The cyan thread flashed and vanished, silently sinking into the ball of runes without a trace.
Then the woman muttered an incantation under her breath, her ten fingers flicking in rapid succession toward the sky above the cold pool like the spokes of a wheel.
With a soft "poof."
Ten thousand rays of multicolored light erupted from the surface of the rune ball, and after it spun around in a circle, it suddenly transformed into a funnel-shaped cloud of five-colored mist.
Runes flickered within the cloud as the aura shifted and changed a thousandfold, and something was rapidly coalescing within it.
When the Asura Spider Matriarch gave a low cry, the cloud blurred, and at the same time a flash of light burst from its base as five brilliantly colored crystal threads, each as thick as a thumb, shot out from within and fell toward the surface of the cold pool.
With a sizzling sound.
The moment the crystal threads touched the water of the cold pool, a layer of milky-white cold energy rolled upward, and a coating of white frost appeared on their surface.
The woman arched her dark eyebrows and, without a word, pressed her finger toward the cloud with grave intent.
A muffled peal of thunder sounded, and a torrent of five-colored light surged down along the crystal threads. The moment the milky-white cold energy came into contact with it, it was instantly swept away and dispersed.
The white frost on the surface of the crystal threads vanished without a trace.
The crystal threads sank once more, disappearing back into the cold pool.
A look of caution appeared on the Asura Spider Matriarch's face as her hands ceaselessly shifted through various spell seals.
The five crystal threads continued their descent into the depths of the cold pool.
Han Li stood atop the stone pillar, watching all of this with flickering eyes while channeling his Magical Power in a steady stream into the formation beneath his feet.
Though the woman had asked them to exert their full strength, Han Li's reserves of Magical Power were so vast that using less than a third of his total was more than enough for the task.
Instead, he used a secret technique to silently calculate the exact depth to which the crystal threads had sunk into the cold pool.
Ten zhang. Thirty zhang. One hundred zhang. Three hundred zhang…
As time slowly passed, Han Li's eyes narrowed.
By now, the crystal threads' descent had slowed dramatically, impeded by the extraordinary cold of the deep waters.
Once they had surpassed a depth of one thousand zhang, the woman couldn't help but let out a soft breath, her face etched with careful concentration.
At this point, with each passing breath, the crystal threads sank only a few inches—their progress had become excruciatingly slow.
Back then, even with the aid of a treasure, the Asura Spider Matriarch had been able to probe no deeper than this against the resistance of the cold energy.
Therefore, from this depth onward, the crystal threads could come into contact with the bottom of the cold pool at any moment, and the woman dared not let her guard down for even an instant.
Meanwhile, the blood-robed young woman had been entirely enveloped in a cloud of blood mist, with a vague, indistinct shadow flickering faintly behind her.
Though none of them knew what secret technique she had activated, the aura radiating from her was truly no weaker than that of an ordinary Mahayana cultivator.
Her earlier claim that she could use a secret technique to directly elevate herself by an entire major realm had apparently been no empty boast.
This drew the frequent, focused gazes of Xue Ran, Mo Jianli, and the others.
An hour passed.
The portions of the crystal threads protruding above the water began to accumulate a thin layer of frost once more despite the constantly flowing five-colored light, and their rate of descent had slowed to a point where it was nearly imperceptible to the naked eye.
Mo Jianli and the others had been continuously pouring their Magical Power for so long that, even though they could still hold on, their expressions were no longer as relaxed as they had been at the start.
Xue Ran, his brow deeply furrowed, quietly exchanged a few whispered voice transmissions with Hei Lin, though none of them knew what the two were discussing.
As for the rest of the Asura Spider Clan members outside the formation, their faces had all turned pale, showing clear signs of exhaustion.
The woman saw all of this and felt a surge of anxiety.
If she couldn't retrieve the treasure from the pool under these conditions, there would likely never be another chance.
At that thought, the Asura Spider Matriarch steeled herself, and in a sudden movement, she slapped her own crown with one hand. A flash of pale green light appeared, and a jade-green spider roughly a foot long flew out from the top of her head.
The spider's entire body gleamed with crystalline jade light, but its compound eyes on either side flickered with an eerie purple flame. The moment it materialized, it opened its mouth toward the sky above the cold pool and spat out a fist-sized ball of cyan light.
Within the light, a white crystalline core was faintly visible. After a single flash, it vanished into the funnel-shaped cloud without a trace.
Han Li and the others felt a chill run through them at the sight.
The woman had released her life-bound crystalline core—it seemed she truly intended to go all out.
After the cloud absorbed the crystalline core, a tremendous roar erupted from within, and a blinding column of multicolored light surged violently downward along the crystal threads.
The frost that had accumulated on the crystal threads was driven away once more, and at the same time their rate of descent increased more than tenfold. In a short while, they plunged dozens of zhang deeper before slowing once again.
Seeing this, the woman's expression darkened.
But just then, a soft sigh came from within the blood mist. The mist churned and rolled, and suddenly a pillar of silver light shot out, similarly flashing and vanishing into the cloud.