Every Son of the Stars of the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace would have a chance at competing for the position of the Lord of the Stars. All those who had been chosen to be Sons of the Stars had extremely outstanding cultivation talent and potential.

Every generation of Sons of the Stars would eventually produce a Lord of the Stars, and perhaps one or two God domain experts.

No matter how weak a Son of the Stars turned out to be, as long as he didn’t die prematurely, the cultivation and tempering he received from the Ancient Fragmentary Star Palace would allow him to grow into a Saint domain expert, at least.

Of course, different Saint domain experts’ strengths varied greatly.

A Saint domain Son of the Stars would be much more powerful than a Saint domain expert like Jing Feiyang, Quan Zixuan, or Qu Mingde, even though their cultivation bases were the same.

As for Nie Tian, the newborn seventh Son of the Stars, his name had spread far and wide recently. Even the outsiders had heard about him.

However, what had made the outsiders really apprehensive about him was the fact that he was a hybrid.

Being a hybrid meant that his limitations as a human, such as feeble bodies and short lifespans, had probably been made up for.

Therefore, as such a special Son of the Stars, his name was already high on the outsiders’ list of most wanted humans.

If the newly-arrived Demon grand patriarch could catch or kill Nie Tian, his prestige among his people would definitely soar. He might even win the favor of their grand monarchs, allowing his clan to rise to prominence, and gain the eligibility to move into the First Demon Domain.

Thump! Thump! Thump!

Three large purple balls separated themselves from the Demon’s abdomen and fell onto the sand like giant watermelons.

Upon landing, the balls of flesh split, releasing dozens of demonic bugs.

Disguised by the raging Demon qi, they rapidly drilled into the sand and crawled towards Nie Tian soundlessly.

The newly-arrived Demon grand patriarch was named Feimos, and was also at the middle ninth grade. His people had given him the nickname “The Controller”.

All of the Demons who had been given nicknames were grand patriarchs or grand monarchs that carried ancient bloodlines.

Feimos the Controller himself came from an ancient Demon clan, which was famous for raising and controlling demonic bugs.

He had fed a large number of demonic bugs with his own flesh and blood, and enveloped them in those lumps that grew on him.

Standing on the Star Boat, Nie Tian became instantly alarmed, his hair standing on end. “Something is wrong!”

As soon as Feimos the Controller had locked him down, he had sensed great danger, feeling that something extremely ferocious had fixed its bloodthirsty eyes on him.

No matter how hard he had tried to hide himself with his bloodline talent, he hadn’t been able to escape that thing’s detection.

Now, he realized that danger was spreading towards him like waves, yet he didn’t know exactly what it was.

BOOM!

Raging flesh power suddenly burst forth from within his meridians, bones, internal organs, and muscles, instantly putting him in the Life Strengthening state.

His heart raced as his senses grew increasingly keen.

The ten drops of Blood Essence in his heart also blossomed with sparkling, crimson light.

He was ready for battle.

Moments later, he looked down at the sand, his expression flickering. “There’s something in the sand!”

BANG! BANG! BANG!

Dozens of demonic bugs crawled out of the sand and flew towards him like black lightning bolts.

Unlike the ones that had chased after the ninth grade ice phoenix, these bugs looked as if they had been forged from black steel, their smooth shells giving off an ice-cold luster.

The bugs had sharp teeth and tender antennae on their heads that seemed to allow them to capture even the slightest flesh power fluctuations.

With the help of his bloodline power, Nie Tian could tell that each and every one of them carried shockingly strong flesh power within them.

“I can’t believe that most of those demonic bugs are at the seventh grade! And there are eighth grade ones among them too, which seem to have even developed their own intelligence!”

Looking into the demonic bugs’ compound eyes, Nie Tian suddenly saw the ugly soul shadow of Feimos the Controller in them.

A shudder ran through Nie Tian as he instantly realized that these demonic bugs were actually Feimos’s pets, which had avoided the human experts and come after him.

“Low-tier demonic creatures controlled by high-tier Demons...” A train of thought flashed across his mind in the time it takes a spark to fly off of a piece of flint.

“Flame Dragon’s Cry!”

Furious flame power was summoned from within the Flame Dragon Armor, and after mixing with flame power from his flame power core, it morphed into an enormous flame dragon that floated in midair.

Exuding raging flames, the flame dragon plummeted towards the demonic bugs.

At the same time, the Star Boat tipped its prow towards the incoming demonic bugs.

As numerous Star Stone were drained of their power and cracked, a beam of starlight shot straight out of the Star Boat’s pointy prow.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The flame dragon and the Star Boat rained flames and starlight on the demonic bugs.

Hit by flames and starlight, the seventh grade demonic bugs wobbled in the air before falling onto the sand like rocks, but they didn’t die.

The eighth grade ones, however, managed to remain in the air, even though their solid shells split, giving rise to loud sounds.

Nie Tian looked with rapt attention, and discovered that as mighty as the starlight was, it didn’t seem to inflict much damage on the demonic bugs.

Instead, the flame dragon he had released with Flame Dragon’s Cry seemed to damage and scare them more.

All of a sudden, he realized the reason behind this.

The flames seemed to be vested with wisps of the Divine Flame within his flame power core.

