"Heh heh, even if Brother Tang is willing to call it quits, we won't stop until we've gotten our hands on that spirit stone. Besides, I personally extracted the information about the stone from the cultivator who discovered it using a soul-search technique, so don't even think about trying to bluff your way through this." The fat man sneered, his rolls of flesh quivering with each word.
"So it was you who killed Protector Li behind our backs." The gaunt old man's expression froze for a moment, then twisted into fury. He flicked the green mirror in his hand, and several thick beams of light lashed out directly at the fat man.
"What's this? Fellow Daoist Tang is no longer denying the existence of the spirit stone?" The fat man let out a burst of mocking laughter, then tapped the round brass basin floating before him. A vast expanse of yellow radiance erupted from the basin, swallowing each beam of light one after another.
"Even if it's true, what of it? Everyone knows that supreme-grade spirit stones possess miraculous power in breaking through bottlenecks. Why on earth would we hand them over to you demon cultivators? And have you no fear that by attacking this peak so brazenly, you'll only be letting the Star Palace swoop in and reap the profits?" The anger on the gaunt old man's face drained away as abruptly as it had appeared, and he swiftly composed himself.
"The Star Palace? You think our sea clans have only come for your Star Alliance? I'll tell you the truth — this time, our sea clans have committed every last elite. Not only will we take that supreme-grade spirit stone, we're reclaiming every spirit mine on this entire island. The Outer Seas have always been our sea clans' domain. The notion that you human cultivators could carve up this island's spirit stones is nothing but a pipe dream. We were simply waiting to gather our full strength before making our move — that's the only reason we bothered with you lot up until now." The fat man tilted his thick, fleshy neck upward, a strange, unsettling expression playing across his face.
The moment these words sank in, the surnamed Tang old man's face drained of all color.
As if to confirm the fat man's words, a piercing howl suddenly echoed from the distant horizon beyond the stone peaks. Moments later, another mass of blue demonic mist came rolling toward them, roiling and churning with countless demon beasts lurking within.
"Haha! Looks like the humans over by the Star Palace have already been dealt with. Concentrating our forces to eliminate one side first was indeed the right call — now, you lot have nowhere to flee, even with wings!" The fat man erupted into wild laughter at the sight, yet his attacks only intensified. The round brass basin before him blazed with spiritual light as torrents of yellow radiance surged forth, cascading down toward the old man below. The two golden rings on his arm also flashed and shot out, splitting into layer upon layer of afterimages that hammered downward.
With reinforcements so close at hand, the demon cultivator only pressed his attack harder, clearly determined not to let his opponent slip away.
The gaunt old man was equal parts furious and alarmed, but in the heat of the moment, he truly could not shake the fat man off.
The situation was identical at every other battlefield. The shape-shifted demon beasts squandered their demonic energy without hesitation, unleashing torrents of attacks like a violent storm. Spiritual lights of every color intertwined and flashed, and the thunderous roar of combat rose from all directions.
The Star Alliance's Nascent Soul cultivators found themselves completely unable to disengage and flee the area.
Meanwhile, the second wave of demonic mist was already hurtling toward them at incredible speed, close enough now to make out the grotesque shapes of the demon beasts within.
At this point, even the most obtuse among the Star Alliance's cultivators realized that something had gone terribly wrong. Someone screamed "Retreat!" and pandemonium broke loose.
Below, the low-rank cultivators scattered in all directions, fleeing with desperate speed. In the sky above, the Nascent Soul old monsters likewise began scrambling for a way out. Some parried and retreated steadily toward the edge of the stone peaks; others launched reckless, all-out assaults against their demon beast opponents, hoping to force a gap and break through; and still others, confident in their own escape techniques, engaged their foes with unhurried calm while their eyes darted about, scanning for an opening...
Down below, the moment Han Li's ears caught phrases like "supreme-grade spirit stone," his original intention to slip away immediately evaporated without a trace.
He had never laid eyes on the legendary top-grade spirit stone with his own eyes, but the countless records and texts he had studied over the years left him thoroughly familiar with its rumored existence and miraculous properties.
Setting aside the fact that this stone was the sole material required to construct several of the ancient legendary formations of the Human World, the very idea of the assistance it could provide in breaking through bottlenecks alone was enough to set every cultivator's heart racing.
After all, such assistance was effective all the way from Core Formation to Deity Transformation — though its potency diminished at higher stages. Even so, for the cultivators of the current Human World, supreme-grade spirit stones remained something utterly beyond reach.
Now that such a stone had been mined from this particular vein, it was no wonder the Star Alliance had immediately pulled its forces back and the demon beasts had launched a ten-thousand-li assault without a moment's hesitation, striking at both human factions on the island simultaneously. They presumably believed that if one supreme-grade spirit stone had already emerged, there might well be a second — or even a third — still hidden in the vein.
Han Li took a deep breath, and in the span of a heartbeat, he had pieced together most of the truth behind what was unfolding.
A treasure this rare had appeared right before his eyes, and he had no intention of letting it slip away. His calm, clear eyes began to flicker with a faint, nameless fire.
But whose hands was this supreme-grade spirit stone actually in? That was the tricky question.
By all logic, a treasure of this magnitude should be in the possession of the most powerful cultivator present — someone with the authority to make decisions. That would be the gaunt old man. However, it was entirely possible that the old man had employed a clever deception, deliberately placing the stone with some unremarkable low-rank cultivator in order to smuggle it out amid the chaos.
If that were the case, then even with his extraordinary abilities, Han Li couldn't very well capture every single Star Alliance cultivator on the island while the demon beasts were breathing down his neck.
Han Li's brow furrowed for a moment, but after a brief contemplation, his expression smoothed out again.
Those shape-shifted demon beasts were every bit as clever as human cultivators — they had surely already considered this very problem. Even if Han Li did nothing, the incoming demon beasts would not let a single Star Alliance cultivator escape. All he had to do was wait for the spirit stone to appear and snatch it then. With his level of power, who among the demon beasts and cultivators here could possibly stop him?