Immediately, the blood light hummed and shot back toward him, circling once before obediently landing in his palm.
Meanwhile, Han Li raised his other hand, and with a soft hiss, purple flames instantly surfaced along his arm before spreading across his entire body and enveloping him completely.
A massive purple fireball plummeted straight down from the sky.
With a muffled boom, the fireball that Han Li had become treated the crimson molten lava as though it were nothing, plunging straight into the lava lake and vanishing from sight. The nearby lava splashed and sprayed in all directions for a moment, but the surface of the lake quickly returned to calm, as if nothing had happened.
By this point, Han Li had already dove more than ten zhang beneath the lava and was still sinking slowly under the protection of the purple flames.
Though immersed in lava, the Purple Extreme Flames were an extreme-cold flame, and naturally warded off all the intense heat with ease, keeping it entirely outside the purple fire.
After Han Li had descended a full two hundred zhang or so, he finally reached the lakebed, his feet landing firmly on solid ground covered with black rocks.
He glanced around, but everything in sight was crimson red — not a single other color could be seen.
Han Li furrowed his brow and channeled spiritual energy into both eyes. Instantly, a blue glow flickered in the depths of his pupils. He had activated his Clearbright Spirit Eyes.
After scanning the surroundings once more with his enhanced vision, Han Li held up the blood-colored jade disc in his hand.
The disc trembled the moment it was raised, shaking ceaselessly toward a particular direction as though trying to break free from his grasp.
Han Li immediately flew slowly in that direction. After covering a considerable distance, the disc stopped trembling — but then abruptly plummeted downward.
Han Li's quick hands snatched the disc before it could escape the range of the purple flames. He lowered his head and peered intently at what lay below.
His expression shifted. He raised his hand, and a blinding streak of golden light shot forth, slashing straight down toward the lakebed beneath him.
With a thunderous boom, what had appeared to be an ordinary lakebed was suddenly cleaved open by the golden sword qi, revealing a massive rift seven or eight zhang long.
From within the rift, a hazy blue radiance immediately poured forth, pushing the surrounding lava back and keeping it at bay.
Beneath this lakebed, there existed an additional layer of a light barrier restriction.
Han Li's heart surged with joy. Without a moment's hesitation, he descended toward the barrier.
The blue light barrier was clearly no formidable restriction. The moment the Purple Flames touched it, they bored through with ease, creating a hole roughly a zhang in diameter.
Han Li himself flickered and passed straight through into the barrier.
The blue barrier immediately sealed itself back up, once again blocking the lava on the outside.
But Han Li paid this no heed. Instead, he began looking around with careful scrutiny.
He now found himself inside an underground tunnel. Both the floor and the walls were pitted and uneven — thoroughly rough and irregular. It was clearly not man-made but rather a natural passage.
Without a word, Han Li tossed the jade disc ahead once more.
The disc immediately spun and transformed into a blood-red full moon, shooting deep into the tunnel.
Han Li, his expression blank, lifted off the ground and followed at a steady pace.
After flying a good five or six li, the tunnel began to slope upward. Once they had climbed another hundred zhang or so, light appeared ahead — they had finally reached the exit.
The blood moon flew out without hesitation.
But wariness flashed through Han Li's eyes. Silently, he flicked his sleeve, and a ball of three-colored light and flame tumbled down — the Three Flavors Fan.
He gripped the feather fan, his figure flickered, and in the next instant he was standing outside the exit, calmly sweeping his gaze in every direction.
It was pitch-black everywhere, but under the Clearbright Spirit Eyes, everything was perfectly clear.
This was a natural underground cavern, completely silent all around, seemingly devoid of any living soul.
The corner of Han Li's mouth twitched slightly as his gaze fell upon an exit at the far end of the cavern — it appeared to connect to yet another chamber beyond.
The blood-colored light was already streaking toward that exit, but it halted abruptly at the threshold, motionless, emitting a sharp, piercing hum.
Then a series of crisp cracking sounds rang out. Over a dozen fine black fractures appeared on the surface of the blood moon, and in the next instant, the object disintegrated into specks of faintly glowing light and dissipated completely.
Far from being alarmed, Han Li was delighted.
With just a few light, floating steps, he was suddenly at the entrance to the other cavern.
Inside was indeed a larger chamber than the one he had just left. But when he focused his gaze, he paused in mild surprise.
The entire cavern was filled with rolling billows of pitch-black mist, covering nearly every inch of the space. Yet the moment the mist reached the cavern's exit, it stopped dead, as if an invisible barrier at the otherwise empty entrance were holding it back.