The Divine Flame he had harnessed in the Domain of Flame’s End had clearly vested the flame dragon with new power. One touch of its flames, and the demonic bugs would catch fire.

As this happened, the flame power that rose from underneath the desert suddenly converged on the demonic bugs, fueling the flames that were burning them.

Many demonic bugs that had fallen onto the sand were instantly engulfed in fierce flames. With sharp screeches, they gradually burned to ashes.

After that, as the flames flew away from the ashes, not only had they not grown weaker, but they had grown stronger instead.

“It appears that the wisps of flame power from the Divine Flame are channeling power from underneath the desert, making them even more destructive!”

A smile appeared on Nie Tian’s face as he realized that he was also able to control the flames.

Therefore, under the guidance of his soul awareness, more crimson flames left the demonic bugs they had burned to ashes, and pounced on living ones.

BZZZ!

The flame spark that agreed with his attribute perfectly suddenly flew out of his flame power core into the sand.

The earthy-yellow desert had already turned blackish-violet under the effect of Hazlitt’s bloodline talent, but at this point, it seemed to be suddenly ignited by the flame spark. The entire desert started to burn fiercely.

Then, the flame spark flew around, as if to gather the flame power that would strengthen it.

In an incredible fashion, the flames’ might suddenly multiplied as they burned the remaining demonic bugs. Even the eighth grade bugs had their solid shells burned away.

The flesh and blood underneath their shells seemed to be very vulnerable, as they were reduced to ashes moments after being engulfed by flames.

At the same time, the blackish-violet desert gradually turned crimson.

As this happened, wisps of flesh aura rose from underneath the sand, along with raging flame power.

The flesh aura was blackish-purple, which was what Hazlitt the Flame Maniac had used to channel and manipulate the flame power of this desert.

Now that the flame spark had expelled every last bit of his aura from the desert, he could no longer make use of its power.

The flame spark now took its place as the new master of the flame power that was buried in this vast desert.

Nie Tian’s eyes lit up as he suddenly realized what was going on. “The flame spark came from the Divine Flame. The Divine Flame’s unique cultivation method is to plant flame sparks into developing realms, gradually turning them into flame realms. As they grow into flame realms, the flame sparks within them will grow with them. The flame sparks will absorb nourishment from their host realms to strengthen themselves, and wait for the Divine Flame’s return to rejoin it.

“This desert seems to be the ideal place to help the flame spark grow. No wonder it flew out on its own to strengthen itself with the flame power held by the desert!”

HOWL!

Hazlitt’s howls once again echoed out from the depths of the area enveloped in rolling Demon qi. Clearly, he was enraged.

“The Flame Maniac’s bloodline talent has failed!” The ninth grade ice phoenix exclaimed as she got rid of the demonic bugs that were chasing after her, and flew gracefully back to Hazlitt.

“Bloodline magic: Freeze of A Thousand Icebergs!”

Numerous cone-shaped pieces of ice came to form, glittering in midair

Like icicles from icebergs that were more than ten thousand years old, they were sharp and crystal-clear, and exuded the profound truths of frost power.

Close to a thousand ice cones worked their wonders at the same time, and countless rays of icy light interwove in midair, forming a web of sparkling light.

It suddenly descended, trapping Hazlitt the Flame Maniac. A layer of hard ice rapidly spread on his giant body, which made cracking sounds as he moved about.

Due to the formation of the layer of ice, his blood flow also became slow and obstructed.

Because of this, he could no longer use many of his bloodline talents and magics.

At the same time, the ninth grade dragon slammed Hazlitt with his enormous claws, which looked like anchors that had expanded a hundred times over.

The layer of ice over Hazlitt the Flame Maniac shattered as he was knocked out of the sky and crashed heavily into the desert.

The dragon that was close to a thousand meters long then swooped down on Hazlitt. The devastating crash created a huge crater, inside of which the two of them immediately started clawing and biting each other.

As large as Hazlitt was, the dragon was much larger.

Under the dragon’s furious attacks with his enormous teeth and claws, pieces of flesh were ripped off of Hazlitt’s body, causing a lot of bleeding.

With every chunk of flesh that was torn from Hazlitt’s body, he shrank down a bit.

This indicated that Hazlitt was losing his strength at an alarming speed.

Struggling in the crater, Hazlitt cried out painfully in the Demon’s language, “Feimos!”

Quan Zixuan from the Thousandsword Mountain Sect suddenly discovered that his spiritual swords could finally cut into Hazlitt’s body now, and thus went all-out to attack him with his numerous flying swords.

Hazlitt’s demonized body continued to shrink.

“Bloodline magic: Ancient Demon Wings!”

Rolling Demon qi rapidly condensed into a set of huge glowing wings on Hazlitt’s back. As the wings of glowing purple light gave a vigorous flutter, even the dragon was pushed back into the sky.

Ignoring Feimos, Hazlitt took the opportunity to dash into the activated spatial tunnel before the dragon could organize his next round of attacks.

RUMBLE!

The spatial tunnel fluctuated, as the sounds of flesh splitting open came from it.

Seeing the unfavorable situation, Feimos shed more lumps, which split and unleashed hundreds of thousands of small bugs in all directions.

He bellowed a few words in the Demon’s language before rapidly disappearing into the spatial tunnel as well.

“Destroy the portal!”