With a thunderous boom, the entire chasm seemed to flip upside down!
All of the surrounding seawater vanished in an instant. Above, the sky was blanketed by clouds as black as ink, while below stretched a vast grey expanse, dotted with tiny points of white light that flickered on and off like a field of countless stars.
Ghostly wails rose from every direction, and after several gusts of frigid wind swept through, those specks of white light surged upward in rolling waves.
Bao and the others focused their spiritual sense to take a closer look, and every one of them recoiled in shock.
The white lights were, unmistakably, skulls — each one with blazing white ghostfire flickering in its empty eye sockets and gaping mouths. Clustered together by the hundreds and thousands, the sight was nothing short of nightmarish.
"This is also a Spirit Domain!"
The instant those skulls appeared, Han Li felt the surrounding space constrict sharply. An overwhelming sense of danger crashed down upon him, yet in truth nothing else seemed to have changed.
However, when he glanced at Bao, a flash of understanding crossed his face.
He saw that Bao was forming hand seals with blinding speed, her delicate features taut with gravity. The pink flower petals that had originally covered a thousand-acre expanse had now shrunk by a thousandfold or more, condensing to cover only about an acre — yet that was enough to shield herself, Han Li, and all the others within.
The phantom petals of the contracted Spirit Domain had taken on a brilliant, crystalline sheen. The wondrous fragrance they released had surged several times stronger than before, and they danced with vastly greater speed, swirling through the air like a blizzard of snow to form a barrier around the group.
But outside that domain, the colossal form of the Mother of Insects had disappeared entirely — replaced by nothing but an endless sea of white-boned skulls.
When those skulls spat out their pale white flames, the flames collided with the pink petals and erupted in waves of bizarre, rippling force — as if two fundamentally opposing powers, fire and water, were clashing in silent warfare.
Yet every single collision took its toll. At the center of the domain, Bao's face grew a shade paler with each impact.
After only a short while, drenched in perspiration, the light in her eyes had begun to dim.
Han Li's heart tightened at the sight.
"Brother Han, even though I've shrunk the Spirit Domain down, I can't keep this up for much longer." Bao's voice came quick and sharp, a trace of tension evident on her face.
"I understand. Let me try to break through — I refuse to believe it can truly deploy a Profound Heaven Spirit Domain. This is not the Immortal World!" Han Li replied in a low voice, then gave a brief command to the Crab Daoist before suddenly rolling forward on the ground and transforming into a colossal golden ape dozens of zhang tall.
The ape merely shrugged its massive shoulders, and its form immediately shifted into a fearsome three-headed, six-armed configuration. All six great fists clenched, and with a deep, rumbling roar, they hammered outward beyond the domain with devastating force.
Golden light erupted!
Six brilliant spheres of golden radiance shot forth simultaneously from the six fists, vanishing in a flicker before reappearing outside the domain and detonating amid the dense swarm of white-boned skulls.
A cataclysmic roar shook the void as the six spheres dissolved into swirling curtains of golden radiance that swept outward.
Every skull caught in the golden glow flickered once and crumbled to ash.
Han Li's attack had carved out a swath of empty space beyond the domain through sheer force.
Bao immediately felt the law energy surrounding her Profound Heaven Domain ease ever so slightly, and a flicker of delight crossed her face.
But her joy froze almost at once.
In the very void that had just been cleared, points of white light reappeared, and the dense formation of skulls materialized once more — each one radiating fury, spitting pale white flames that clashed against the golden radiance with an aura even more powerful than before.
"As I suspected — undying and indestructible. But what about this?" Han Li showed no surprise at the sight. He murmured under his breath, then formed a one-handed seal and pointed toward the void ahead.
With another thunderous boom, the golden radiance shattered apart, condensing into countless golden runes that coalesced into a single mass before transforming into a golden vortex roughly a zhang in diameter.
The ambient spiritual energy of heaven and earth shuddered violently as the vortex began to spin with wild fury. After several rounds of resonant, chant-like hums, a terrifying suction force erupted from within, hauling in dozens upon dozens of nearby skulls by force.
Although those skulls would reappear at the same spot in a flash — and each time with a slightly stronger aura — the suction from the vortex was equally boundless, and the vortex itself was steadily growing larger.
In this way, no matter how many skulls reappeared, they were all dragged into the vortex without exception and ground to nothing.
"Oh? The Xuanyuan Divine Radiance... no, it isn't. Just an imitation of the technique. Heh heh heh — if it were truly that divine light, I might feel a trace of apprehension. But a mere counterfeit? Destroying it is as easy as turning my hand!" The alluring voice of the Mother of Insects rang out from the void.
A ripple disturbed the empty space, and a single black rune shot forth. It flickered once and plunged into the golden vortex, and an instantaneous wave of law energy enveloped everything in its reach.
*Pfft!* The golden vortex — which had been expanding toward a diameter of nearly ten zhang — flickered violently after absorbing the black rune, shrank with astonishing speed, and finally burst into motes of golden light that pierced through the void and vanished.
"The Law of Time..."