"No need to be impatient. This spirit herb has been here for so many years — there is no way nothing guards it. Otherwise, even with the illusion formation concealing it from the outside, the spirit fruit would have been devoured by other ancient beasts long ago." Han Li was equally excited inside, but his outward appearance remained remarkably calm. He answered unhurriedly.
"You mean there is an ancient beast still guarding this place, Brother Han?" Zi Ling had already heard Han Li briefly mention that Devilfall Valley harbored ancient demonic beasts, so the revelation startled her, clearing her head a good deal.
"That's right. Look at the top of the spirit herb — there are two obvious bite marks where something has chewed away the fruit. Two spirit fruits have already been swallowed whole by the guardian beast on two separate occasions. If a Spirit Candle Fruit is consumed raw, it won't trigger a realm breakthrough, but it does have a modest effect on breaking through bottlenecks. No wonder that creature couldn't bring itself to devour them all at once." Han Li spoke slowly, then swept his gaze around the green lake. He lowered his head slightly and looked at the lake's modest surface.
Without question, if something was lurking nearby, it had to be hidden beneath the water.
The moment he had entered the inner valley, Han Li had removed the cloak from his head. All along the way, while riding the Wind Chariot and activating the Clear Bright Spirit Eye, he had made no effort to hide any of it from Zi Ling. After all, she had already guessed that he possessed a method of evading spatial rifts, so there was no point in keeping things from her.
After sweeping his spiritual sense across the lake water without detecting anything unusual, a blue light flickered in Han Li's pupils. His gaze instantly penetrated dozens of zhang deep into the lake, plunging straight to the bottom. A subtle shift crossed his expression.
"What is it? Did you find something, Brother Han?" Zi Ling, who had been carefully watching Han Li's face all along, raised her delicate brows and frowned slightly as she asked.
"Step back a bit. This guardian ancient beast seems a bit troublesome — I'm afraid I'll need to use a few tricks to deal with it." Han Li's expression returned to normal in the blink of an eye. He tilted his head and spoke to Zi Ling in an indifferent tone.
The fact that the beast in the lake had managed to evade his spiritual sense naturally earned it a higher regard from Han Li.
"I'll leave it to you, Brother Han!" Zi Ling knew her cultivation was far too low and that staying at Han Li's side would only be a hindrance. She agreed sensibly, then immediately flew backward thirty or forty zhang before halting her escape light and floating motionlessly in the air.
Seeing Zi Ling move clear, Han Li wasted no time. He reached to his waist and plucked three spirit beast pouches, sending them one after another into midair. Then he formed a series of hand seals, and tens of thousands of golden flying insects poured out of the three pouches in a swarm, filling the sky and blotting out the sun. They blanketed an area of several dozen zhang overhead, dyeing the sky an eerie, glittering gold.
"Ah!" Watching from afar, Zi Ling caught sight of this terrifying spectacle and couldn't help letting out a soft cry of astonishment.
She already knew Han Li could command insects — she had even witnessed it twice before, once in the Void Heaven Hall and during his battle against the Six Paths heir. But these flying insects, which were close to evolving into their mature form, were incomparably larger and differently colored compared to the Gold Devouring Beetles of those earlier encounters.
Now these golden spirit insects, each one greatly magnified in size and fearsome in appearance, were released by Han Li to the tune of tens of thousands. Their combined momentum was truly extraordinary. It was perfectly natural for Zi Ling to feel a jolt of alarm caught off guard like that.
Han Li had no mind for Zi Ling's shock. After deploying the Gold Devouring Beetles, he flicked his wide sleeve, and thirty-six Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords filed out one after another from within. They transformed into several dozen streaks of golden light roughly a foot long and began circling and dancing beneath the insect cloud.
He cast several spell seals toward the sky in succession.
All the golden sword lights trembled, then instantly split into over a hundred identical copies as their radiance blazed forth.
"Go."
Han Li pointed at the sword lights overhead and issued a low command.
The hundred-plus sword lights shuddered in midair and began vanishing one by one from their positions in eerie silence. In the blink of an eye, the space beneath the insect cloud was left completely empty.
The Grand Earth Sword Formation had been laid out around them in an instant.
Han Li pressed his lips together, only now truly settling his mind. He lowered his gaze to the lake's surface, and a flash of cold ruthlessness crossed his face.
He rubbed his palms together. Golden light blazed and a peal of thunder boomed forth as a fist-sized ball of golden lightning materialized between his hands. Under Han Li's frigid expression, it swelled larger and larger, growing dazzlingly bright.
In the span of a heartbeat, the lightning ball had expanded to the size of a child's head.
Han Li thrust both hands forward. With a thunderous roar, the ball of lightning shot forth with a muffled crack and struck the lake surface over ten zhang ahead.
Golden light flared violently. A tremendous crack of thunder erupted as the lightning ball detonated. Arcs of electricity, thick and thin, blanketed the entire lake surface in an instant, crackling and snapping without cease.
Behind him, Zi Ling's heart clenched. She bit lightly on her red lip, her bright eyes flickering.
Before the golden arcs had even dissipated, the lake's surface suddenly began to churn and surge.
A colossal whirlpool several zhang across abruptly materialized at the center of the lake. A deep, muffled roar then rumbled up from its depths, and a jet of black-and-white demonic qi shot out from within the whirlpool. Cradled inside that energy was a strange-looking ancient beast, barely visible.
The creature was bizarre in appearance. Its body, six or seven zhang long, resembled a mass of pitch-black, rotting flesh riddled with pitted holes of every size. At its center, a bulbous mass of flesh shaped somewhat like a head was raised slightly. Apart from a single pitch-black eyeball, it possessed no other discernible organs. At the very least, Han Li could see no mouth, no nose, and nothing of the sort.