"It's a Barbarian Beastman! Kill it quickly — don't let it perform the Human-Beast Fusion technique!" The moment Daoist Ma caught sight of the creature's appearance, his face drained of color and he cried out in alarm, as though he had come face to face with a venomous serpent.
At the words "Barbarian Beastman," the blue-eyed giant and the others all showed looks of horror on their faces.
Without a second thought, they activated various ancient treasures rarely seen in the outside world — a "ruler," a "seal," a "banner," and more — each transforming into orbs of multicolored light and shooting outward simultaneously.
Under the flashing spiritual radiance, the powerful energies of these treasures engulfed both the strange figure and the enormous beast below in an instant.
It was clear that Han Li's subordinates truly feared these alien beings known as Barbarian Beastmen to an extraordinary degree.
What puzzled the blue-eyed giant and the others, however, was that Han Li showed no intention of making a move. After exposing the Barbarian Beastman's transformation, he simply floated to the side with his hands clasped behind his back, giving every impression that he was leaving everything to them.
The blue-eyed giant and his companions felt a mixture of frustration and unease, but the counterattack from the strange figure below left them no opportunity to ask Han Li anything.
The strange figure let out an eerie laugh, jerked its shoulders, and the yellow hurricane once again materialized around it. With a sweeping motion, the vortex surged upward to meet the incoming attacks. At the same time, the monstrous beast below abruptly emitted a brilliant emerald glow across its entire body, and dozens more fleshy tentacles — identical to the ones already extended — thrust out from beneath its form.
These tentacles waved through the air, transforming into a hazy green blur of light and shadow, and combined with the hurricane to attack the figures in the sky.
Whether it was the lightning, raging fire, or other elemental attacks unleashed by the treasures, or the crisscrossing waves of sword qi and blade light — the moment any of them touched the hurricane, they dissolved into nothingness as if swallowed by the sea. And when they collided with the green luminescence, they were simply deflected back.
The blue-eyed giant and his group scrambled in a panic, too busy defending themselves to worry about anything else.
While Han Li watched the battle unfold from the sidelines, utterly unmoved, no one noticed that the small silver fish in the pool below had at some point congregated into two large clusters. A faint silver gleam flickered, and suddenly they transformed into a pair of silver eyes.
Almost simultaneously, the surface of the water — which had appeared perfectly calm — rippled, and a translucent maw several zhang long emerged, its interior filled with crystalline fangs as sharp as ice blades.
The pool itself had been an unknown, entirely transparent monster disguised as a body of water.
Now that this translucent leviathan stirred, it lunged upward toward Han Li in the sky.
Not only was it completely transparent, but its movements were utterly silent, as though it were a creature without physical form.
Han Li, however, continued gazing blankly at the battle raging on the other side, perfectly still, as though he had noticed nothing at all below.
In the span of a heartbeat, the translucent beast was less than a few zhang from Han Li. A flash of savage fury swept through its silver eyes, and its enormous jaws snapped open to clamp down on him.
A burst of gray light flickered behind Han Li's back. The Primordial Magnetic Light swept out in a strange arc, transforming into countless thin, elongated threads of light that shot straight downward.
The beast was startled and tried to dodge, but it was already too late!
A sound like rain lashing against a fence rang out as the gray, misty threads pierced clean through the creature's body. Then they coiled around it, binding the majority of its massive form into an inescapable net.
Han Li's figure blurred slightly, and he turned to face the beast with the swiftness of a ghost.
Without a word, he opened his mouth and spat out a small, dark mountain.
The mountain spun rapidly, expanding countless times its original size in an instant. It transformed into a colossal peak over a hundred zhang tall, appearing directly above the translucent beast.
The beast saw this and realized the direness of its situation. It frantically writhed and shuddered, desperately trying to break free.
Unfortunately, its true form was an aquatic-type exotic beast, bound within the Five Elements. How could it possibly break free of the Primordial Magnetic Light's restraint so easily?
The gray threads pulsed with flashing light, tightening their grip on the creature even further.
Meanwhile, Han Li was already murmuring an incantation under his breath.
After a deep, resonant hum, the massive peak plunged downward. The moment it made contact, it drove the beast hurtling from the sky toward the ground.
A tremendous boom shook the air.
The mountain peak slammed the beast more than halfway into the earth, pinning it firmly in the soil so that it could not move a single inch.
Only then did Han Li examine the creature with an expressionless face.
A furious roar erupted from behind him. Han Li's brow twitched slightly, and he slowly turned around.
It was the green-skinned strange figure — the one locked in a fierce battle with the blue-eyed giant and the others. Seeing that the translucent beast had been subdued by Han Li, it let out a chilling shriek of alarm.
The figure stopped controlling the hurricane above its head and ceased its entanglement with the blue-eyed giant's group. Instead, it slapped the massive beast beneath it with one hand, and its body plummeted downward at tremendous speed, vanishing into the beast's form in the blink of an eye.
"No good — he's trying to fuse with it! Stop him!" The blue-eyed giant had felt a moment of relief watching Han Li deal with the other creature so effortlessly, but the sight of the green figure's actions wiped the smile from his face, replacing it with intense alarm.
The youth surnamed Ying and the others jolted at his words. They frantically poured spiritual energy into their treasures, causing their power to surge dramatically in an instant.
In just a moment, the uncontrolled yellow hurricane was shattered by the combined assault of the treasures. But in that brief delay, the emerald glow across the surface of the beast below flickered, and its body began to distort and reshape.