This young man was none other than Han Li, who had traveled without rest for nearly half a year before finally making it back to Heavenly Abyss City.
At this moment, two women and one man emerged from the jade boat's cabin — it was Silver Moon, Daoist Crab, and the others.
Silver Moon swept her gaze over the crowd atop the city wall, and a similar flash of surprise crossed her eyes.
"So it's Brother Han who has returned. This is truly a joyous occasion for our city. We happened to be here attending to other matters and had no idea Fellow Daoist Han would be returning today. Otherwise, we would have gone far out to welcome you properly." The silver-haired Elder finally snapped out of his shock, inwardly cursing his luck, but his face was all smiles as he cupped his fists toward Han Li in greeting.
As he spoke, he couldn't help but sweep his spiritual sense toward Han Li, only to find that he couldn't discern the depth of his cultivation at all. The other's aura was clearly far more unfathomable than before, which sent a further tremor through his heart.
Although he didn't know the outcome of Han Li's attempt to break through the Mahayana bottleneck, there was no doubt that his cultivation had risen dramatically once again.
It wasn't just Elder Gu — the other Body Integration stage Elders, the moment they recognized Han Li, had all instinctively probed his cultivation level.
But with the strength of their spiritual sense, when Han Li wasn't directly releasing his Mahayana-stage spiritual pressure, how could they possibly discern anything?
As a result, with no way of determining Han Li's current realm, the expressions on their faces naturally varied. Some could barely squeeze out one or two threadbare smiles.
Han Li took in the strange behavior of the crowd below. His heart stirred, but he merely smiled faintly and said:
"So Fellow Daoists were attending to other matters. For someone like Fellow Daoist Gu and the others to come out together and wait here — it seems Heavenly Abyss City must have received an extremely important guest. Could it be one of the two seniors, Mo Jianli or Ao Xiao?"
"That's not it, actually. The two seniors have been out of contact for some time now..." The silver-haired Elder's smile dimmed a few shades, and he replied hesitantly.
Even with his vast experience, he felt deeply uncertain at this moment, unsure whether he should directly reveal the matter of the Sacred Island envoys' arrival.
Fortunately, this matter no longer needed to trouble the silver-haired Elder!
For at that very moment, a flash of spiritual light appeared on the horizon from another direction, and a mass of five-colored radiance came rolling toward them. It appeared to drift lazily, yet its actual speed was inconceivably fast — after just a few flickers, it had already arrived above the city wall.
Once the radiance dissipated, another enormous ship — pristine white as jade — appeared beside Han Li's jade-green flying boat, fully four or five times larger.
Han Li started upon seeing this, but his gaze immediately shifted to sweep over the white giant ship.
He could see that over a dozen people stood on the bow, with three positioned at the very front. Their bearing and spiritual pressure were far beyond anything the others behind them could compare to.
Among these three, on the left stood a big man with yellow hair and deep jade-green eyes, appearing to be in his thirties or forties. In the middle was a figure in billowing white robes, with a strikingly handsome face — a dashing young man. On the right was a woman with large bare feet and dark, rough skin — an unsightly hag.
All three radiated an extraordinary and formidable aura!
When Han Li briefly focused his spiritual sense on them, he immediately detected that the man and woman on either side were both mid-stage Body Integration cultivators, while the white-robed young man in the center possessed the terrifying cultivation of late-stage Body Integration at the Great Perfection — and looked as though he could attempt to break through the Mahayana bottleneck at any moment.
However, these three were not what Han Li cared about most. His gaze swept past them and settled on a character emblazoned on the hull of the white ship — the grand character "Sacred."
"Sacred Island."
Han Li instantly recognized what this emblem represented. His eyes narrowed slightly as understanding dawned.
No wonder the Heavenly Abyss City Elder Council had mobilized nearly half its members — Sacred Island had suddenly dispatched envoys in person.
But what had happened in Heavenly Abyss City to warrant Sacred Island sending envoys directly? And the reactions of these city Elders when he had suddenly appeared earlier were also quite suspicious.
Could the Sacred Island envoys possibly have something to do with him?
The moment Han Li identified the three envoys from Sacred Island, he had already deduced roughly seventy to eighty percent of the truth.
But though his mind was racing, his expression betrayed nothing. He simply stood watching the assembled crowd in silence.
At this moment, the silver-haired Elder and Zen Master Jinyue, upon seeing the Sacred Island envoys appear at precisely this juncture, exchanged a glance and both saw a wry smile on the other's face.
Well, this saved them the trouble of having to come up with some verbal cover story. The two parties that had been giving the Elder Council headaches for so long had now come face to face right before their eyes.
But what unsettled the silver-haired Elder even further was that, apart from the white-robed young gentleman in the center, the other two envoys possessed extraordinary powers and were renowned figures even among Sacred Island's many envoys.
And though this was the first time he had laid eyes on the handsome young man, the latter gave him an overwhelming feeling of power that simply could not be resisted.