However, the moment his body was swept by the five-colored radiance, the surrounding space instantly hardened like tempered steel. At the same time, an enormous force crashed down upon his body, pinning him so completely that he couldn't move a single inch.
Five bolts of purple lightning serpents flashed and shot outward with a deafening peal of thunder.
Han Li's life was suddenly in mortal peril.
But he was no ordinary being. The pallor on his face vanished in the next instant, replaced by a glint of cold in his eyes. A snort escaped his nose.
A flash of golden light surged across his body, and the phantom projection of a three-headed, six-armed dharma form materialized once more.
But this time, the dharma form was entirely different from before.
The projection itself blazed with dazzling brilliance, as though coated in a layer of gold lacquer — like a statue forged from pure gold.
This was the Golden Body of the dharma form that Han Li had only just finished cultivating.
At that very moment, Han Li opened his mouth and spat out a sphere of black light. It flashed once and transformed into a wisp of black qi that sank directly into the Golden Body.
One of the three heads on the dharma form — whose eyes had been somewhat vacant before — suddenly became sharp and alive, with a faint layer of dark mist drifting across its face.
Its massive frame lurched forward, and the towering golden figure several zhang tall planted itself squarely in front of Han Li.
Several arcs of purple lightning had already flashed toward him, but the Golden Body showed no mercy — all five of its arms swung in unison.
A series of muffled booms rang out as five pillars of golden light erupted from its palms, hurtling directly to meet the attack.
Gold and purple collided in a furious burst not far away.
Though the purple lightning was formidable, the golden pillars shattered nearly half of it on contact — though the pillars themselves dissipated in the process.
At this rate, Han Li merely needed to have the Golden Body unleash one more round of attacks, and he could break free from danger.
But the remnants of the lightning gave the Golden Body no chance to strike again.
With a sharp crackling hiss, the purple lightning serpents flickered once more and materialized with eerie speed right before him, hammering down with vicious force.
But in that split second before death, all of the Golden Body's arms blurred — and vanished from where they had been.
An instant later, five purple lightning arcs trembled as five golden hands seized them outright, emerging from the empty air without the slightest warning.
They had simply materialized from the void, utterly without preamble.
The five fingers clamped down, and after a series of thunderclaps, the lightning arcs were forcibly crushed apart.
Countless threads of electricity burst outward, a small portion striking the Golden Body's golden torso directly. But the threads dispersed the moment they made contact, utterly incapable of dealing any damage whatsoever.
However, on the five pillars in the distance, the rumbling of thunder continued unabated, and five more arcs of lightning were already beginning to coalesce, poised to fire once more.
But that brief delay was more than enough for Han Li, who had been temporarily trapped by the five-colored barrier.
With his formidable physical body and his arsenal of techniques and powers, there was no way he could truly be held inside such a restriction.
His lips moved rapidly as he chanted an incantation. The demonic armor on his body circulated with waves of black light, and his frame suddenly surged to an enormous size as a layer of coarse, golden-yellow fur erupted across his entire body.
His eyes flashed with a blue glow, and two fangs jutted out from the sides of his mouth.
He had transformed into a colossal ape more than ten zhang tall.
Blue eyes, golden fur, fangs bristling from its maw — the sight was nothing short of monstrous.
Yet behind those cold, clear eyes, one could still clearly discern the shadow of the original Han Li, his expression as calm and composed as before the transformation.
The Heavenly Demon Armor on the ape's body had grown with it, and the barbs on its surface had stretched to over a foot in length, gleaming with a terrifying cold light that sent chills down the spine of anyone who laid eyes on it.
This was the Illusory Transformation of the Mountain Ape from the newly refined Scouring Revelations Art.
The moment he took the form of the giant ape, Han Li felt a surge of heat gush forth from his Dantian, racing through every one of his Meridians.
His physical toughness seemed to have increased by forty to fifty percent in an instant.
Han Li's body had already been extraordinarily powerful — and now, with a further boost of nearly half again, the sheer terror of it was beyond imagination.
In the next moment, the giant ape he had become displayed earth-shaking might.
A deep roar rumbled from its throat as both fur-covered arms swept violently upward.
The five-colored barrier pinning him shuddered violently and then scattered with a resounding crash.
Han Li was free.
But the five-colored radiance in the distance not far away flashed once more, rolling and surging back toward him without so much as a breath's respite.
The giant ape turned without hesitation toward the silver flame bird soaring high above, pointing one hand at it while the other clawed through the air toward the dark mountain peak to one side.