Tianming had survived impossible odds and finally reunited with them.
"Now that the sealing formation is destroyed, I can no longer throw my weight around here." Tianming knew this far too well. "Without the sealing formation, the battles they fight aren't something I can take part in. I was already more than lucky to kill Ghoul King Xue Yi, so I should settle down a bit!"
The main reason he found himself in such a predicament was because he recklessly wanted to do everything he could to turn his situation around. Now that he had managed to survive, and even lucked out by killing two ghoul kings, he decided he wouldn't take risks like that anymore. When he hugged his beasts, he took them back into the lifebound space. Lan Huang had long since given up on its enemy and was the last to disappear back into the lifebound space.
The next moment, Tianming entered the Prime Tower and hid with all he could. He had moved as quickly as he could, for the others were already recovering their powers and would pose even larger threats to him. Feng Qingyu and You Ying aside, even the dead Xue Yi's lifebound beasts would never let Tianming off after they recovered their full power.
The heartscourge fiend was heavily wounded and couldn't really move well as its power returned. The skyscorch bloodfiend, on the other hand, roared with anger and spat out Skyscorch Bloodphlegm that was ten times more potent than before. If it weren’t for the sealing formation, Lan Huang would've never been able to escape from it.
Tianming managed to enter the tower right before the burning phlegm reached him. The blast sent the Prime Tower floating off again. In the meantime, Feng Qingyu attacked the tower with countless slashes, but not one of them got through.
"By the way, did you manage to get the Photondragon back?" Ying Huo asked.
"Of course." Tianming had made sure of it the moment he delivered the finishing blow.
"Then bring out the trident and start murdering away. Kill Feng Qingyu while you're at it!"
"Nonsense. Even with the power of the stars, it can only enable me to fight tribulation elders in the ninth-level life phase. These guys are eleventh level and above, and their sword-ki-infused spit alone is enough to kill me...." As he spoke he grit his teeth from the pain in his chest.
"Come to think of it, that's true.... To think that alpha wolf of a slit-mouthed monster would end up being killed by a puny dog."
"Who are you calling a dog?!"
"Oh, you misunderstand. I wasn't talking about you. Why did you admit to it?''
"You little...."
As they bantered, Tianming felt an even larger shock. The skyscorch bloodfiend and Feng Qingyu continued raining down attacks on the Prime Tower, so he had no choice but to will his soul servant to help them escape. It was too bad that the speed at which the tower traveled was akin to a snail's, now that his enemies' powers had returned. Though Tianming wouldn't die, he would still have to take a nonstop beating.
"Since we're in trouble already, let's just sit here and wait." He seemed far more optimistic after his close brush with death.
"You got us into this trouble! I don't want any part in it!" Meow Meow said as it lazily stretched, tenderly touching its broken scalp as it winced and glared at Tianming.
There was no way they would be able to imagine how those outside were feeling right now. Feng Qingyu in particular had allowed Xue Yi to be killed because of his carelessness. Ying Huo's final strike had changed everything. He felt a chill just by contemplating how even the third ghoul king himself had died in such a humiliating fashion. It had all happened in an instant.
Xue Yi might have needed only three breaths' time to be able to kill Tianming for good. Yet an existence like him had actually been killed in such a comedic fashion that it stumped Feng Qingyu completely.
Now, Xue Yi's two beasts had lost all reason and were rampaging nonstop, causing countless spatial tears to appear within the Kilostar Domain. It seemed to be too weak to endure the full extent of their power.
Faring far worse was Ghoul King You Ying. She had heard Xue Yi cry out right as she arrived by Dugu Jin's side. Turning back, she’d seen his death and her eyeballs had almost popped out. "Nooooo!"
Cry as she might, there was nothing she could do.
"Stop hitting it. The tower won't break. Let’s just take it with us for now. He'll have to come out of it sooner or later," she said with a hint of grief.
If Qing Ming was an impressive figure, Xue Yi was at least ten times as impressive. The gap between the two ghoul kings was like that between heaven and hell!
