Han Li formed a hand seal with one hand, and another white silhouette flew from his body. In a flash, it transformed into a woman dressed in white, but then flickered once more and vanished into the surrounding void.
Only after setting up so many contingencies in succession did he activate the Taiyi Body Transformation Talisman. With the silver talisman characters flashing, his figure turned invisible.
His incorporeal form drifted swiftly down one of the passageways, Han Li's face betraying not the slightest expression.
After turning through several bends in the corridor, a milky-white stone cavern finally appeared at the end.
Four faint, barely perceptible auras seeped from within.
Han Li narrowed his eyes slightly, but his figure drifted onward without the slightest pause.
Moments later, he had reached the vicinity of the cavern entrance and swept his gaze inside.
This cavern was remarkably large — several times the size of the previous ones, its vast interior of over a hundred zhang resembling a small plaza.
In the center of the plaza, a shimmering silver hemispherical barrier hung inverted like an enormous bowl, and within it, a golden-script stone wall similar to the ones from before could faintly be seen.
At the four corners of the plaza, a member of the Rong tribe sat cross-legged on the ground.
They formed a triangular formation — some with heads lowered, expressions deep in thought.
Others had their eyes wide open, fixed unblinkingly upon the silver barrier…
However, what made Han Li's heart tighten ever so slightly upon scanning them was a large Rong tribesman with both hands resting on his knees, eyes shut, his complexion tinged purple.
The big man wore an ordinary gray robe, yet carried an enormous, unrecognizable blade strapped to his back.
The blade's body was wrapped in a piece of yellow beast hide, leaving only its thick, long, dark handle exposed.
The entire blade towered well above the man himself — an extraordinarily conspicuous sight.
What drew Han Li's attention in particular was the faint layer of blood-colored luminescence emanating from the Rong tribesman's body — so dense it seemed almost tangible.
It was an exceptionally concentrated form of aberrant baleful energy.
The other three Rong tribesmen consisted of a youth clad in green leather armor and two elders — an old man and an old woman — their hair and beards streaked with gray.
These four alien beings, aside from being covered in long hair like the other Rong tribesmen outside, had heads that looked nothing like theirs — they closely resembled those of ordinary humans.
A cold gleam flashed through Han Li's pupils, and without a moment's hesitation, he drifted silently toward the big man.
This alien was clearly far more troublesome than the other three. His plan was to catch the man off guard and deliver a single killing blow, then deal with the remaining three at his leisure.
His incorporeal form moved as silently as the air itself, less than twenty-odd zhang from the big man and closing in steadily.
The big man sat cross-legged without stirring, utterly unaware that a harbinger of death was approaching.
The coldness on Han Li's face deepened, and the spiritual power within his body began to circulate silently.
But at that very moment, something entirely unexpected occurred.
The instant Han Li drifted within a dozen zhang of the big man, the massive blade on his back suddenly trembled and emitted a low hum.
Though the sound was not particularly loud, in this place of utter silence, the hum was jarring to the extreme.
The other three Rong tribesmen were startled, and in an instant, all their gazes snapped toward the big man.
The big man's eyes snapped open as well, a piercing golden glint flashing through his pupils, and one hand shot out in a lightning-fast grab at empty air.
The massive blade appeared in his grip as if from nowhere, and with a single shake, the beast hide shattered apart, piece by piece.
The blade then transformed into a vortex of dark, churning wind and swept savagely forward.
Thunderous rumbling roared through the black gale, which seemed to envelope some savage, fanged beast within — a display of overwhelming force.
Han Li's expression shifted, and he silently cursed his bad luck. He had run into an exceedingly rare spiritual treasure capable of issuing automatic warnings — most likely, the blade was also an item from the Chaos Myriad Spirit Ranking.
A flash of golden light flickered across his body as his form materialized, and he raised both arms simultaneously.
One hand turned over, suddenly producing a short silver ruler, which he waved gently toward the black hurricane.
Countless afterimages of the ruler surged forth, then converged within the flashing silver light into a single enormous ruler-shaped shadow, which cleaved downward with a roar of wind and thunder.
A deafening, earth-shattering boom erupted.
The silver light and black wind detonated simultaneously, sending waves of air blasting in all directions, as the silver ruler and a door-plank-sized blade collided in the same instant,
The runes on their surfaces flickered erratically, radiating astonishing spiritual pressure while emitting bursts of humming — for a moment, neither could gain the upper hand.
Han Li's other palm tapped lightly against the void.
A small black mountain was summoned forth, and after a single flash, it vanished into the void.
The next instant, spatial ripples stirred above the big man's head, and a black mountain peak roughly a zhang tall materialized out of thin air, plummeting down with fierce momentum.
"Hm?"
An exclamation of surprise escaped the Rong tribesman's lips as a trace of alarm finally crossed his face, though a sinister grin immediately appeared at the corner of his mouth. With one hand forming a seal, a thick layer of blood-red baleful energy surged from his body.
The baleful energy shot skyward, condensed, and coalesced into a massive blood-red hand, its five fingers spreading wide as it reached up to catch the black mountain.
A muffled boom!
The moment the fingers of the great hand made contact with the base of the mountain, they sank abruptly, immediately showing signs of buckling under the strain.