The purple-gold little figure had fallen into a coma and could not wake up for the time being.
A flash of crystalline light flickered between Han Li's brows, and his black dharma eye dissipated and vanished. He swept a slightly peculiar gaze over the purple-gold little figure on the ground and let out a soft breath: "I knew that once this little thing evolved into the Beetle King, the restrictions I placed on it before would no longer work properly. Fortunately, I planted additional backup measures on those three quasi-kings before they devoured each other. Otherwise, subduing this beetle king after its advancement would have been a real headache. But to be safe, I suppose I'll have to refine it all over again with a secret technique."
As soon as Han Li finished mumbling to himself, one of his sleeves gave a shake, and over a hundred densely packed banner flags flew out together. With frantic flashes, they formed a magic formation several zhang in size within the secret chamber.
At the very center of the formation lay none other than the unconscious purple-gold little figure.
Han Li chanted incantations under his breath while simultaneously forming several hand seals in succession, all of which vanished in a flash into the formation.
With several soft "pfft" sounds, countless five-colored thin threads erupted from the edges of the formation and rapidly wrapped around the center, binding the purple-gold little figure tight as a drum.
Then Han Li opened his mouth again and spat out several globules of essence blood. They spun in the air, transforming into blood runes that shot toward the purple-gold little figure.
At the same time, the entire formation hummed loudly as waves of spiritual light and flame surged forth, also sweeping toward the center…
An unknown amount of time later, the door of the secret chamber swung open, and Han Li walked out with a trace of a smile on his face.
The refinement of the Gold Devouring Beetle King had clearly been quite successful.
One month later, Qi Lingzi and Bai Guo'er bid farewell to Han Li and set off on their journey to explore the Wilderness.
Another ten-odd days later, Han Li departed Holy Island with Silver Moon and Zhu Guo'er, boarding the Ink Spirit Sacred Vessel and racing at full speed toward demon territory.
In the blink of an eye, more than half a month had passed.
Along the way, the Ink Spirit Sacred Vessel naturally encountered no small number of demon races.
But regardless of their rank, as soon as these demons caught sight of the Ink Spirit Sacred Vessel's mountain-like massive hull and the astonishingly powerful magic crystal puppets standing on its deck from far away, they fled as far and as fast as they could.
Before long, however, when Han Li's vessel was flying over a stretch of inland sea, it disturbed an unidentified demon cultivator who had been quietly cultivating in the deep waters below.
This aquatic demon cultivator possessed roughly an early Body Integration stage cultivation.
Over ten thousand years ago, after it had relocated its cave dwelling to this area and forcibly driven away several other not-so-weak demon clans, it had claimed this resource-rich inland sea as its own territory.
Though this demon's temperament had always been exceptionally violent, its strength was considered extremely high among demonkind, and it possessed several remarkable treasures. As a result, even the few other cultivators of the same rank generally preferred not to provoke it.
For this reason, over the past ten thousand years, whichever demon clan wished to operate in these waters would first notify it as a matter of courtesy.
But on this particular day, while this demon cultivator was in a secret chamber deep within its underwater cave dwelling, refining a batch of pills critically important to it, a sharp alarm suddenly blared from outside the chamber.
Caught off guard, the demon's concentration was disrupted. Startled, the green demonic flame it was feeding into the jade fan in its hand inadvertently flared threefold.
BOOM!
A white crystal jade cauldron several feet tall in front of it flickered violently, and a scorched smell wafted out.
The Body Integration demon cultivator saw this and let out a roar of fury. Its face twisted through several hideous expressions before, without even bothering to check the alarm formation outside the chamber, it flicked its sleeve, transformed into a streak of white light, and shot out of the chamber, rocketing straight toward the surface of the sea.
The ingredients for that batch of pills were extraordinarily rare — it had taken the demon tremendous effort to gather enough for a single refinement.
Now that they had been ruined like this, grief and pain naturally gave way to a towering rage directed at whoever had caused this catastrophe.
Though it had not yet seen who had triggered the surface alarm, its mind was already filled with savage thoughts: "If these people have some powerful backing or connections, that might be tolerable — so long as they compensate me for my losses, I can let it slide. But if they don't, I'll grind their bones to dust to avenge this batch of pills!"
Being an aquatic demon, this cultivator's water escape technique was astonishingly swift. In just a few flickers, it stood atop a green water serpent and arrived at the sea's surface. The instant it burst through the water, it bellowed in rage: "Where do you little upstarts come from, daring to ruin your Old Ancestor Shi's business! Surrender immediately and await your Old Ancestor's judgment! Ah, you're—"
This demon cultivator, clad in half a suit of fish-scale armor, had just appeared in the high sky together with the green serpent beneath its feet. It raised its head and swept a vicious glare forward — and in that instant, it froze in shock.
Hundreds of zhang above where it hovered, a black vessel as massive as a mountain was slowly gliding through the sky from the distance. And the densely packed puppet warriors standing on its deck made its heart clench with terror.
Among these puppets, several radiated an aura that seemed to surpass even its own.
The rest of the vicious words still lodged in its throat were swallowed back down with a gulp.