As the days slipped by, the intervals between each eruption of the Wind Spirit Force inside Han Li's body grew longer and longer.
What had started as once every few shichen gradually stretched to once every half day, until finally an entire day could pass before Han Li needed to suppress it. Moreover, each flare-up was weaker than the last.
After two full days passed without an incident, the Wind Spirit Force settled down at last. The Wind-Splitting Beast had apparently ceased driving it.
Han Li was naturally overjoyed.
Whether the beast's technique had broken down because the distance between them had grown too great, or because the creature had run into trouble of its own, either way this was the perfect opportunity to break free.
Without a moment's hesitation, Han Li downed a single drop of spirit liquid, locked onto a direction, and shot through the sky without holding anything back, flying far away from the surrounding seas.
On a small island some tens of thousands of li from Han Li, the Wind-Splitting Beast sat cross-legged in a deserted, empty cave, its face ashen with fury.
After this long, exhausting chase, its magical power had finally been drained to the point where it could no longer suppress the foreign object lodged inside its body.
The beast was nothing like Han Li, who could afford the staggering luxury of using ten-thousand-year spirit liquid to replenish his spiritual energy in an instant. Left with no choice, it remained on this island, planning to stay until it had thoroughly dealt with the menace within its body before resuming the hunt.
Those Wind Thunder Wings it had gone through so much trouble to refine — it would definitely take them back.
After uttering a venomous oath filled with bone-deep hatred, the ninth-level Wind-Splitting Beast shut its eyes and entered a state of selfless, meditative oblivion.
……
More than a month later, Han Li also appeared on a deserted island he did not recognize.
After confirming that no human cultivators or high-level demon beasts were nearby, he dove straight down onto the island and quickly carved out the simplest of stone caves.
He placed several concealment formations around the entrance, hurried inside to sit down, and then produced the pair of Wind Thunder Wings.
Han Li gazed at the wings shrunk to the size of his palm, and a look of barely contained delight surfaced on his face.
Since these spirit wings required the power of wind and thunder to operate, and the ninth-level demon cultivator Feng Xi possessed only the power of wind, it stood to reason that one did not need to wield both forces simultaneously — possessing either one should be enough to wield this treasure.
Han Li himself could command the Evil-Warding Divine Lightning, so he naturally had the ability to control it.
If the treasure was truly as wondrous as the Wind-Splitting Beast had claimed, mastering it as soon as possible would be an enormous asset to his survival in the future.
However, upon closer inspection, Han Li noticed that the silvery-white long feathers on the wings seemed to waver slightly, not yet fully settled.
He understood at once. The treasure had been extracted too early and had not yet finished solidifying into its final form.
Although it was not as catastrophic as the beast had tried to scare him into believing — where everything would be ruined beyond repair — delaying the process further would indeed diminish the wings' power considerably.
But Han Li showed no trace of panic on his face. Instead, he immediately drew a small cut on his index finger with his nail and let a single drop of essence blood fall onto the wings. Then, channeling a hand seal, he completed the ownership-binding ritual first.
As the wings absorbed the drop of essence blood into their surface, a cold gleam flickered through Han Li's eyes. He flicked them skyward with one hand.
The Wind Thunder Wings soared into midair, then simply floated there as if weightless, perfectly still.
Without so much as a glance, Han Li shot ten finger-torrents of slender arcs of lightning from his hands. They streaked toward the spirit wings, erupting in deep, rumbling peals of thunder.
Han Li's expression was grave as the golden arcs grew denser and denser.
Before long, a pale-gold electric cocoon materialized in the air, enveloping the Wind Thunder Wings entirely within it.
The thunderclaps gradually dropped from a roar to a low hum.
Watching the Wind Thunder Wings inside the electric shell slowly absorb the arcs of Evil-Warding Divine Lightning, Han Li finally felt a wave of relief.
Over the following dozen days, Han Li used the divine lightning in his hands to gradually stabilize the Wind Thunder Feathers on the wings. And because they had absorbed the Evil-Warding Divine Lightning, faint golden threads began to appear among the silver feathers — nearly invisible to the naked eye unless one looked very closely.
Having completed the treasure-solidification work that the Wind-Splitting Beast and the others had never finished, Han Li immediately withdrew the lightning arcs, spewed forth a sheet of azure light, and swept the Wind Thunder Wings into his body.
Afterward, he left the stone cave and flew up above the island, ready to test the treasure's usage and powers.
Hovering high in the air, Han Li drew a slow breath and secretly circulated his magical power, summoning the Wind Thunder Wings from within his body.
He felt a surge of spiritual energy behind him, and then came two soft "pu-pu" sounds as a pair of wings roughly a zhang in span materialized out of thin air at his back.
Silvery-white long feathers, threaded through with faint glimmers of gold.