as he instantly realized something. “Senior martial sister... She’s the Daughter of Flames!”

Then, every subordinate of Huang Jinnan’s bowed towards her in a very respectful and humble manner.

“Greetings!”

“Greetings, Daughter of Flames!”

Lou Hongyan, who they were referring to as the Daughter of Flames, only nodded slightly in return.

Even though she didn’t have impressive good looks, her eyes were unusually bright. Like two sparkling, crystal-clear gems, they gave her quite a bit of charm.

Lou Hongyan’s gaze eventually landed on Nie Tian. Fixing him with a curious gaze, she asked, “You’re the seventh Son of the Stars, Nie Tian, right? I heard that you’ve already solved the internal resistance within the Domain of Heaven Python and the Domain of Heaven’s Boundaries. That’s quite impressive. I also heard that you have a God domain flame power expert at your back, and he’s not from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace...”

With a flattered smile, Nie Tian only said, “Nice to meet you, Daughter of Flames.”

Lou Hongyan realized that everyone had secrets they wouldn’t share with strangers, so she didn’t put Nie Tian on the spot by pursuing the subject.

Among her subordinates, three seemed to be at the Saint domain, though Nie Tian couldn’t determine their exact cultivation bases.

Aside from those three, the other ten were all at the Void domain.

Lou Hongyan herself was at the early Void domain, which was the weakest of them all.

However, her subordinates’ eyes were all filled with respect as they looked at her.

“Alright, tell me what you’ve learned about this domain,” Lou Hongyan said.

Huang Jinnan then explained what he had just learned from his subordinates to her.

Nie Tian remained silent the whole time, feeling bitter at heart.

“I wouldn’t have agreed to come if I knew she was coming too. With her around all the time, I’ll be exposed as soon as I use the Flame Dragon Armor. Even if I don’t use it, she might be able to sense it if the Flame Dragon Armor grows a bit restless within my ring of holding.

“After all, the Flame Dragon Armor was forged for her by the head of the flame element sect, and she was its first master.”

Nie Tian even thought he had better not use the secret magics he had derived from the titans, lest the Daughter of Flames pick up clues from it that eventually led her to the truth about the Flame Dragon Armor.

“Nie Tian’s subordinates haven’t arrived yet,” Huang Jinnan said. “They still need some time to assemble.”

“According to what I’ve learned, there are only four Saint domain experts in the entire Domain of Heaven Python, and they’re all at the early Saint domain.” With these words, Lou Hongyan pondered for a while before asking, “How many powerful Lizardman warriors are there in this realm?”

“Four,” One of Huang Jinnan’s subordinates answered. “They spend most of their time in the biggest city in this realm, and rarely come out.”

“Just four?” Lou Hongyan curled her lips as she pondered. “How about this: since we haven’t exposed ourselves, let’s surprise and kill those four before the other powerful Lizardmen find out about us and gather to this realm. Once those four are dead, even if the others rush over from the other realms, they won’t be able to pose a threat to us.”

It seemed that she had become the commander of this exploration operation upon arriving.

Huang Jinnan didn’t have a different opinion.

Nie Tian didn’t have any of his subordinates with him. Even if he did, his force would be the weakest compared to Huang Jinnan’s and Lou Hongyan’s.

Therefore, he sensibly remained silent, and gave priority to Lou Hongyan’s ideas.

“Let’s leave a few late Void domain people here to guard the teleportation portal, while the rest of us march on that Lizardmen capital full tilt,” Lou Hongyan said. “We’ll kill every Lizardman we see on our way, lest the powerful Lizardmen from the other two realms learn about our arrival and rush over here.”

Upon receiving her orders, everyone nodded and went into action.

Soon, one air-transportation spiritual tool after another rose into the air.

Nie Tian’s Star Boat was one of them.

The six Saint domain experts spread their immense soul awareness to cover a five hundred kilometer radius around them to capture even the slightest soul fluctuations, so that they wouldn’t let a single Lizardman slip.

Guided by the Saint domain experts’ profound soul awareness, the air-transportation spiritual tools flew out towards the Lizardman capital.

They encountered small groups of Lizardmen along their way.

However, since they were all at the sixth grade or lower, they were nothing more than puny insects in the eyes of these wolf-like experts from the Five Elements Sect.

One group of Lizardmen after another was wiped out, not slowing them down in the slightest.

They also passed through a few Lizardman villages on their way, and looted quite a few valuable spiritual materials from them. Large areas of this realm were covered in marshland. They also discovered some extremely rare spirit plants in the marshlands.

On this day, their air-transportation spiritual tools flew to a mountain peak covered in vegetation.

Huang Jinnan took out a special detector from within his ring of holding.

The detector looked like a silver plate that was carved with small, densely-packed characters, which seemed to represent different types of spiritual materials .

Seeing that he was rather curious about it, Huang Jinnan smiled and explained, “This is a Spiritual Survey Plate. It can detect all kinds of spiritual material veins.”

Immediately afterwards, he focused on adjusting the silver plate with his fingers.

After he was finished, a crystalline hand started spinning on the silver plate before finally stopping on a few small characters.

Huang Jinnan’s expression flickered with excitement as he exclaimed, “Golden Obsidian!"

Golden Obsidian was seventh level Premium grade spiritual material. It could be used to forge ancient starships with impregnable exteriors and sharp, all-conquering weapons. Not just that, but cultivators who practiced metal power could also make use of the copious metal power it contained.

Huang Jinnan’s ancient starship, which he had berthed in the Realm of Maelstrom, had been built with smelted Golden Obsidian.

The green mountain peak was thousands of meters high. The Golden Obsidian buried under it might be enough to forge five ancient starships with the same scale as Huang Jinnan’s. Gaining it would greatly improve Huang Jinnan’s influence and reserve power. No wonder he was so thrilled.

“Golden Obsidian...” Lou Hongyan didn’t seem excited at all.

CHING! CHING! CHING!

Pressing rings suddenly came from a bracelet on Huang Jinnan’s left wrist.

Huang Jinnan’s expression took a turn for the worse as he read the message that came through.

In the next moment, a shudder ran through his tall, robust body.

Looking at him, Lou Hongyan could tell that something had gone wrong. “What happened? Is it from the ones who are guarding the teleportation portal?”

The rings stopped abruptly. No matter how Huang Jinnan messaged back, there wasn’t any response.

Huang Jinnan’s expression had never been this grim. “Senior martial sister, Lizardmen attacked our teleportation portal. The portal was destroyed, and all of my subordinates guarding the portal were killed. That was the last of them. He sent me that message with his last gasp. According to him, the group of Lizardmen was led by two ninth grade Lizardmen, whose strength matched that of Saint domain experts.”

“What?!”