As soon as his words fell, over a dozen blood-colored shadows suddenly burst out from within the stone city, transforming into billowing clouds of blood mist that exploded outward.
In an instant, towering waves of blood surged skyward, intercepting most of the sword light and the attacks from the three Supreme Mountains one after another.
With this, the stone city's barrier formations, which had been on the verge of collapsing, immediately eased and stabilized once more.
The giant ape that Han Li had transformed into flew into a rage at the sight. With a thunderous roar, it suddenly opened its mouth and spat out a bolt of golden lightning as thick as a water barrel. The bolt vanished in a flash and struck the blood waves.
BOOM!
Wherever the threads of lightning spread, the stench of scorched flesh surged violently, and the surrounding blood waves were instantly obliterated.
"Evil-Warding Divine Lightning…"
A soft exclamation drifted out from within the blood waves, followed by a light laugh. The surrounding blood waves rapidly converged toward a single point, coalesced with a whirling motion, and then materialized into a charming young woman wearing a short blood-red dress, accompanied by over a dozen towering monsters with wolf heads and bear bodies, each standing several zhang tall.
The girl appeared to be no more than fifteen or sixteen years of age. She held a verdant green basket in one hand, her figure slender and graceful, her features exquisitely lovely — skin as white as snow and jade, and a pair of autumn-bright eyes that, with each subtle turn, radiated an irresistible allure.
Even someone of Han Li's mental fortitude found his mind momentarily dazed upon catching sight of her.
His heart lurched with alarm. He immediately circulated the Spirit Refinement Technique to clear his head, but his gaze toward the girl grew several shades graver. With a sweep of his spiritual sense, he probed her directly.
"Late-stage Integration cultivator…"
Han Li couldn't help but feel a twinge of surprise. The girl's earlier display of power had been no less imposing than an ordinary Mahayana cultivator's, yet her actual cultivation was only at the Integration stage — far beyond what he had expected.
As for the dozen or so wolf-headed, bear-bodied monsters, they were drenched in blood-red energy, each at the early or mid Integration stage, but gathered together they radiated a terrifying aura no weaker than an ordinary Mahayana powerhouse.
Han Li's thoughts raced as he silently speculated about the blood-skirt girl's origins. His attacks eased slightly, and the sky full of sword shadows dispersed and vanished into thin air. The three Supreme Mountains, each hundreds of zhang tall, froze in place high above.
"Who are you? Are you also a member of the Asura Spider clan?" the giant ape's thunderous voice boomed out in a stern interrogation.
The girl's aura bore a strong resemblance to the other Asura Spiders, yet woven into it was a familiar undertone. Upon careful reflection, it was strikingly similar to that of the Void Fish from the Qian Fire Domain.
"This humble girl is none other than the young mistress of this city. You must all be outsiders, yes? I wonder what offense our clan has given you that it has come to swords and bloodshed. Why don't we sit down and talk things over — perhaps we can turn enemies into friends." The blood-skirt girl's autumn-bright eyes shimmered with a playful light as she addressed Han Li with a smile, speaking as an equal without the slightest trace of fear toward a Mahayana existence.
"Turn enemies into friends? That would only be possible if your clan handed over all of its crystal cores. Even if I were willing to agree, the others certainly would not." The giant ape's expression remained flat as it replied coldly.
The blood-skirt girl's face shifted subtly. She was about to say something more when the Asura Spider Matriarch shouted to her from the distance: "Ying'er, why waste your breath on them? They're here to seize our clan's law techniques — it's a matter of either they die or we die. There is no possibility of standing down. Stop dawdling and act!"
Now that the girl had appeared, the Asura Spider Matriarch held nothing back, her words dripping with vicious ferocity.
The blood-skirt girl's brows furrowed slightly at this. She raised her head and glanced toward the other two battlefields before releasing a soft sigh.
"I had hoped to end this without a fight, but now it seems that's next to impossible. In that case, don't blame this girl for being merciless."
Though her face remained as lovely as ever as she spoke those last words, her voice turned abruptly to bone-piercing frost.
A sensation of extreme danger suddenly welled up in Han Li's heart. His instincts screamed a warning, and without a moment's hesitation he shifted his feet — his body transforming into an afterimage that shot backward.
Almost at the same instant, a flash of blood-light materialized high in the air above him. A massive claw wreathed in churning blood energy slashed downward with lightning speed, utterly silent and without the faintest prior sign.
The blood-light flashed, and the spot where Han Li had stood was instantly swallowed by a cloud of blood mist.
Then the mist parted and rolled aside, and another blood-skirt girl emerged with a smile on her face.
Meanwhile, the "Ying'er" inside the stone city's barrier flickered, and in a blur transformed into one of the wolf-headed, bear-bodied monsters nearby.
Han Li's eyes widened in shock.
The giant ape's finger flicked rapidly toward the void in front of it. A beam of emerald light shot from the fingertip, expanding into a cyan sword arc over ten zhang long in a single flicker. Then, in another flash, it teleported-like to the blood-skirt girl's front and circled her in a blinding loop.
A breathtaking scene unfolded.
The "Ying'er" ensnared by the cyan arc showed no panic whatsoever. Instead, she flashed Han Li a strange, eerie smile and, with a supple flip of her snow-white hand, spread all five fingers wide and seized directly at the cyan sword arc.
Han Li's pupils contracted slightly, but he activated the sword art in his heart without the slightest hesitation.