Hearing what You Ying said, Feng Qingyu gave up on cutting through the tower. "You, stop it too! Don't let him escape!"
However, the two beasts didn't seem to listen to him and were still using all they had at their disposal to break the tower and avenge their master. With their master gone, they no longer had any future to speak of, no matter how powerful they were.
Right then, something even more shocking happened. After the blood-colored formation beneath them shattered, the thick bloody mist began scattering while the hundred thousand blood-colored dragon patterns zipped toward Dugu Jin.
He didn't even look like he was consciously drawing them in. Instead, he knelt on the ground with tears flowing as he kowtowed to the patterns. After the bloody mist dissipated, all that was left was a grey star. Its color had completely changed.
"Don't tell me the blood was just the formation's color? Is the original star grey?" Tianming mused, watching from the tower. The moment he set eyes on the grey star, he felt a primal fear that caused his eyelids to twitch, scalp to numb, and spine to chill.
Then, loud rumbles rang out from the grey star. Tianming noticed that it was increasing in size like an inflating balloon, and at a far faster rate than he could have imagined. Even though the star had seemed rather far off at first, he only had time to blink once before it had expanded and collided with the Prime Tower.
Tianming saw a sea-like fog that seemed to cover the whole star, which made him unable to clearly see the things beneath it. Even weirder were the countless heavenly patterns that flowed around the surface of the star, so densely packed together that he wouldn't notice them if he wasn’t paying attention.
"What’s that?" His heart had skipped a beat when the star expanded so fast it crashed into the tower. Even Feng Qingyu, You Ying, and the two masterless beasts were unable to avoid the sudden expansion and were sent flying with great force. Tianming felt the world around him shake and was injured from being flung around the tower by the force. He tried his best to look outside and noticed that nobody was there.
"Did I just manage to escape a dangerous situation?" He still couldn't fathom the reality of the situation. Why would they be knocked flying all of a sudden? "There's no way Xue Yi and the rest would focus on destroying the blood formation so intently if all it did was undo the sealing formation's effects, right?"
There were many things he still couldn't figure out for now, but the sudden expansion of the star seemed to confirm that there was more behind Xue Yi's motivation than just recovering their powers.
"So the blood formation was the sealing formation after all... but it seems to have another function entirely."
As he continued considering what it could be, the grey star had already expanded to the point that it was closing in on the Prime Tower again. There were even more heavenly patterns than before, all of them like savage beasts flowing around the surface of the star.
"So was the blood formation's true purpose to keep this grey star sealed?
Tianming looked around and noticed that the grey star had expanded to the point it was about to touch the other stars in the Kilostar Domain. The moment it contacted the first star, which was ten times the size of Taiji Peak Lake, the smaller star seemed to implode into countless fragments before being swallowed up by the mist on the surface of the grey star!
"So when pillars of light shot out from the other stars toward the blood formation, they were probably trying to reinforce it. Now that it's finally out, the grey star seems to be tearing the entire Kilostar Domain apart."
At the end of the day, those were nothing but his own guesses. He watched as the grey star continued swallowing up the other stars in the domain like a great beast as it constantly expanded. The domain that had existed for countless years was actually being destroyed by the grey star of death.
"What in the world could it be?!" He felt it getting harder to breathe the more he watched. He didn't even dare to take a single step out of the tower in fear that he would be swallowed up by the star too.
"There seems to be another barrier that’s trapping the mist within the star..."
If the blood formation was used to seal the grey star, then the formation beneath it seemed to serve a similar purpose. However, there was only so much an individual like Tianming could do. His power was far from enough to affect things on this cosmic scale.
The Kilostar Domain's status quo had first been completely changed with the irreversible death of Xue Yi. Then the Prime Tower had been rammed into by the expanding star more than ten times, each time sending Tianming crashing into the walls, ceiling, and floor. But something even more terrifying happened in the meantime: the Kilostar Domain had ruptured for good, with all of its stars swallowed up by the grey one. Now that the blood formation was gone, Tianming noticed that the formation that had sealed off the entire domain was gone as well.