Time trickled by. After several moments, the invisible pressure suffusing the Void Seed grew steadily heavier, until the thin layer of ice and snow that had just formed on the hilltop began to emit strange cracking sounds.
Boom! A deafening explosion!
The black vortex overhead shuddered, and a bolt of lightning as thick as a water barrel plummeted from its center. Wherever it passed, a searing heat rippled through the void before it plunged straight into the other vortex within the enormous pit.
The massive silver arc vanished in a flash. The mist around the vortex churned violently, and a deep roar—as if rising from the depths of an abyss—sounded without warning, brimming with boundless agony.
Immediately, another roar thundered from underground, and a terrifying wave of energy surged outward from the pit.
The entire hilltop began to tremble!
The incredibly thick, crystalline ice layer covering the ground cracked open countless tiny fissures under the violent tremors, shattering inch by inch.
But just then, the black vortex high in the sky flickered with electrical light, and another massive silver arc coalesced, hurtling downward without the slightest hesitation.
Just as this bolt was about to strike the pit as well, an angry roar erupted from the mist below. A ball of milky-yellow flame shot out and met the lightning head-on.
The two collided instantly.
Though the yellow flame blazed like a raging inferno, it radiated a shocking, bone-piercing cold. As the firelight flickered, ghostly faces periodically materialized within it, making it look utterly grotesque and terrifying!
A muffled boom—and both the silver arc and the flame collapsed and dissipated at the same time.
"Yellow Springs Earthfire? No—that can't be right. A mere trickle of earthfire shouldn't possess such overwhelming power!"
But at that moment, a voice transmission from the Heavenly Cicada suddenly reached his ear, dripping with amazement:
"This Huangliang Stone Spirit truly lives up to its reputation as a spirit that has cultivated within Yellow Springs Earthfire for tens of thousands of years. It has already merged some of the earthfire with its own demonic qi, transforming them into a formidable divine ability. Benefactor Han, when you face this spirit shortly, be extra cautious of its demonic fire."
"Many thanks for the warning, Master. I will certainly be careful." Han Li felt a chill run through him and sent a grateful reply.
The lightning bolts from the vortex above fell one after another, their frequency steadily increasing. Yet the yellow demonic fire erupting from the bottom of the pit was no slower—ball after ball of flame shot upward, blocking every single strike, rendering the thunderbolts completely ineffective.
However, this defiance clearly enraged some unseen force in the heavens.
The black vortex overhead writhed, and the lightning arcs ceased.
But the next instant, a deep rumble echoed from within the vortex, and silver thunderballs the size of human heads materialized one after another, crackling and sparking amid the black clouds. They densely packed the sky—no one could tell how many there were.
This awe-inspiring spectacle clearly forced the Stone Spirit below to abandon its concealment in the mist.
With a strange cry, the yellow mist churned violently, and a creature roughly a foot tall shot out from the bottom of the enormous pit. It flashed through the air and hovered in the void roughly a hundred zhang above the pit floor.
Its round eyes stared up at the thunderballs overhead as it let out a low "gu-gu" cry, looking as though it were facing its greatest enemy.
Han Li gazed carefully from outside the hilltop.
He saw that the creature had an enormous mouth, four slender limbs, and a thick, short neck that merged almost seamlessly with its body—it was roughly seven or eight parts reminiscent of a toad. However, right in the center of its forehead grew an additional blood-red eye, its skin gleamed with golden radiance, and instead of the flat webbed feet of an ordinary toad, its four limbs ended in what appeared to be razor-sharp claws.
"So this is the Huangliang Stone Spirit! It really is quite the peculiar-looking thing!" Han Li marveled inwardly.
The very instant the Stone Spirit's true form appeared, the thunderballs overhead seemed to receive an enormous stimulus. With a tremendous roar, they all plunged downward in unison.
In the blink of an eye, the entire hilltop was blanketed in a dense web of lightning, as if countless thunderbolts and hailstones were raining from the sky at once.
Seeing this, the Huangliang Stone Spirit's eyes darted around, its low cries ceased, and it opened its mouth to spit out a single small yellow petal.
The petal shimmered with hazy yellow light, its surface covered in five-colored runes. As it caught the wind, it swelled to over a zhang in size, shielding the Stone Spirit's body completely.
This bizarre giant petal was obviously no ordinary item!
The moment it was released, the thunderballs in the sky locked onto their target and barreled toward the Stone Spirit—all at once. Several, even a dozen or more, crashed into the yellow petal simultaneously.
The petal rotated slowly, and as the five-colored runes on its surface flared, every single thunderball flashed once and vanished into it without a sound, as if swallowed by an ocean without a trace.
Even more astonishing, each time the petal devoured a wave of thunderballs, its petals visibly expanded by another size.
After a dozen or so waves, the yellow petal had grown to more than twice its original size.
With that, its speed of devouring the thunderballs increased enormously. In mere moments, the sky full of thunderballs was vacuumed clean into the petal.
And the Huangliang Stone Spirit hiding beneath the petal appeared to be completely unscathed. Upon seeing the petal's current state, it even let out a delighted, clear cry.
The Stone Spirit's belly bulged, then it sucked in sharply toward the sky, drawing the giant petal overhead back into its stomach as a stream of iridescent light.
A peal of thunder!
Lightning flashed across the Stone Spirit's body, and over a dozen massive silver arcs surged wildly outward from within it. They intertwined, crackling and snapping across its form, forming a layer of silver lightning net.
The spirit grew wildly within the thunderlight. In the span of just a few breaths, it swelled to the size of a young calf, its aura surging dramatically. All three eyes snapped open as it let out another strange cry—it seemed to have advanced significantly in cultivation!