The woman gave a faint nod and said nothing further. With a flick of her sleeve, two streams of white radiance swept out and flashed into the bodies of the two giants.
The giants' frames crackled and popped as they retracted their towering transformation technique. Their bodies rapidly shrank down, and in the span of a single breath transformed into two grey-white stone spheres the size of a fist. The spheres flew toward the woman and vanished into her sleeve without a trace.
Only then did the woman stamp her foot once. A mass of dark clouds materialized beneath her, enveloping her form before hurtling toward the distant horizon in a particular direction.
At the same moment, Han Li's physical body — seated in cross-legged meditation beside the massive pit — stirred. His eyelids twitched, and he slowly opened his eyes, an odd expression on his face.
His Nascent Soul had already returned to its seat, and he had drawn his spiritual sense avatar back from the Demon-Sealing Lock.
"Judging by how those two old demons acted, this Chaos Qi is clearly of extreme importance to them both — otherwise they wouldn't have nearly come to blows inside while in Primordial Spirit form. The two old demons won't try to break free from the Demon-Sealing Lock the moment they obtain the Chaos Qi, will they… Impossible! The Demon-Sealing Lock is indeed an unfinished Profound Heavens treasure, so no matter how heaven-defying the Chaos Qi might be, it couldn't possibly produce that kind of effect. Those two old monsters must have some other scheme, but since I've already sworn a Heart Demon oath to both of them inside, it wouldn't be easy to break my word." Han Li's expression turned somber, and he murmured a few words in a voice too low to be heard.
"Heh heh, forget it! Once I hand over the Chaos Qi to the two demons, I'll find a way to throw the Demon-Sealing Lock back into the Demon Realm. I'll have to make a trip there eventually anyway — I can deal with this thing on-site. They're only two Primordial Spirits without physical bodies, and once this demon tribulation ends, it'll be who knows how many tens of thousands of years before the next opening. Who cares what the two demons do once they're free in the Demon Realm." Han Li suddenly let out a cold laugh, seemingly having made up his mind in an instant.
With that decision made, Han Li wasted no more time. He pointed a finger at the white wooden box before him.
With a whoosh, the box shot toward the center of the massive pit and came to a trembling halt, suspended in the empty air at its midpoint.
Han Li took a deep breath, formed a one-handed seal, and began murmuring an incantation.
After a short while, a Dharma manifestation with three heads and six arms materialized behind him. The six arms moved in unison, each forming their own seals, and simultaneously sheets of golden radiance rolled up from his body and, flickering, plunged one after another into the wooden box.
In an instant, the originally milky-white box turned resplendent with golden light, as if it had been forged from pure gold.
Just then, a layer of blue-green light flickered across Han Li's face. With a low cry, he pointed a finger at the box once more, and a thread of silver flame shot from his fingertip, striking the box and wrapping it in its embrace.
At that same moment, the six eyes of the golden Dharma manifestation behind Han Li snapped open. Its form swayed, and it stepped forward on its own. In a few flickers it crossed more than a dozen zhang, arriving before the blazing box. Its two great hands reached out and seized the box in a firm grip.
Golden light flashing, the manifestation carried the box and began slowly descending toward the bottom of the pit.
Though its speed was not great, in just a few breaths the golden manifestation sank into the mist and vanished from sight.
Han Li's chanting continued without pause, and his hand seals remained in motion. But after a short time, his body trembled, and an indescribable aura of yin-cold radiated outward from him.
A flash of yellow light flickered across the ground near where he sat, and a thin layer of pale yellow frost crystallized out of thin air.
After another stretch of time, the blue-green glow on Han Li's face gradually faded, and his entire body was enveloped in a layer of yellow radiance.
His hair, face, and even his limbs were similarly covered by a layer of yellow frost.
Meanwhile, the yellow mist at the bottom of the pit churned violently, and from deep underground came rumbling booms, as though something was detonating ceaselessly in the depths — a sound that left any listener deeply perplexed.
Han Li's expression remained unchanged, as though he cared nothing for the yin-cold or the thunderous explosions from the subterranean fires. He silently drove his secret technique forward without a moment's rest.
Time crept by, one small bit at a time, and continued for seven days and seven nights.
Han Li remained seated cross-legged at the edge of the pit without having moved a single inch. Only his own unfathomably deep magical power and a physical body and spiritual sense that far surpassed those of ordinary beings could have sustained him; anyone else would have long since collapsed.
Even so, he felt his magical power depleted by no small amount and his body weary.
But by now the thunderous booming from the pit's depths had long since ceased, and the churning of the yellow mist had slowed considerably — clearly the secret technique had entered its final stage and was about to conclude.
Suddenly, a muffled thunderclap boomed from the pit's bottom. Ten thousand rays of golden light erupted upward, piercing straight through layer upon layer of mist and, for a moment, illuminating the entire massive pit with extraordinary brilliance and dazzling splendor.
"It's done!" Han Li cried, his spirits soaring at the sight. He couldn't help but let out an excited shout.
If he could obtain this Chaos Qi, breaking through to late-stage Body Integration in the short term would be absolutely no problem at all.
And if his cultivation advanced one step further, both his magical power and his techniques would naturally surge dramatically — enough to ensure his survival through the coming demon tribulation and his subsequent journey to the Demon Realm.
With these thoughts running through his mind, his hands moved not a fraction slower. With a whoosh, a layer of five-colored flame erupted from his body's surface.
Where the flame passed, the frost on his face and body melted away, restoring Han Li to normal in the blink of an eye.
Only then did he raise one arm and thrust his palm downward toward the bottom of the massive pit.