It went without saying for Han Li's trio — aboard the massive black warship, the demon guards were clad in silver battle armor with crimson war cloaks draped over them, and every single one possessed a cultivation base of at least the Spirit Transformation stage or above.
At the bow alone stood over a hundred of them, among whom were several Demon Venerables of the Body Integration stage.
The gazes these demon guards directed toward Han Li and the others were filled with confusion and suspicion, none of them able to make sense of the situation.
According to the original plan, this spatial passage had been requisitioned for the entire day, and only a single warship of their kind should have been passing through. So how was it that a flying carriage was now approaching from the opposite end!
In the instant before the flying carriage and the warship were about to cross paths, and before the stunned demons aboard the warship could react, a voice — ancient to the point of being weathered — suddenly rang out from within the ship's cabin:
"Hmph, so it's aliens from the Spirit Realm. Since you've come this far, there's no rush to turn back. You'll accompany this old man back to the Holy Realm instead."
The moment those words fell, a killing intent so dense it was almost tangible burst forth from the cabin. Immediately after, the air above the flying carriage rippled, and a white, hazy spatial tear split open with a sharp crack.
A piercing ghostly wail erupted!
A colossal white bone claw, several zhang in size, thrust itself through the rift and swooped downward in a vicious grasping motion.
Before the five pallid bone fingers had even closed, five streams of gray-white malevolent energy unfurled from their tips in a sweeping arc.
The outermost barrier of light around the flying carriage shattered the instant it came into contact with the gray-white aura, crumbling apart without so much as delaying it for a heartbeat.
Standing inside the flying carriage, Han Li's expression changed drastically. Without a moment's hesitation, he let out a deep, guttural roar, and his body blazed with golden light, surging upward as it once again transformed into a colossal golden-furred ape standing several zhang tall.
The ape's two arms blurred, and two fur-covered fists hammered upward toward the sky with ferocious force.
Golden fist shadows flickered into existence once more!
With a deafening boom, the gray-white malevolent energy collided with the fist shadows and was blasted apart by sheer force. However, the originally brilliant golden fist shadows shrank by nearly half in an instant, their luster dimming dramatically.
Standing to one side, the Crab Daoist's eyes flashed with cold light. He opened his mouth and spat out a beam of golden radiance that vanished in a flash, striking the palm of the white bone claw at almost the exact same moment as the fist shadows.
A muffled ring — like the toll of a great bell — erupted forth!
The golden light detonated beneath the bone claw, interweaving and merging to form a massive sphere of radiance resembling a blazing golden sun that spun ceaselessly in place.
Though the enormous bone claw contained incomprehensible power, the golden radiance bearing against it from below forced it to hover, momentarily stalled in midair.
Simultaneously, violent fluctuations tore through the surrounding void, the entire stretch of space humming and resonating. In some areas, the spatial fabric even began to twist and blur — this section of the spatial passage was growing unstable.
The demon guards standing aboard the warship saw this and their faces drained of color in unison, many of them betraying a flash of naked terror in their eyes.
Should the space truly collapse, not a single one of them would escape alive.
But at that very moment, a cold snort echoed from within the warship's cabin!
The bone claw's five fingers snapped together with sudden finality, and they sliced downward toward the sphere of golden light like blades.
A muffled thud!
The golden sphere of light was crushed in a single grasp by the bone claw, vanishing instantly without a trace.
Han Li drew in a sharp breath at the sight.
But by now, all of his Magical Power had already been mobilized to its absolute limit, pouring in torrents into the flying carriage beneath him.
A sharp whoosh!
The flying carriage shuddered once and vanished from its original position in a flicker.
An instant later, over a hundred zhang ahead, spatial ripples surged and the flying carriage materialized once more before immediately transforming into a streak of blue-green light that shot forward at blinding speed.
The white bone claw quivered, then collapsed with a muffled boom into nothing.
The gathered demons exchanged bewildered glances at the scene.
"Move out. Don't bother with them — getting to our destination is what matters!" After a long pause, the emotionless, ancient voice drifted from the cabin once more.
"Yes, my lord!"
A flurry of activity broke out at the bow as many of the guards immediately set back to work.