Just as the Azure Dragon Master was forced to take the sect's outstanding disciples and secretly flee Yitian City through a secret teleportation array, heading toward Tianyuan City under cover of darkness, Han Li found himself plunged into one of the most perilous situations he had faced since entering the Spirit Realm.
Upon sensing that the temporary barrier formation he had laid to stall the enemy, along with the Jiayuan Talisman and the Nine Palaces Heavenly Origin Talisman, had all failed in quick succession, horror surged through him, and his heart sank to its deepest depths.
Although Han Li had never truly expected these measures to defeat his pursuer, he had never imagined they would fail to even slow down the Blood Light Sacred Ancestor's incarnation for the briefest of moments.
Moreover, both the formation and the two talismans—each one a remarkable treasure in its own right—had been shattered the very instant they were activated.
Such heaven-defying power was something Han Li himself could not achieve.
This meant that the Blood Light Sacred Ancestor's incarnation chasing after him was genuinely superior in strength, and even if he deployed all his trump cards, his chances of victory would be no better than fifty percent.
Under these circumstances, how could Han Li possibly engage in a direct, head-on confrontation?
After all, if he lost the battle, he would truly perish. And even if he somehow managed to kill his opponent, it would cost the Blood Light Sacred Ancestor nothing more than a single incarnation.
Such a lopsided trade was something he would never agree to.
Therefore, after a brief probe revealed that the force pursuing him was far stronger than he had anticipated, he immediately set aside all other considerations and began to devise a true escape strategy.
Although he did not know the exact range of the spiritual sense lock that the incarnation possessed, given the terrifying capabilities of a Mahayana cultivator, unless he could put a hundred thousand li between himself and his pursuer in a single burst, it would be absolutely impossible to shake off that faint, almost imperceptible lock.
But covering such an immense distance—unless the disparity in their movement speeds was truly vast, how could that be accomplished?
As the Kun Peng he had transformed into shot forward at blinding speed, a torrent of thoughts surged through his mind, and he racked his brains ceaselessly.
Han Li had no idea that the blood-drenched youth chasing just as relentlessly behind him was equally stunned!
The small blood-red boat beneath their feet was a famed flying treasure in the Demon Realm. At full power, its speed could even rival that of a Mahayana cultivator.
Though their incarnation bodies prevented them from unleashing the boat's full speed, even so, no ordinary Fusion-stage cultivator could hope to compare with its current velocity.
Yet despite pushing the treasure to its limits and chasing for this long without significantly closing the distance, they too felt a deep sense of frustration.
Fortunately, there were three of them, allowing them to take turns resting while propelling the blood-red boat forward. They had no fear of losing Han Li ahead due to magical power exhaustion. Though somewhat irritated, the three maintained their composed, unruffled demeanor.
But for Han Li, such a prolonged war of attrition was simply untenable.
Although he had his Spirit Body and the Dharma Idol Golden Body as aids, only in his Great Peng transformation could he maintain the current distance.
Medicines like the Ten-Thousand-Year Spirit Milk, which could instantly restore magical power, had long since become ineffective against the vast reserves of spiritual energy at their level.
Even with his own magical power, maintaining this transformation at full-powered flight—even while continuously consuming pills and absorbing spiritual energy from supreme-grade spirit stones simultaneously—he could hold out for five or six days at most before his power was completely exhausted.
So even as Han Li racked his brains in desperate contemplation, a thread of anxiety gnawed at him.
"Wait. This Blood Light Sacred Ancestor is hunting me down so relentlessly—it must be because of the Demon-Subduing Lock. If I were willing to abandon this treasure, it might be possible to lure the incarnation away!" A light suddenly sparked in Han Li's mind, and his thoughts cleared somewhat.
"But this treasure is an unfinished Profound Heavens Spirit Artifact. And if what Che Qigong, the one trapped inside, told me is true, the Chaos Yin-Yang Qi within would be of tremendous use to me. How could I bear to part with it so easily?" On reflection, Han Li was immediately filled with reluctance.
Although life naturally outweighed any treasure, he had not yet reached the point of utter desperation. How could he simply let go of such a supreme artifact without a fight?
Han Li's expression shifted between light and shadow as his mind wavered in indecision.
Then a cold glint flashed through his eyes as something suddenly occurred to him.
Instantly, within a certain spiritual sense space inside the body of the Great Peng he had become, light flickered, and two identical figures appeared simultaneously—one golden, one black.
The golden Nascent Soul appeared to be cloaked in brilliant golden light, but upon closer inspection, faint azure light could be seen circulating within it from time to time, as though its protective spiritual aura could switch freely between the two colors.
The black Nascent Soul, however, wore a cold, expressionless face. Its entire body was black as ink, shrouded in an incredibly dense demonic qi.
The golden Nascent Soul immediately opened its mouth and spat out over a dozen five-colored orbs. With a flash of radiance, they began circling around the golden Nascent Soul in a continuous orbit.
The black Nascent Soul lowered its gaze and pressed its hands together in seals, its lips moving ceaselessly as incantations flowed forth.
The five-colored orbs suddenly transformed into a cluster of five-colored eyes, blazing with radiance and shooting forth pillars of light the thickness of a finger. Each beam vanished into the black Nascent Soul in the blink of an eye.