"Good, but before we begin, certain other preparations must first be made. Ying'er, have them start the arrangements." The Asura Spider Matriarch gave a nod and spoke mildly to the blood-robed girl.
"Yes, Mother." The girl replied at once, then turned and issued an order to the other clansmen who had come along.
The Asura Spider clansmen rose into the air upon hearing this and flew toward the formations surrounding the ice platform.
Some produced array disks in midair, others array flags, and a few even brought out peculiar-looking artifacts of unknown make, all of which they hurled toward the vicinity of the ice platform.
The moment these objects landed within the formation, they transformed into streaks of multicolored radiance and plunged directly underground, vanishing without a trace.
The Asura Spider clansmen then began murmuring incantations under their breath, forming hand seals and repeatedly jabbing their fingers toward the formation below.
The entire formation hummed with a continuous drone as all the spiritual runes began to glow and shift in eerie, flowing patterns. Before long, they had reconfigured into an entirely different large-scale formation.
The instant this new formation took shape, the cylindrical ice platform at its center emitted a sharp cracking sound, and threadlike white lines suddenly appeared across its surface.
Those white lines rapidly thickened from hairline to finger-width, and in the blink of an eye they became cracks as thick as a person's finger.
With a thunderous boom, the entire ice platform shattered apart, piece by piece, and a miniature pool roughly thirty meters across was instantly revealed.
The water in the pool was as clear and still as a mirror, and the moment it appeared, a pillar of pale white light surged skyward.
But the instant the pillar had risen over a hundred meters, there was a muffled pop as the surrounding formations flared brilliantly. A translucent layer of pale blue light appeared high in the sky, shrouding Han Li and the others along with half the valley beneath it.
The light pillar struck the barrier and immediately produced a muffled detonation, bursting apart into countless specks of white light.
A wave of white, frigid mist billowed outward in all directions.
Wherever the cold mist swept through, sharp hissing sounds erupted in the void as sheets of ice materialized out of thin air and came rolling toward Han Li and the others at alarming speed.
But Han Li and his companions showed not the slightest alarm. They flickered the spiritual light around their bodies, and the ice was pushed back, unable to draw within even a single inch of them.
"This cold here doesn't seem quite as fearsome as I imagined." Black Scale swept the cold mist with his spiritual sense and remarked with a curl of his lip.
"Oh? Why don't you try again, friend?" A strange glint flashed through the Asura Spider Matriarch's eyes, and she suddenly made a beckoning gesture toward the pool with one hand.
Several flashes of red light flickered at the pool's edge, and four red objects shot out. After circling around, they hovered motionless in the air at low altitude.
They were a ruyi scepter, a mirror, a crystal orb, and a ring.
All four treasures radiated waves of scorching heat, dissolving the surrounding cold mist to nothing.
Yet the pool, which had appeared perfectly calm the instant before, let out a bizarre gurgling sound. The pillar of light it emitted thickened and condensed into a tangible, milky-white column.
In the span of a single breath, the cold within the entire barrier surged tenfold or more in intensity.
Under the crushing pressure of this extraordinary cold, the protective spiritual light around everyone flickered wildly and nearly faltered.
Blood Burn, Mo Jianli, and the others were alarmed. Some raised a hand, others formed seals, and one after another protective treasures flew out, transforming into swirling halos of multicolored light that circled around their bodies, barely driving the cold back once more.
"It really is different from before. These must be the Pure Yang treasures your clan buried here earlier. However, if it's only at this level, then with your abilities and your treasures for protection, entering the pool directly to retrieve what lies within should still be within reach." Han Li spoke slowly.
Although he had not released any treasures of his own, a faint layer of silver flame flickered across his body, and all the cold that touched it was absorbed as silently as a cow sinking into the sea, utterly unable to approach within several meters of him.
"If the cold in the pool were only this strong, I would not hesitate to risk entering myself. But what you may not know, friend, is that for every meter one descends into this pool, the cold grows exponentially fiercer. Its depth is such that even I have never been able to probe the bottom. Retrieving the treasure at the bottom by any ordinary means is nothing but a fool's dream. Otherwise, why would our clan have left the treasure sitting here all these years?" The woman let out a cold laugh, though a trace of wariness flickered through her gaze as she looked at Han Li.
That elder surnamed Yi had been no weaker than the Asura Spider Matriarch in his abilities.
If Han Li had managed to shatter his physical body and severely wound his Nascent Soul, then injuring or even killing the woman would hardly be a difficult thing for him to do either.
"I see. Then how exactly would you have us assist?" Han Li nodded and asked, his expression unchanged.
"It's quite simple. This formation was conceived by our clan's formation masters over the course of several hundred years. If six Mahayana-stage cultivators simultaneously channel their Magical Power into it at once, its full power can be activated, directly drawing the treasure from the depths of the pool. In the past, our clan could never muster that many Mahayana cultivators, so the plan was always shelved. Now with all of you here, it will be easy as pie." The blood-robed girl beside them offered a light laugh as she explained.
"Six Mahayana cultivators? Even with Fellow Daoist Luo, we only have five here." Han Li's eyes narrowed slightly, and a flicker of surprise crossed his features.