"It truly is the body of a Five-Colored Peacock! Wonderful — I never expected the Five Radiance Race to harbor a fellow Daoist of your caliber. I must properly exchange blows with you." Han Li's pupils contracted slightly before he suddenly let out a light laugh.
"Exchange blows? What do you mean by that!" An odd glint flashed in the Five-Colored Peacock's eyes as it spoke in a human voice.
"Ha ha…" Han Li tilted his head back and yawned, saying nothing further, yet the aura around his body shifted abruptly. A torrent of five-colored divine light surged outward from within him.
Within the shimmering glow of those five colors, Han Li's figure blurred and transformed into an extraordinarily resplendent giant spirit bird — unmistakably another Five-Colored Peacock!
"What — you're a member of the Five Radiance Race as well… No, the aura is wrong. You merely refined the true blood of our race's sacred bird to take on its form." The Five-Colored Peacock opposite him started in surprise, then an odd light flickered in its eyes as it immediately discerned the subtle differences.
"Your eyes are remarkably sharp, to see through my Transformation Art at a single glance," Han Li said with a cold laugh. Yet even as he spoke, the peacock he had become fluttered its wings, the five-colored radiance across its body flaring brilliantly before rolling forward in a torrent of light toward its opponent.
"Good — very good. To actually dare unleash the Divine Light Art before me — then allow me to teach you a lesson, and show you what true Five-Colored Divine Light truly is!" The elder surnamed Yi said with rage twisted into a laugh.
His words had barely faded when the peacock he had transformed into ruffled the long plumes across its body. They suddenly morphed into countless five-colored arrows that shot toward Han Li in a devastating volley.
A chorus of sharp whistling sounds instantly filled the entire sky. When the rolling tide of five-colored light met those arrows, countless holes of varying size were punched clean through it.
The massive five-colored wave faltered, its advance suddenly sluggish.
With nothing left to hinder them, the arrows hurtled straight toward Han Li.
Han Li's eyes narrowed briefly in surprise, but the peacock he had become immediately shook its own plumes in response. The radiance across its body condensed, and strand after strand of five-colored light filaments sprayed outward.
Each filament flickered and struck precisely upon an arrow, coiled around it, and then constricted with brutal force.
A barrage of sharp cracking sounds erupted. The arrows flickered wildly before being sliced into countless fragments.
The filaments blurred once more and vanished from where they had been.
An instant later, the space before the peacock that Elder Yi had become rippled, and dense clusters of light filaments shot forth from the void. They trembled and lashed outward, poised to bind the elder's form in a moment.
Yet the instant those filaments made contact with Elder Yi's peacock body, the five-colored radiance across its surface blazed to blinding intensity.
The filaments sank into the light with soft pops and vanished without producing any further effect.
From a distance, Han Li's heart clenched.
The peacock Elder Yi had become threw its head back and let out a piercing cry. One of its talons blazed with five-colored light as it lashed forward, slashing through the empty air.
A muffled boom!
A colossal claw the size of an acre materialized from the void, spanning several hundred zhang in a single stroke, and raked downward toward the peacock Han Li had become.
Han Li let out a cold laugh. The peacock's body blurred once, vanishing instantly, then reappeared dozens of zhang to one side. Its beak opened simultaneously, and a jet of silver flame shot toward the giant claw.
Though the claw appeared massive, the instant the silver flame reached it, it swiftly reverse-slapped downward.
A muffled impact!
A kaleidoscope of five-colored crystalline light circulated across the claw's surface, and the silver flame was extinguished in an instant. The five talons then spread apart, and from a distance, the claw seized lightning-fast toward the peacock Han Li had become.
Before it even arrived, the surrounding void suddenly flickered with countless five-colored runes, forming what seemed like layer upon layer of invisible restrictions — sealing Han Li in tightly on all sides.
The peacock that was Han Li flapped its wings, sending a vast sweep of five-colored light rolling outward. But the moment it struck those runes, it was snuffed out as though meeting its nemesis.
Alarmed, Han Li wasted no thought. The five-colored radiance across his body blazed to full intensity, and every single plume trembled before shooting free of his body. They then whirled through the void and coalesced into over a dozen dazzlingly brilliant five-colored sword beams, which slashed outward in every direction in the blink of an eye.
A piercing cascade of metal-on-metal screeching rang out!
But those five-colored sword beams struck the runes and bounced back as though hitting tempered steel, utterly unable to breach the restrictions in the slightest.
"Ha ha! This technique of mine — Solidifying Heaven and Earth — is not so easily broken. Just resign yourself to death, fellow Daoist!" Elder Yi cried out in elation at the sight, the peacock he had become speaking in a human voice before his other claw thrust forward as well.
A ripple of disturbance rose above Han Li, and a second giant claw wreathed in five-colored radiance emerged from the void, descending in the same manner.
The nearby void immediately saw even more five-colored runes surge into existence.
The peacock Han Li had become felt his entire body go rigid — he truly could not move a single inch.
And so, under Elder Yi's look of wild jubilation, the two colossal claws rained down one after the other in a streak of lightning.
The instant the enormous claw shadows fell, they whipped up gales of hurricane force. The void beneath them warped and twisted under the pressure, and the peacock Han Li had become was swallowed up in an instant.