Inside Han Li's newly constructed cave dwelling, there was naturally a dedicated artifact refining chamber.
After setting up a secret formation inside it, he brought the tempered crystals and that bottle of ten-thousand-year spiritual liquid and entered.
Once inside, the stone door of the secret chamber shut tight and did not open again for an entire year.
All other operations within the cave dwelling were handled through several giant ape puppets left outside the secret chamber.
Thanks to this arrangement, the cave dwelling ran in orderly fashion without any mishaps.
However, on this particular day, something unexpected occurred.
A rumbling sound suddenly came from outside, and then the ground began to shake without the slightest warning, even the walls of the secret chamber trembling ceaselessly. At the same time, the faint sounds of thunder and crashing waves could be heard from beyond, growing louder and louder, as though the entire small island were caught in a violent storm.
With a muffled boom, the stone door of the artifact refining chamber was pushed open from inside.
A figure flashed out, and Han Li emerged with a cold expression on his face, though his eyes betrayed a look of shock and uncertainty.
He tilted his head to listen to the rumbling outside the cave dwelling, then pressed his hand against the storage pouch at his waist. A streak of yellow light shot out from the pouch, circled once, and landed in Han Li's hand.
It was a formation flag, pale yellow throughout and embroidered with mystical runes, roughly two or three chi in length.
Without hesitation, Han Li opened his mouth and breathed a puff of azure qi onto the flag's pole.
The yellow light immediately blazed brightly. Then, a cold gleam flickered in Han Li's eyes, and he flicked his wrist.
A streak of yellow brilliance shot straight toward the ground, and the formation flag vanished into the earth in the blink of an eye, disappearing without a trace.
Low, murmured incantations issued from Han Li's lips, varying in weight and rhythm.
An astonishing sight appeared.
All the ground and walls began to glow with brilliant golden light under the incantation, as though they had been transformed entirely into pure gold. At the same moment, the trembling, the shaking, and those soul-shaking peals of thunder all subsided in an instant.
Everything returned to normal.
Seeing this, Han Li's expression relaxed slightly. However, the suspicion in his eyes had not diminished in the least. He suddenly transformed into a streak of azure light and shot toward the entrance of the cave dwelling.
Moments later, Han Li appeared in the sky above the small island, wreathed in azure light. Although sea fog lay below, this formation had been laid by Han Li himself, and it naturally could not obstruct his gaze in the slightest.
But the sight before him caused his expression to shift several times.
Thanks to the activation of the protective formations, the mountain range where his cave dwelling stood remained as steady as Mount Tai. But beyond the reach of the formations, the land was trembling and wailing in distress.
Not only were mud and rock cascading down the hills and slopes, but the ground itself, shaken by the violent tremors, had begun to split open with massive fissures several zhang wide. As for the trees and vegetation, they had been overturned in the blink of an eye.
Yet none of this alone would have been enough to cause Han Li to lose his composure like this!
What shocked him even more was that on one side of the island, terrifyingly huge waves were actually surging up from the sea.
Those colossal waves, over a hundred zhang high, struck the island one after another, ceaselessly washing over everything on it, turning nearly half of the small island into a landscape of lakes and marshes.
From the direction of the waves, beyond the boundless sea mist, a low, bizarre roar had joined the thunderous rumbling, as if some ferocious beast was raging furiously out there. With each rising howl, both the thunder and the waves surged higher.
"Could there be some high-level fierce beast stirring up trouble on the nearby seas?" Gazing towards the waves, Han Li pondered.
Judging by this terrifying momentum, the beast must be enormous; otherwise, it could never create such a spectacle.
At this thought, a strong sense of curiosity arose in Han Li's heart.
He lowered his head in contemplation for a moment, then a flash of light enveloped him as he plunged into the misty sea, flying directly towards the source of the roar.
However, out of caution, Han Li restrained his breath and aura, and his flight light dimmed until it was barely perceptible. In the blink of an eye, his figure vanished without a trace.
The moment he flew out of the sea mist, Han Li spotted his target immediately without needing to search.
Just as he had guessed, there was indeed a fierce beast on the nearby sea, stirring up the waves.
But this beast was far too massive!
Even though he had anticipated something large, Han Li still gasped in shock at its sheer size.