The gray-robed man flicked his wide sleeve and vanished amid a shimmer of light.
Two days later,
Inside the pavilion nestled deep within the forest, Han Li met with Lan Ying once more. The two withdrew into a private chamber and remained there for several hours before Han Li emerged wearing a mysterious smile, unhurried as ever, and returned to the city at a leisurely pace.
This time, the moment Han Li stepped through the door of his inn, he sealed himself inside and did not emerge for days on end.
When he had first arrived, he had paid a full month's worth of demon stones upfront, so the other demon patrons in the inn paid him little mind at first.
But as the final days of the month drew near and still no movement whatsoever came from Han Li's room, it began to draw the attention of the more observant guests.
When the very last day arrived at last, an inn attendant—a demon of low rank—finally mustered the courage to knock carefully on the door. When he stepped inside, he discovered to his shock that the room was already completely empty.
…
Han Li sat cross-legged aboard a dark gray flying vehicle, eyes closed in meditation.
Across from him sat a fair-skinned youth and a delicate young girl, each occupying their own corner of the craft.
One wore an expression of perfect calm, motionless as a carved wooden figure. The other's eyes darted about ceaselessly, glancing left and right with open curiosity.
They were, of course, Daoist Xie and Zhu Guo'er.
After slipping away from the island in secret, Han Li had made his way to the prearranged rendezvous point, retrieved the two of them, and set off without the slightest delay.
Over the course of several days of flight, they had already left the Blue Cascade Lake region behind and entered an adjacent territory within the Demon Realm.
This put Han Li somewhat at ease.
He was now returning with a full harvest, and he fully intended to leave the Demon Realm and return to the
According to the plan he had originally discussed with Ancestor Long and the others, there was no question of retracing their steps. The plan had always been that once they had secured what they needed at the Demon Source Sea, they would return to the Spirit Realm through a different passage that had been previously scouted.
That passage, as Ancestor Long and his companions had described, was situated in a remote corner of the Demon Realm with few high-level demon cultivators stationed there. Moreover, the Spirit Realm end did not open into the territories of the human or demon tribes—it emerged in the neighboring Wood Tribe domain instead.
As long as they burst into the passage before the demons could mount a response, the stationed guards would stand no chance of preventing their return.
Now that Ancestor Long and the others had all perished, Han Li nonetheless intended to follow the originally planned route.
The other passages led to unknown destinations, and if one of them happened to empty out onto a different continent in the Spirit Realm, he would hardly know whether to laugh or cry.
He had no desire to spend another hundred or two hundred years wandering just to find his way back to the human territories.
And yet, whenever Han Li's thoughts turned to Zi Ling, a quiet ache still throbbed somewhere deep in his chest.
To say he felt nothing for that woman would be a lie, pure and simple. After so many years of separation they had only just reunited, only to be forced apart once more in a hurried farewell—the feelings that churned within him could not be captured in words, no matter how he tried.
Of course, had Zi Ling's demonic cultivation not been held under
For now, though, he could only leave Zi Ling behind in the Demon Realm a while longer.
Lost in silent contemplation, Han Li's mind drifted back to his days in the mortal realm—scene after scene flickering through his memory—and another face, lovely beyond compare, rose unbidden to the surface of his thoughts, stirring something deep within him.
He did not know how long he had been lost in reverie when his expression shifted abruptly and his eyes snapped open, a sharp gleam flashing through his pupils.
At almost the same instant, the flying vehicle below flickered and halted, hovering motionless in the high sky.
"Senior Han, what happened?" Zhu Guo'er sprang to her feet, alarm evident in her voice.
Daoist Xie remained seated cross-legged to one side, his expression utterly unchanged.
"It seems we have inadvertently stumbled into a super-grade formation," Han Li said slowly, rising to his feet with a slight furrow of his brow. "It was laid with remarkable concealment. Even I failed to detect it in advance."
"A super-grade formation—one that even you didn't notice? Could it be targeting us?" Zhu Guo'er's voice carried a note of unease.
"Brother Xie, what do you make of this formation?" Han Li ignored Zhu Guo'er's question and turned instead toward Daoist Xie.
Daoist Xie opened his eyes at the address, turned his head to survey their surroundings in every direction, and then replied without haste:
"This appears to be the Six Extinctions Azure Lightning Grand Formation, though it is somewhat incomplete. If I were you, I would press forward toward the formation's core. That is where the formation's power is at its greatest, but it is also the only point at which one can exit."
With those words, Daoist Xie closed his mouth and lapsed once more into wooden silence.
"The Six Extinctions Azure Lightning Formation? I've never heard of it, but given Brother Xie's knowledge, you are almost certainly correct. Then we'll press on. Whether this formation was set for us or not, now that we're caught in it, breaking through is our only option." Han Li deliberated briefly, then made his decision.
He tapped the flying vehicle lightly with one foot. Gray light erupted from the craft and coalesced into a luminous shield that enveloped it entirely.
At the same time, the vehicle trembled, transformed into a streak of radiance, and tore through the sky once more.