Han Li tilted his head and glanced at the young girl perched on his shoulder, a faint smile tugging at the corner of his lips.
This girl was none other than the Leopard Kirin Beast, newly awakened from its deep slumber.
The beast had finally roused just as he was nearing the human race's territory, and the very moment it opened its eyes, it had given him a thoroughly unexpected scare.
The Leopard Kirin Beast had actually begun its Integration Stage tribulation at the very instant of awakening.
Given the True Kirin bloodline running through the beast, the heavenly tribulation that descended was earth-shatteringly powerful.
Heavenly tribulation was not something outsiders could easily interfere with. Though Han Li was right there within arm's reach, he could do nothing but watch as the beast was nearly reduced to cinders within the storm.
Fortunately, having devoured the demon core of the King of the Dark Beasts, it had spontaneously comprehended several new supernatural abilities, which enabled it to hold on until the very end and barely survive the tribulation — allowing it to take on a human form.
At this point, the Leopard Kirin Beast was naturally covered head to toe in wounds.
Had it not been for Han Li's relentless efforts, pouring out countless spirit medicines without stint, it likely would have lost its life regardless.
But what left Han Li somewhat speechless was that the human form the Leopard Kirin Beast assumed after its tribulation turned out to be a young girl who looked even younger than "Qu'er."
If it were an ordinary mortal at this age, they probably wouldn't even be able to form words properly yet.
Fortunately, though this beast's human form appeared impossibly young, it naturally would not actually babble incoherently — it could be communicated with directly through spiritual sense.
Because of the little beast's unexpected tribulation, Han Li's journey back to Heavenly Abyss City had been delayed. It took several additional months before he finally brought the recovered Leopard Kirin Beast back to the human race's territory and headed straight for the city.
His destination now was one of the few secret teleportation arrays reserved exclusively for Heavenly Abyss City's Elders.
Because this teleportation array was a small-scale formation that could move at most one or two people at a time, the city had no fear of the Demon Clan discovering the location and using it to infiltrate the city.
After all, even if an Integration Stage Demon Venerable were teleported one or two at a time to the far end — which was protected by layer upon layer of restrictions and heavily guarded — they would only be surrounded and killed on the spot.
The only thing Han Li needed to be wary of was that this teleportation array hadn't been turned into a demon ambush site, deliberately used to lure human cultivators to their deaths like moths to a flame.
Of course, even if there were an ambush, given that his cultivation had advanced yet another level, it was nothing worth losing sleep over.
Nowadays, apart from those Sacred Ancestor avatars, he was confident he could defeat any ordinary late-stage Integration cultivator.
Being chased and forced to flee in disarray by the Demon Clan's Sacred Ancestors, as had happened the last two times, should be a near-impossibility now.
Those Sacred Ancestor avatars had descended to this world to command the Demon Clan's armies — how could they possibly lie in wait in some random location to ambush a single person?
Even the likelihood of those Demon Venerables showing up was not very high. At such a critical moment as the Demon Clan's assault on Heavenly Abyss City, the demon leadership would not waste their top-tier forces on such trivial matters.
As Han Li mused over these thoughts, he drove his escape light forward.
The azure streak flickered faintly as it soon approached the mountain range ahead.
Just as Han Li was about to surge directly into it, his expression suddenly shifted and he let out a soft "Hm?"
The azure glow around his body retracted, and he materialized at the edge of the range, narrowing his eyes to gaze intently toward the depths of the mountains.
A piercing blue light blazed within his pupils. After his vision blurred momentarily, everything within a thousand li was pulled before his eyes in an instant.
What he saw was dozens of escape lights of various colors appearing at the horizon, hurtling desperately in his direction. And behind them, a mass of oppressive demon clouds rolled in relentless pursuit.
Within the black demonic energy, one could vaguely make out ferocious-looking demon beasts and armored demon warriors brandishing weapons.
At the rear of the dozens of escape lights, a white-bearded elder was desperately driving two flying swords — one azure, one yellow — slashing wildly and ceaselessly into the demon clouds.
Each time a sword beam slashed out, it transformed into a colossal sword tens of zhang long, forcibly halting the demon clouds with every blow.
The sheer power of these two flying swords seemed far beyond what the elder's own Void Refining cultivation could normally control.
But with every strike the white-bearded elder delivered, his face grew a shade paler. When his complexion had lost all traces of color, he opened his mouth and spat two gobbets of essence blood onto the two flying swords.
The sword beams transformed from the two flying swords blazed several times brighter than before. Wherever the sword beams passed, even some of the demon beasts and armored warriors within the clouds could not dodge in time and were cleaved to nothing.
After several more successive strikes, several hundred demon warriors were reduced to ash on the spot.
But such actions evidently enraged the high-ranking demon hiding within the depths of the clouds. With a roar, a pitch-black trident suddenly flew out from within the demon clouds. In a flash it transformed into a weapon over a hundred zhang long, and after a cacophony of clattering sounds, it shot forward in a flash, striking straight at a massive sword beam.
An earth-shattering boom echoed out!
Black radiance and sword light tangled together, then exploded apart like a thunderbolt.
The massive sword beam scattered and reverted to a single flying sword retreating backward, its light dimmed to the extreme.