As Feng Lingzi had said, there was no point dwelling on things now that matters had come to this. All they could do was improve their strength as much as possible and prepare to face Venerable Sword Saint. Besides, Venerable Sword Saint still showed no signs of making a move against them, which meant they had more time to grow stronger.
After that, everyone stopped dwelling on the matter and continued working to improve their strength. Although most cultivators had already finished their Heavenly Slave Trials, they had grown accustomed to having Ling Tian and the others act as Heavenly Slaves and hone them. This not only helped Hua Min'er and the other Near-Saints improve more quickly; it benefited Ling Tian as well. Even he felt considerable pressure when facing several opponents at once, and pressure meant he was being tempered to good effect.
Leaving Ling Tian and the others to continue improving their strength, let us turn to Chi Xue and his group.
Ling Tian's people had all passed the ten Heavenly Slave Trials, and so had Chi Xue's people and the cultivators from the major factions of the God Realm alliance. However, the situation for these two groups was not good. They had suffered extremely heavy casualties during the final three trials.
Although they had passed only three trials at the end, compared with the previous seven, those three were far more difficult than the earlier ones. The final trial was especially dangerous. Even Po Tian, Chi Xue, and the others had faced one peril after another, and had suffered serious injuries. One of the God Devouring Bodies had even nearly perished.
After completing all ten Heavenly Slave Trials, fewer than four out of every ten Near-Saint experts remained in Chi Xue's group. In other words, only twenty