Four arms swayed slightly.
One golden arm moved, its fist scattering the prismatic light before his eyes. Another golden arm sliced through the void, and dense golden palm shadows immediately materialized, easily blocking the sky-full of azure radiance.
At the same time, the other two golden arms aimed their ten fingers at the two Wood Spirits and flicked, sending ten streaks of golden sword qi shooting forth — arriving before the pair in the blink of an eye.
The two Wood Spirits were startled. One conjured azure wooden armor over its body while the other produced a yellow wooden shield in its hand, both attempting to block the sword light simultaneously.
But these ten streaks of sword qi were transformed from Han Li's Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords — what formidable things they were.
With just a flash, they sliced clean through both Wood Spirits along with their defenses.
The bodies of the two Wood Spirits instantly split into several pieces.
But Han Li was far from done. The two manifested palms continued to flick one after another without pause, and dense sword light surged forth in torrents. In the blink of an eye, the two Wood Spirits were swallowed by golden radiance, and two bursts of blood rain immediately showered down.
Only then did Han Li draw a deep breath. His two trapped arms suddenly shook, and a strange ripple-like golden light appeared across them.
The moment the body of the Wood Spirit that had been gripping Han Li's hands — along with the azure spear — touched this golden light, it began trembling and cracking inch by inch, ultimately crumbling into a wisp of azure wooden powder that dissipated with the wind.
Han Li withdrew his hands. The golden light over his body dimmed, and the other four hazy golden arms vanished with a flash.
To deal with mere Nascent Soul-level beings, he had been forced to resort to the second stage of the True Devil Art. It was truly overkill.
However, his cultivation in this technique was still shallow, and he could not yet unleash its true divine powers. It was not something he could use in direct combat against powerful enemies — it could only produce some surprising effects by catching opponents off guard.
But once his cultivation advanced to Void Refinement and he cultivated the third stage of the technique, with both body and dharma refined together, the power of this True Devil Art would be unimaginably vast — certainly not inferior to any so-called top-grade cultivation technique.
On this point, he was quite confident.
As Han Li pondered this, he once again transformed into a streak of azure rainbow and shot away.
Along the way, Han Li encountered several more waves of interception by Wood Race cultivators.
But these Wood Race members were all relatively low in cultivation — mostly Wood Spirits equivalent to the Nascent Soul stage, with some even lower-ranked ones appearing among them.
Against these Wood Spirits, Han Li avoided them whenever possible. When that proved impossible, he employed thunderous methods to kill them outright, giving them absolutely no time to entangle him.
After hurtling through the air for the better part of half a day, Han Li finally ran into serious trouble.
Before him had appeared two Wood Spirits wearing purple sashes — one broad and sturdy, the other slender and graceful. They were unmistakably a male and a female.
And behind the pair stood four Wood Ape Beasts with silver-white fur, each seven or eight zhang in length, every one gripping a massive yellow staff.
These four Wood Apes had piercing gazes, all fixed upon Han Li. They seemed remarkably spirited, as if they had awakened sentience, and they faintly emanated an aura of extreme danger — a threat that appeared no less than the two purple-sashed Wood Spirit cultivators before them.
And these two purple-sashed Wood Spirits were already equivalent to human cultivators at the Deity Transformation stage — equally not to be trifled with.
Han Li was now less than ten thousand li from the edge of the Black Leaf Forest. Eager to escape this dangerous territory immediately, he had no intention of tangling with these opponents. The moment he was blocked, a murderous aura surfaced on his face as he stared at the two cultivators and four apes before him, his expression frigid.
Abruptly, he reached behind his head with one hand, and a vast expanse of gray light surged skyward. After spiraling about, it suddenly coalesced into an enormous ring of light of truly extraordinary thickness — some twenty to thirty zhang in diameter. It rotated with a whirring hum in the air, instantly drawing the full attention of every enemy before him.
Simultaneously, he flicked one sleeve, and seventy-two small swords shot out soundlessly, silently scattering in every direction.
He actually intended to use the Celestial Moratic Light to fix his opponents in place, then deploy the Great Elemental Sword Formation to annihilate all of these formidable enemies in one stroke.
…
At the same time, Xiao Hong hovered in midair, her face drained of color, her eyes locked unblinkingly on the several green silhouettes that had materialized before her.
Three Wood Spirits wearing purple sashes!
…
In another direction, the golden light that was Long Dong continued its unabated flight. Behind his streak of escaping radiance, a golden-yellow Wood Ape with fur like molten gold pursued relentlessly — a massive black axe resting on its shoulder, five-colored light swirling ceaselessly around its body, chasing him like a meteor pursuing the moon.
Long Dong within the golden light had already dispersed the form of the black-clawed golden dragon, but after glancing back at the ferocious golden-furred Wood Ape behind him, he showed not the slightest intention of stopping to fight. Instead, he drove his escaping light even harder.
Just over a hundred li ahead lay the very edge of the Black Leaf Forest.
…
A white rainbow streaked through the sky with a piercing shriek, while several li behind it, a silver light pursued relentlessly. Both flickered in and out of visibility, and in the blink of an eye, they had traversed a thousand zhang.
Though the white rainbow could not shake off the silver light for the time being, the silver light was likewise unable to close the distance.
The two streaks of escaping light swept past and burst free of the forest zone, leaving the Black Leaf Forest far behind.
…
Han Li hovered in midair, watching as the countless golden threads of the sword formation converged into a single mass, finally slicing the last remaining silver-furred Wood Ape into countless pieces with ease. He then let out a soft sigh, formed hand seals with both hands, and uttered the word "Return."