The short sword hummed at once, and the strange insect patterns etched across its surface seemed to come alive, writhing back and forth along the blade as though swimming.
The elder surnamed Yu swept his arm forward, and the short sword transformed into a streak of blood-red light that slashed straight down toward the iron cage.
The moment the crimson radiance made contact with the cage, a deafening peal of thunder erupted. Countless golden arcs crackled into being, wreathing the surface in blinding light.
The blood-red glow let out a muffled wail and was hurled backward, flickering once before reverting to its short-sword form and dropping back into the elder Yu's hand.
"Ward-Expelling Divine Thunder!"
The old man blanched. He hastily brought the sword before his eyes and discovered that several hairline fractures had appeared along its surface — it had clearly sustained no small amount of damage.
Had Han Li witnessed this scene, he too would have been quite startled.
The golden lightning that had bounced off the iron cage looked, at first glance, remarkably similar to the divine thunder he had cultivated. But upon closer inspection, there were subtle differences.
Although these golden arcs blazed with the same brilliant gold, each time they flickered and detonated, faint purple-gold runes shimmered in and out of visibility. Their power far surpassed that of the Ward-Expelling Divine Thunder Han Li had already mastered.
"It truly is the Ward-Expelling Divine Thunder… No — it doesn't seem like ordinary Ward-Expelling Divine Thunder. Ah, I've long heard that Perfected Master Dingding, back in his day, was not only proficient in several types of lightning-based power, but also possessed a technique for refining and purifying thunderous energy. It could amplify the might of ordinary lightning arts by more than tenfold." The last elder, observing the scene with a start, frowned after a moment's thought and spoke.
"This is going to be trouble. Ward-Expelling Divine Thunder already greatly suppresses our Shaman Spirit lineage. If it has been refined and purified on top of that, how are we supposed to break through it?" The elder surnamed Yu stowed his short sword and growled through clenched teeth.
That sword appeared unremarkable, but in truth it harbored several extraordinary capabilities. To have it damaged so abruptly and without warning filled him with deep chagrin.
"Rest easy. No matter how powerful the Ward-Expelling Divine Thunder may be, without anyone actively directing it, it is merely an inanimate mechanism. Breaking it will simply take a bit more time. What concerns me are the other restrictions laid upon this iron cage — there are certainly more than just this one, and the later ones will likely prove even harder to crack." The elder surnamed Wu stared at the eerie barbs protruding from the cage and the blood-red chain coiled around the skeleton within, his expression contemplative.
"Hard or not, we must open it. Otherwise, wouldn't this entire venture have been for nothing? Very well — this time, let this old man's Nether Yin Water take a crack at the Ward-Expelling Divine Thunder first." The final elder's spirits perked slightly. He opened his mouth and spat out a drab gray gourd.
The old man flicked a finger at the gourd from a distance, and the object immediately flipped upside down. A flash of ethereal light passed over its surface, and from within surged a torrent of pitch-black water.
The water seemed bitterly cold the instant it left the gourd. The temperature in the surrounding void plummeted in an instant, and wisps of ashen mist drifted off it, carrying with them a strange, decayed odor.
The old man murmured a string of incantations and urged the water onward. The black torrent spiraled high in the air, then abruptly coalesced into a vaguely defined black flood dragon. Fangs bared and claws unsheathed, it lunged straight for the iron cage.
The surface of the cage crackled with thunder once more. Countless golden runes surged into view, and a layer of dazzling golden netting materialized before it.
A thunderous roar split the air!
The black water and golden arcs collided, unleashing a brilliant, blinding radiance as they intertwined.
……
Han Li stood in an enormously tall hall, gazing at a lifelike statue that loomed atop the offering altar before him, his eyes flickering as he fell into contemplation.
The statue was roughly the size of a living person — a middle-aged Daoist priest clad in a white Daoist robe with a blood-red longsword slung across his back at an angle.
The statue's gaze drifted slightly to the side, its expression serene and detached, exuding an otherworldly quality that set it apart from ordinary mortals.
Flanking the Daoist statue on either side were two spirit-beast sculptures — a massive green eagle and a silver mantis — equally vivid and lifelike, their appearances fierce and forbidding.
"This must be Perfected Master Dingding. No one else could possibly possess such a bearing," Han Li murmured after studying the statue for a while, then cast his eyes to the left and right.
On the ground to either side, he could see four two-zhang-tall blood-armored puppets and two unidentifiable sets of skeletal remains, all sprawled in disarray.
Though the four blood-armored puppets lay motionless on the ground, their armor was smooth and gleaming without a single scratch, and the massive hammers, greatswords, and other weapons they clutched in their hands were equally pristine — as though they might spring to their feet at any moment.
As for the two skeletons, one had only half a body remaining, surrounded by four dark flying swords that had been snapped into over a dozen pieces scattered across the floor.
The other skeleton was missing its entire head. Beside it lay a shattered purple shield — more than half of it destroyed — and a silver short ruler that had been twisted completely out of shape, warped like a hemp braid.
The two skeletons lay between pairs of blood-armored puppets, their fallen postures suggesting they had perished simultaneously while battling the puppets in a desperate fight.
Judging from the faint spiritual energy still clinging to the remains, they must have been two of the cultivators who had fought the great beasts on the floor below.
Nevertheless, Han Li scrutinized both skeletons several times over, and only after confirming that no residual magical tools or treasures remained did he flicker once and vanish from where he stood, reappearing behind the statue of Perfected Master Dingding.