After taking over a dozen consecutive volleys of lightning balls, his Magical Power had been depleted by more than half in the blink of an eye, yet the tribulation clouds overhead showed no signs whatsoever of relenting.
Han Li's face had turned rather pale.
Although he possessed numerous miraculous techniques, very few of them could truly stand up to a heavenly tribulation. The flame bird formed from the Spirit-Devouring Heavenly Fire, for instance, had retreated into his newly cultivated Nascent Soul the moment the tribulation began and was completely impossible to summon forth.
As for the Five-Element Demons and the various spirit creatures such as Ti Hun, they were equally terrified under this tribulation, looking utterly useless.
The Eight Spirit Ruler and the Six Heavenly Shield Talisman, among other treasures, had already been destroyed back at the spatial node. Otherwise, they would have been excellent tools for weathering a heavenly tribulation.
The only countermeasures left to him now numbered a mere two or three — all of them last resorts he had been saving for emergencies. But it was becoming clear that he would have no choice but to employ them.
Still, how could the Spirit Realm's lesser heavenly tribulation be this terrifying? If they were all this fearsome, how had the other Deity Transformation cultivators managed to survive theirs? He refused to believe that every single one of them was vastly stronger than him. There had to be some trick to weathering the tribulation — some secret he was unaware of.
He felt thoroughly frustrated, and at the same time, he secretly regretted not having inquired more thoroughly about the lesser heavenly tribulation beforehand.
What Han Li did not realize was that the tribulation he was experiencing had already far surpassed the scope of a lesser heavenly tribulation.
It was only because he possessed several heaven-defying abilities and simultaneously wielded supreme-grade treasures like the Void Heaven Cauldron and the Celestial Magnetite Mountain that he was still holding on. Any ordinary Deity Transformation cultivator would have been obliterated into ash the moment the first wave of lightning arcs descended.
Now he took a deep, steadying breath, and a faint blood-colored glow flickered across his body, as though something were about to surface from within him.
It was at this moment that, several li away from where Han Li was enduring his tribulation, the fabric of space rippled, brilliant light blazed forth, and a milky-white formation array materialized out of thin air.
The array was over ten zhang in diameter, its runic symbols drifting lazily through it, flashing with piercing brilliance.
Although Han Li had devoted the greater part of his spiritual sense to withstanding the tribulation, such a bizarre phenomenon could hardly escape his notice.
A chill ran through his heart. The blood-colored glow that had just surfaced on his body vanished in a flash. At the same time, he continued to deflect the lightning balls with the Celestial Magnetite Light while turning his head to cast a cold gaze toward the array.
Small wonder Han Li was so cautious. This was the critical juncture of his tribulation, and the sudden appearance of something so strange and unheard-of nearby naturally put him on high alert.
Yet this light array looked somewhat familiar — as if it were…
Han Li swept the array with his spiritual sense, and a flicker of realization passed through his mind.
The milky-white array emitted a low hum, then the white light flashed, and a square golden boat materialized within the array in an utterly inconceivable manner.
The boat appeared to be forged from pure gold, exquisitely crafted, but its entire surface was covered in dense, silvery runic script.
The moment Han Li clearly recognized those runes, his expression changed drastically.
"Silver Toad Script!" It was actually one of the celestial scripts of the Immortal Realm!
The golden boat measured five or six zhang across, its surface entirely inscribed with spiritual runes and incantations, and that enormous light array was actually a teleportation formation capable of manifesting something from nothing.
Han Li felt a wave of shock wash over him.
What astonished him even more was that at the center of the golden boat sat a hemispherical yellow barrier of light, its walls extraordinarily dense and thick. Even with the formidable power of his spiritual sense, he could not penetrate it in the slightest.
No sooner had the golden boat fully revealed its form than the teleportation array beneath it began to crack apart, fragment by fragment. At the same moment, the yellow light barrier at the boat's center vanished abruptly, revealing two cultivators clad in golden battle armor.
One was somewhat older, in his fifties or sixties perhaps, sporting a small goatee, while the other appeared to be around thirty, his face pale and clean-shaven.
The golden battle armor worn by both cultivators was similarly inscribed with Silver Toad Script, and faint runic symbols drifted about them from time to time — one glance was enough to tell how precious those two suits of armor were.
After a single sweep of his spiritual sense to gauge their cultivation, the Celestial Magnetite Light above Han Li's head trembled violently and nearly collapsed on the spot.
Refinement Void cultivators! And one of them was a mid-stage Refinement Void cultivator!
Beings of that rank — how could they appear here, and at precisely the moment he was undergoing his heavenly tribulation? Could they have come specifically for him?
Han Li fixed his gaze on the two of them, his expression growing rather grim.
The yellow-robed cultivator and the others in the distance had naturally also witnessed the sudden appearance of the golden boat and the two golden-armored cultivators.
The Core Formation cultivators stared blankly, utterly bewildered by what was happening. But the moment the Fire Elder laid eyes on the scene, his expression shifted as though he had seen a ghost, and he immediately cried out in a shrill voice:
"The Golden Court Boat — the Heavenly Abyss Guards!" His voice had gone sharp and high-pitched.
"The Heavenly Abyss Guards? Are you seniors from the Heavenly Abyss Divine City?" The yellow-robed cultivator's face turned snow-white upon hearing this, his expression one of utter disbelief.