Han Li delayed only briefly near the mouth of the gorge before sensing more than ten spiritual sweeps pass over him in quick succession.
He remained outwardly unmoved for a short while, turning away several small groups who had recognized him as a high-ranking body cultivator and hurried over to invite him along. Only after refusing them all did he drift casually into the gorge itself.
This gorge was merely one of several entrances to the Tomb of the Setting Sun on the human side. The other passages had been sealed off artificially by cultivators using a variety of extraordinary formations. Naturally, this sole remaining entrance was garrisoned by cultivators from Setting Sun City, whose specific duty was to monitor conditions and guard against any untoward incidents. They were all concealed, of course — and rumor had it that even the weakest among them possessed Core Formation cultivation, with a Deity Transformation stage expert presiding over the garrison.
As he advanced at a leisurely pace through the gorge, Han Li turned over in his mind the intelligence he had gathered over the past several days regarding the Tomb of the Setting Sun.
Beneath his green robe, he wore a drab, inconspicuous suit of battle armor. Strapped to his back was a long spear, its tip wrapped in strips of cloth. The shaft was a deep, dark black, but at its base several blue crystals were set in a row, giving off a faint, ghostly glow. The spear itself was a pale silver, its forging material impossible to identify at a glance. As for that length of Earth Dragon sinew, it was wound several times around his wrist, thoroughly hidden beneath his sleeve.
Of course, the true trump cards Han Li relied on — the very reason he dared risk entering the Tomb of the Setting Sun — were the two Immortal-Slaying Beads stored in his storage bracelet. With these two treasures in hand, so long as he did not encounter anything at the Void Refinement stage or above, his survival was virtually assured.
The gorge grew steadily wider. After Han Li had traveled over a hundred li, even the faint trace of a path finally vanished altogether.
He stopped and cast his gaze around, then let out a soft sigh. With his spiritual sense unable to extend outward, things were truly inconvenient. Unable to assess his surroundings properly, he simply picked a direction at random and set off.
For the first several days, nothing out of the ordinary occurred. Aside from the occasional small beast darting past and the odd snake or insect, he neither encountered any spirit beasts nor came across any other people. Given the vastness of this region, that was hardly surprising.
But on the fifth day, a primeval forest of seemingly endless expanse materialized before Han Li. The trees all soared to heights of thirty or forty zhang, their branches and leaves thick and luxuriant, casting everything into cool, dim shade. From deep within, the occasional low rumble of beast calls could be faintly heard.
Han Li narrowed his eyes and studied the forest for a moment, then abruptly strode forward into it. After a few flickering movements, his figure vanished behind the towering trees.
With his current physical power, employing the Gauze Mist Footwork he had practiced back in his mortal days, Han Li moved through the forest like a specter despite the tangled vines and dense undergrowth, as though his body had become formless and intangible. Were any other body cultivators or cultivators to witness this sight, they would be exceedingly reluctant to provoke Han Li lightly in this kind of terrain.
Suddenly, while on the move, a flash of silver light shot from his body. A silver thread lanced outward, circled around a massive tree trunk several zhang in diameter nearby, and then flew back to him.
A shrill, wretched roar erupted from behind the tree, followed by a rush of foul wind. A towering yellow bear some two zhang tall, a single horn jutting from its forehead, burst out from behind the trunk and lunged savagely toward Han Li.
But Han Li flickered several times and was already several zhang away, showing no inclination whatsoever to stop. He treated the bear as though it did not exist.
With a wet thud, the bear had barely charged a few steps before blood sprayed into the air. Its body split cleanly in two from the waist down. And behind it, the enormous tree let out a muffled crack as its trunk divided in half, the upper portion toppling over and covering the bear's corpse.
In a single strike, Han Li had simultaneously severed the great tree and slain the bear. But the silver thread formed from the Earth Dragon sinew was simply too sharp — only now did its full lethality become apparent.
By this time, Han Li had already flickered away and vanished once more into the depths of the primeval forest.
And so Han Li's campaign of slaughter within the Tomb of the Setting Sun truly began.
Three months later, deep within a range of unfamiliar mountains, a series of thunderous booms, piercing shrieks, and savage roars resounded in a chaotic tangle. Then, with one final, tremendous detonation, everything fell silent once more.
At the spot where the noise had just erupted, Han Li stood atop a fallen log some ten-odd zhang above the ground, his hands clasped behind his back, his expression perfectly calm.
All around him, the bodies of green-furred apes lay scattered in every direction — more than twenty of them in all.