"What, you want a cut too?" Han Li smiled faintly, his tone calm and unhurried.
The bald big man replied coldly, "I may not know every cultivator of note in the Scattered Star Seas, but I'm familiar with the vast majority of their faces and voices. I don't recall ever hearing of anyone like you. Wait—that's not right. You do look somewhat familiar!" His brows furrowed as he studied Han Li more carefully, muttering with a flicker of suspicion.
Upon hearing these words, Han Li's pupils contracted sharply, a blade-like cold light flashing through his eyes.
"Since you've said so, I'll yield Barbarian Beard's cave abode to you. Let's go!" The big man's expression shifted uncertainly for a moment before something seemed to dawn on him. His face changed subtly, and abruptly he spoke words of retreat.
The gorgeous woman and the other two cultivators present were stunned into speechlessness.
A flash of golden light enveloped the bald big man's body, and without another word he swept up the gorgeous woman beside him, his escape light surging as he rose into the sky to flee.
But in that very instant, Han Li raised his hand without the slightest warning. A streak of cyan sword light shot from his palm and vanished in a flash, arriving above the big man's head before slashing down with devastating force.
Patriarch Jin had no choice but to abandon his escape. Cursing in alarm and fury, he roared and once more summoned his golden shield, transforming it into a wash of golden light that enveloped his entire body.
With a thunderous boom, a burst of golden radiance exploded in the low sky, its glare so blinding that the old man and the others squeezed their eyes shut and scrambled backward in alarm, not daring to look directly at it.
But when the light subsided, Patriarch Jin's slightly staggering figure was revealed below. Though the golden shield hovering in the air was battered and incomplete, both he and the gorgeous woman behind him were unharmed.
He had actually managed to block Han Li's strike.
"What is the meaning of this? I've already yielded this place to you—why do you still attack me?" Patriarch Jin's face was livid with rage as he growled.
"What is the meaning? Since you've recognized me, do you really think I'd let you leave?" The corner of Han Li's mouth twitched slightly, and he let out a cold laugh.
His killing intent surging, Han Li wasted no more words. He patted the storage pouch at his waist with one hand, and the Demon-Subduing Staff shot into the air. It blurred once and vanished, only to reappear the next instant in a bizarre fashion directly above the big man's head.
Han Li formed hand seals with both hands, his lips moving in rapid incantation. The Demon-Subduing Staff blazed with brilliant yellow light throughout, swelling in the wind to a colossal size of more than thirty feet before hammering downward with savage force.
It was as though a small mountain were being driven directly toward the earth. Before it even landed, the surrounding space warped and distorted, and a deep humming sound reverberated through the air.
With his cultivation greatly improved, Han Li could now wield the treasures of the Three Elders of Kunwu to a far greater extent than before.
Below, Patriarch Jin's face contorted with a mixture of shock and fury!
Only now did he realize that his opponent was every bit as ruthless and decisive. Having merely guessed at the truth, the man had immediately launched a killing blow, not willing to hear a single word of explanation. And the power of the treasure was far beyond anything he had imagined—the already-damaged golden shield above his head could never withstand such a strike.
Desperate, the big man did not summon any treasure. Instead, he flipped his hand, and a golden talisman appeared between his fingers.
With a wave of his hand and a few muttered words of an arcane incantation, he spun his body in a circle, and an enormous expanse of golden light burst from every part of his being. Golden flowers filled the air, dazzling and magnificent.
The Demon-Subduing Staff crashed down. With a muffled thump, the golden radiance erupted into a sky full of golden flowers, each one the size of a fist, densely packed together, engulfing the big man and the gorgeous woman entirely.
Yellow light and golden radiance intertwined, and a heaven-shaking explosion thundered out. When all the light faded, a massive stone crater had been carved into the ground.
The big man and the gorgeous woman had vanished without a trace.
Han Li blinked in mild surprise, then let out a cold hum and swept his spiritual sense outward in every direction.
Suddenly, he lashed out with a backward chop of his hand, and a colossal blade of sword qi cleaved through the void behind him.
With a muffled thump, clusters of golden flowers materialized out of thin air. The bald big man, one arm wrapped around the gorgeous woman's slender form, emerged from the void. Golden flowers swirled wildly around his body, somehow managing to deflect the sword qi.
Han Li raised an eyebrow and studied the golden flowers with focused attention, a flicker of surprise crossing his eyes.
He knew that thanks to his cultivation of the Azure Origin Sword Art, his power far exceeded that of ordinary late-stage Nascent Soul cultivators. Even a casual flick of Azure Origin Sword Qi would carry tremendous force.
Yet Patriarch Jin had deflected it with ease using nothing more than a single talisman. This was truly peculiar.
"Impossible! How could you possibly detect where I was hiding? Not even a mid-stage cultivator could do that!" The big man was even more astonished, his face a picture of disbelief.
"Hmph! That talisman of yours is interesting, but if you think you can escape under my nose with it, you're dreaming." Han Li's tone was flat as he beckoned to the Demon-Subduing Staff in the distance with one hand. The treasure immediately blurred and hurtled toward Patriarch Jin once more.
Seeing this, a fierce light flashed across the big man's face. He waved the golden talisman again, transforming into a shower of golden flowers that vanished and reappeared at a different spot in the nearby sky. He then hurled the gorgeous woman aside, a savage expression overtaking his features as he roared:
"Han! I've been retreating step by step—did you really think that just because you have the Void Sky Cauldron, you can have this old ancestor at your mercy? Today, Patriarch Jin is going to fight you for real!"
The big man slapped his waist, and a jet of black mist shot forth from a spirit beast pouch. It churned and roiled before a monstrous bird over ten feet tall materialized above it.
The bird was wreathed in black mist, its eyes a sinister green, crowned with a vivid red fleshy crest. Its appearance was exceedingly ugly and fierce. The instant it took shape, it let out a piercing, grating shriek and fixed Han Li with a vicious stare, seemingly possessed of considerable spiritual awareness.