The words had barely left his mouth when Black Scale's arm blurred, and he suddenly slapped a palm toward a spot behind him.
A piercing boom erupted on the spot, and an invisible titanic force instantly transformed into a net that plummeted downward like a thunderbolt.
A muffled squelch!
A somewhat blurry yellow figure materialized within the net, caught completely off guard. But it immediately twisted its body in panic, somehow breaking free using some unknown technique, then vanished in a flash of radiance, transforming into a streak of brilliant light that shot into the sky.
"Hmph. You still think you can leave now? Do you take us for nobody?" A sinister look flashed across Black Scale's face. His outstretched palm suddenly curled its five fingers slightly inward and pulled back.
A dull boom echoed through the air. High above the distant yellow figure, spatial ripples surged, and a colossal black palm materialized out of thin air, sweeping downward with lightning speed.
This time, no matter how desperately the yellow figure dodged, there was nowhere to flee.
Dark light coiled inward, and the yellow figure was clamped firmly in the palm's grip.
Black Scale let out a hearty laugh. With a casual wave of his hand, the giant palm carrying the yellow figure hurtled back toward the mountaintop.
By now, Han Li and the others could clearly make out the true appearance of the yellow figure.
It was a gaunt young man clad in a yellow robe.
His face, however, was streaked with terror — he clearly understood whose hands he had fallen into. After a moment's hesitation, he let out a low shout, forced himself through a series of hand seals, and a yellow crystalline glow began coursing frantically across his skin as his body swelled wildly in size.
"Not good!"
Black Scale, being a Mahayana existence, recognized the situation at once and roared in fury, flicking a finger toward the distant void.
A sharp tearing sound ripped through the air, and a beam of black light traversed a hundred-zhang span of space in an instant, piercing straight toward the young man.
But the move came too late.
The very instant the black light bored through the young man's body, a deafening explosion simultaneously rocked the heavens.
The yellow-robed youth had detonated himself a split second ahead of the strike.
A blinding halo of light and violent waves of spatial turbulence shook even the enormous black palm, causing it to sway unsteadily.
"Such gall — to dare self-destruct right before my eyes!" Black Scale's expression turned extremely ugly, and he ground out the words through clenched teeth.
The black giant palm flickered briefly before dissipating and vanishing into nothing.
"That person's concealment technique was rather impressive, but to so decisively detonate his own body — there's likely some deeper mystery behind it." Han Li swept his gaze over the site of the explosion, then remarked with a faint smile.
"Oh? Fellow Daoist Han, you mean the one who self-destructed just now wasn't the person's true body?" Blood Burn's eyes flashed; his reaction was remarkably quick.
Mo Jianli, upon hearing this, also showed a trace of surprise.
"Most likely. But it shouldn't have been an ordinary puppet or a commonplace clone either. There was clearly a Body Integration aura emanating from him — if it had truly been a genuine self-destruction, the resulting power would have been far greater than what we just witnessed." Han Li's tone was calm and measured.
"Mm, when you put it that way, it is rather peculiar. But when the self-destruction occurred, I watched closely — there was no Nascent Soul within his body." Blood Burn nodded, a contemplative look crossing his features.
Meanwhile, Black Scale, unwilling to give up, stamped his foot, and his entire form dissolved into billowing clouds of black mist that rolled outward in every direction, searching as they went.
In the blink of an eye, the dark clouds had swept through everything within a radius of tens of thousands of kilometers. But they found nothing. Reluctantly, the clouds rumbled back, converging and coalescing once more into human form as Black Scale alighted upon the mountaintop.
"That kid's not bold enough — he didn't dare hide anywhere nearby. He's lucky. He managed to dodge disaster this time. Otherwise, if he'd truly fallen into my hands…" A fleeting glint of malice crossed Black Scale's face, and he spoke with a disgruntled huff.
"Ha ha, forget it. That person may have been eavesdropping on us from the shadows, but this place is already covered by a sound-isolation formation. He couldn't possibly have heard what we were discussing." Blood Burn waved his hand dismissively, his tone noncommittal.
"But this person might have been sent by the Asura Spider Matriarch, no?" Mo Jianli stroked his beard thoughtfully, then spoke with measured caution.
"Rest easy. Even if he was a spy for the Asura Spiders, what could he possibly have gleaned from so far away? The outcome of this battle will ultimately be decided by absolute strength." Black Scale adopted an air of complete indifference.