Han Li's expression was grim!
Though the lightning net had temporarily halted all the grayish-white flames, those flames burned as if nothing could withstand them, raging furiously across the surface of the electric arcs.
This formed a grayish-white fire dome that forcibly trapped Han Li within.
Even if he wanted to flee now, there was no way to do so.
What worried Han Li even more was that these grayish-white flames were gradually devouring the pale golden arcs. Though the pace was slow, the lightning net surrounding his body was undeniably shrinking.
True, the flames seemed to have been somewhat depleted in the process as well, but on the whole, the Asura Sacred Fire held a crushing advantage.
Seeing this scene, Xuan Gu let out a deep sigh of relief, a trace of a smile appearing on his face!
He simply could not believe that under the shroud of this Asura Sacred Fire, Han Li would have any means left to escape again.
After all, with this fire's fearsome reputation, Xuan Gu was confident that even a Nascent Soul stage cultivator trapped within would have to sacrifice a massive amount of vital essence just to have a chance of escaping through some secret technique. And once he possessed his own refined Sacred Fire and restored his Nascent Soul stage peak cultivation, he would surely be able to sweep across more than half of the Scattered Star Seas without issue.
At the thought of this, Xuan Gu's eyes narrowed with indulgent daydreaming. The Han Li standing before him now was no different from a dead man in his eyes.
The situation was growing more dire by the moment!
Watching the golden net shrink and seeing the barrier formed by the Evil-Warding Divine Lightning on the verge of shattering, Han Li maintained a stony expression. He simply spread both hands open, and two slender golden arcs shot from his palms, instantly merging with the arcs on the lightning net.
Golden arcs flowed ceaselessly from Han Li's hands into the net, which had been faltering but now blazed brilliantly once more. Not only did it recover to its original size, it began firing off arcs as thick as fingers at an astonishing rate, pushing the grayish-white sacred fire back outside and threatening to envelop it in turn.
Xuan Gu's eyes nearly bulged out of his skull, and he nearly leaped into the air!
Only now did he truly understand what it meant to "man's schemes fall short of Heaven's will."
Han Li still had this much Evil-Warding Divine Lightning — this was absolutely testing the old demon's nerves to their limit.
Even if the Asura Sacred Fire was a tier above the Evil-Warding Divine Lightning, if the latter's quantity was overwhelming enough, who would annihilate whom was anyone's guess!
Xuan Gu stared straight at Han Li with the look one might give a monster.
He truly wanted to know how many Gold Lightning Bamboo treasures were hidden inside that unimpressive body — could it be that his opponent truly had an inexhaustible supply of Evil-Warding Divine Lightning?
The moment this thought arose, Xuan Gu suddenly jolted and bit down hard on the tip of his tongue.
The searing pain and faint taste of blood snapped his mind back to clarity.
He gave a slight shake of his head, banishing that absurd notion.
An inexhaustible supply of Evil-Warding Divine Lightning? That could not possibly be real. He had simply been rattled into self-doubt by the sheer volume of divine lightning his opponent had unleashed.
But Xuan Gu believed that after Han Li had released such a staggering amount of divine lightning three times over, he must truly have very little left. All he had to do was endure this critical moment, and he could utterly annihilate Han Li. All those Gold Lightning Bamboo treasures would then naturally be his!
At the thought, Xuan Gu's spirits surged once more. He fixed Han Li with a few more greedy glances, then lifted his head to look at the sphere of light overhead.
His opponent had held back some Evil-Warding Divine Lightning — but then, had he himself fused every last drop of the Qianlan Ice Flame into the Asura Sacred Fire? He had only merged a small portion of the ice flame he had gathered, to minimize the risk of a backlash from the secret technique.
But now it seemed that this small portion of sacred fire was still not enough to kill Han Li.
Only by fusing and releasing the remaining ice flame in full could he wipe his opponent out in one breath.
At this thought, he gave a faint nod and began forming hand seals to cast his spell.
The sphere of light high in the air began spinning at tremendous speed, once again radiating dazzling prismatic light.
Seeing this, Han Li's heart turned to ice in an instant.
Just as Xuan Gu had anticipated, Han Li's repeated deployments of the Evil-Warding Divine Lightning — clashing directly against the Qianlan Ice Flame and then the Asura Sacred Fire — had indeed consumed roughly eighty to ninety percent of the divine lightning. Now, with the opponent about to unleash another round of the Asura Sacred Fire, Han Li knew in his heart that there was absolutely no way he could hold out with what remained.
His only option was to break through this fire blockade immediately and flee for his life. No matter how fearsome the opponent's flames might be, as long as they could not touch his body, they were useless.
With this resolve, Han Li steeled himself. In an instant, he extracted and activated every last trace of Evil-Warding Divine Lightning remaining in his body.
Two golden arcs, each as thick as an arm, erupted simultaneously from both palms and crashed into the lightning net.
The golden net flickered rapidly several times, and with a low, rumbling peal of thunder, it finally burst apart into a vast spread of golden light, exploding outward.
Countless pale golden sparks of electricity blasted the remaining grayish-white flames far into the distance.
In that moment, Han Li's figure flickered several times, and he vanished from his original position, reappearing several zhang away.