This blood shadow was none other than a youthful boy of delicate features, conjured entirely from blood!
"Don't celebrate too early! Don't forget the conditions Yuan Cha laid out for us from the very beginning," another blood shadow, whose face was completely identical, said flatly.
"Hmph! Since Yuan Cha's target is the same as ours, the original conditions naturally have to be revised. We can hand the person over, but we never agreed to give up the treasures on his body as well," the youth in the middle snorted coldly, answering without the slightest hesitation.
"If you do that, Yuan Cha will hardly let the matter rest. We could give her a portion of the treasures, but the Demon Suppression Lock and the Purple Word Cauldron—we must retrieve those ourselves first," the blood shadow who had spoken last replied with a shake of his head.
"Split them half and half? That human brat is obviously carrying extraordinary treasures, and you're willing to just let them go?" The middle youth curled his lip in disdain.
"Whether we're willing or not, it changes nothing. Don't forget that Liu Ji is standing behind Yuan Cha. Now is not the time to provoke them!" Another blood shadow let out a cold laugh.
"True enough. Liu Ji is a major headache!" The youth's expression shifted slightly, and a trace of wariness flickered across his features.
"All right! Enough dreaming about how to divide the spoils! We don't even know whether we can successfully capture him this time. He seems to have detected our presence already. Setting an ambush for him is probably no longer possible." The last blood shadow spoke up, his tone carrying a note of gravity.
"Detected us? That's hardly likely. We've used the Qiankun Disc to conceal ourselves completely. Unless he possesses Mahayana cultivation, there's no way he could truly sense anything. At most he's grown a little suspicious! Yuan Cha is still in hot pursuit behind him—there's no way he would dare to linger in one spot." The middle youth's face darkened as he stared at the images on the crystal wall, clearly unconvinced.
"Is that so? I feel that something is—wait, what is he doing?!" The last blood shadow had just shaken his head, about to say something more, when the next instant he let out a sharp cry of alarm.
When the other two saw clearly what Han Li was doing in the crystal wall's images, their faces changed drastically as well!
The great Kun Peng that Han Li had transformed into suddenly opened its maw and spat out a golden thunderball, which flashed and expanded to over a zhang in size. The enormous roc seemed to bare its teeth in the direction of the three, and the thunderball transformed into a blinding golden arc of lightning that shot straight toward them.
A deafening peal of thunder!
The crystal wall was entirely engulfed in writhing golden arcs. With a crisp crack, it shattered inch by inch and dissolved into a cloud of crystalline powder before vanishing into thin air.
"He really did detect the Qiankun Disc! Since we can't lure him in, then we'll have to intercept him by force!" the middle youth barked in a sharp voice.
The other two raised no objections. All three immediately formed hand seals and began chanting.
Deep, arcane incantations immediately echoed through the space!
At the same time, the thunderball had expanded into a massive net that surged forward. Through the flashing lightning, a vast white shape materialized in the high sky.
The object was over a hundred zhang across, entirely crystalline and gleaming, perfectly circular—it looked for all the world like an enormous jade disc hanging in the void.
Beneath the milky radiance cast by the disc, a formation roughly a li in diameter silently revealed itself.
Had Han Li not halted his escape earlier, he would have plunged headlong into this restriction.
Even he, who was seldom rattled, felt a jolt of shock at the sight!
Then the colossal jade disc spun rapidly, and a thick, luminous white barrier unfurled from its surface. In the span of a few flickers, it expanded into what appeared to be a boundless wall of light that completely sealed off the path ahead.
But the Kun Peng that Han Li had become suddenly rolled across the ground.
A blaze of iridescent light flashed, and the silver giant roc vanished. In its place appeared a strange, magnificent bird with a phoenix crown atop its head and long, trailing tail feathers.
Its appearance bore a striking resemblance to the legendary true spirit, the Heavenly Phoenix!
This was precisely the Heavenly Phoenix incarnation that Han Li had conjured by activating the Awakening of Insects Art.
The moment the bird appeared, it let out a clear cry and swept both wings.
Immediately, the void before it rippled, and a white, hazy rift opened in space.
The great bird darted forward and vanished into the rift without a trace.
The next instant, behind the white wall of light, an identical spatial rift flickered open. The bird shot out of it like a phantom, then rolled once more.
Silver lightning arced and crackled around its body!
Han Li had transformed back into the silver giant roc.
The great roc spread all four wings and beat them just once. With a violent boom, it vanished from where it had been.
Then, hundreds of zhang away, a peal of thunder rang out. The blue-silver lightning flickered, and the giant roc reappeared. Its body shrank and contracted, transforming into a thin streak of blue-white light that shot onward at even greater speed.
From the moment the enormous jade disc unleashed its barrier of light, to Han Li's transformation into the Heavenly Phoenix and his direct spatial tear escape—it all appeared to be a dizzying blur, yet in reality it was completed in the span of a single breath.
Inside the jade disc, the Blood Light Saint Ancestor's three incarnations stared at the scene, completely dumbstruck.
"Impossible! Under the Qiankun Disc's restriction, how could he teleport away so easily? Something has to be wrong! Could he possess some treasure that counters the Qiankun Disc?!" One of the blood shadows recovered his senses and immediately grew flustered and exasperated.
"No. It was his transformation just now. Don't you remember? No matter how supreme the Qiankun Disc's spatial suppression may be, it cannot suppress spirit birds of the phoenix lineage that possess innate spatial-breaking abilities. What that brat just used was clearly some sort of Heavenly Phoenix transformation technique." The middle youth had calmed down and offered his analysis.
"Even so, the number of transformations this brat can perform is absurd. Even if we join forces with Yuan Cha, capturing him won't be easy!" The last Blood Light incarnation's face had turned exceptionally grim.