Han Li sent voice transmissions to a few people in silence. By the time he walked out of his residence's main gate, Xuepo and Zhuguoer were already waiting respectfully.
After issuing a few orders, Han Li told Ancestor Stone and the twelve Incense Maidens to remain behind. He took only Xuepo and Zhuguoer with him, and the three transformed into a swirl of rosy light that soared into the sky, shooting straight toward the town's center.
Before long, similar glows of light flickered from several other clusters of buildings deep in the forest, and more cultivators mounted their escape lights and rose into the air.
Almost simultaneously, beams of light emerged from various pavilions throughout the town that catered to outside visitors, all streaming like a tide toward the same destination.
By the time Han Li's streak of light arrived above the tall tower and flickered to a halt, quite a few people had already entered.
Han Li's gaze swept over the hundred armored guards stationed outside the tower, then he descended with the two women directly in front of the main entrance.
But just then, a figure blurred from within the tower. Feiyun Fairy walked out with an elegant grace, offered Han Li a graceful curtsy, and said with a smile: "Senior Han, welcome to the grand auction. If you would not find it inconvenient, I would be happy to escort you inside personally."
The woman seemed to have been waiting there all along.
"If Fairy is so kind as to offer, then I shall impose upon you." Han Li showed no surprise. He smiled faintly and nodded.
The woman in purple brightened at his words and gestured to the guards beside her. Without so much as checking tokens of identification, Han Li and his companions strolled right through the entrance and into the stone tower.
The instant his foot crossed the threshold, Han Li felt an unusual fluctuation. The scenery around him was rushing backward at tremendous speed.
What seemed like a single small step instead carried him from the entrance directly to the stairway on the tower's first floor.
Two pale-skinned foreign cultivators were ascending the stairs ahead of him, their bodies wreathed in halos of hazy light.
With a flash, the two vanished completely into the void, leaving behind only faint traces of spatial disturbance.
"So this is the true entrance to the auction grounds?" Han Li asked, his expression shifting with interest.
"Senior is quite correct. From here, one can enter directly into the pocket dimension," the woman in purple replied with a bright smile.
Han Li nodded, flickered forward, and was the first to step onto the stairs. A wave of spatial force surged toward them, and the figures of several people immediately warped and blurred.
After the time it takes to eat a meal, Han Li and his party found themselves inside a private box exquisitely decorated and remarkably elegant.
The entire box spanned over a dozen zhang in size. Directly in front was a nearly transparent screen of light, and looking through it from their elevated vantage point, they could survey an enormous plaza below.
The plaza was surrounded on all sides by tightly packed stone seats, with a vast sea of heads surging among them.
Along the edges of the plaza, a ring of pale silver stone houses floated a dozen zhang or so above the ground — fifty or sixty in total. Golden runes flickered in and out of visibility on the surface of each one, and outsiders could not detect the slightest activity within.
Han Li and his companions happened to be inside one of these floating houses, with the woman in purple standing beside them with a pleasant smile.
At first glance, these arrangements did not seem greatly different from an ordinary auction.
But seated inside the silver stone house, Han Li's gaze was drawn to a point a thousand zhang above the plaza.
There, clusters of five-colored clouds drifted in slow currents, and within them one could faintly make out countless dark-armored warriors lying in ambush. Restrictive seals of every variety filled the entire sky, blanketing the whole plaza beneath them.
Looking even higher still, above the five-colored clouds stood a magnificent complex of golden and emerald palatial buildings. Though somewhat hazy and indistinct, ethereal music drifted down from time to time, lending a nameless sense of calm.
"Your Alliance has chosen to hold the auction inside a pocket dimension and has prepared so many contingencies on top of that. I would say the arrangements are virtually foolproof," Han Li remarked to the woman in purple with a smile.
"The Alliance is being this cautious precisely as a precaution against the unexpected. After all, the treasures being auctioned this time are far beyond anything offered before. Two or three items in particular can suppress and delay the arrival of a Grand Tribulation. We naturally have to guard against any senior cultivators who might harbor... unsavory thoughts," the woman replied with a light laugh.
"Seeing these arrangements of yours, I suspect most of the fellow cultivators here have already had any such thoughts extinguished," Han Li said with a meaningful chuckle.
"Let us hope so. Senior Han, the auction is about to begin. I still have some matters to attend to, so I shall not keep lingering here," the woman said, glancing through the light screen at the plaza outside before turning back with a smile.
"Please, go and see to your duties. I have no need for any further company here," Han Li waved his hand and said without hesitation.