With a large clap, the silver threads struck the ice wall and created a dense grouping of holes. It nearly appeared as if the ice wall was on the verge of collapsing from the damage.
When Han Li saw this, he raised his hand and struck the ice wall with a spell seal.
Purple light flowed across the ice wall and released an astonis.h.i.+ng glacial Qi. Not only did was the damage from the silver threads repaired, but the wall condensed another layer of thick purple ice around it, quickly turning it even more difficult to destroy. In addition, the glacial Qi turned into purple flames in the blink of an eye and spread across the silver threads towards the embroidered scarf magic treasure. It appeared almost as if thin purple snakes were fiercely pouncing towards it.
With an expression changed from shock, the Saintess thought, ‘What is this vicious technique?’
Despite her surprise, her actions didn’t slow in the slightest. She held her hands in an incantation gesture and then gracefully pointed at the embroidered scarf floating in the air. The portrait of the silver silkworm opened its mouth once more and spat out a puff of white flame. It traveled along the silver threads and rush towards the purple flames to meet their attack.
Both of the flames quickly struck each other on the silver threads and the purple-white flames weaved together, and after a short moment, the purple flames ma.s.sively overtook the white flames and quickly gained ground.
When the Saintess saw this, she unconsciously frowned and spoke a few words in an ancient language. Suddenly, the Soaring Sky Beast let out a low roar from underneath her and spat a stream of azure flames to merge with the white flames. Joined together, the azure-white flames were able to block the purple ice flames for the time being.
In the gap of delay, the Saintess waved her hand and summoned an octagonal metal pendant into her grasp before tossing it into the air. The metal pendant then instantly transformed into a huge bagua diagram [1] blazing with scarlet flames and launched itself in Han Li’s direction.
Han Li curled his lips at the sight of this. Without a change of expression, thunder clapped from his back, summoning a pair of silver wings. As the bagua diagram was about to strike him, he blurred and disappeared in a flash of silver lightning.
With the bagua diagram missing its mark, Han Li reappeared over a hundred meters away with a flap of his wings before disappearing once more.
“Lightning movement!” When the Saintess saw Han Li draw closer to her, she muttered the name of this famed technique with a solemn expression. She then grasped her hands in an ancient incantation gesture and had the Soaring Sky Beast spit out a vast sea of white mist before they quickly took cover within it. In the blink of an eye, they completely disappeared into the mist.
Another clap of thunder soon rang out and Han Li reappeared at the mist’s side with an expression of surprise.
He wasn’t able to find any trace of the Saintess within the white mist as it completely blocked his spiritual sense from entering it. However, he didn’t have the time to allow the two to continue hiding away.
Han Li waved his hand with an icy expression, summoning an ancient purple mirror in front of him. Then with the mirror held in his hands, he poured the entirety of his spiritual power into it, causing it to pulse with light and release a beam of sparkling purple light through the mist.
The beam of purple light caused the white mist to roil before soon scattering it away, soon to leave no further cover for the Saintess. But at that moment, an azure flame spat out from a portion of the remaining mist, blocking the purple light from pressing any further.
Han Li quickly focused on the source of this flame and faintly saw the lone silhouette of the Endless Sky Beast deep in the mist. However, there was no trace of the Saintess standing on top of it.
Han Li rejoiced at the sight. He was originally planning of a way to separate the woman from the holy beast, but now that she took the initiative to abandon it, an extremely rare opportunity had appeared before him. Although he didn"t know where the Endless Sky Saintess was hidden or what technique she was preparing, he couldn’t allow this opportunity to pa.s.s him by.
With that thought, Han Li sent out a mental command without the slightest hesitation. The huge sword hidden away in the clouds up above suddenly let out a sharp howl and parted away the clouds with a flash of lightning as it chopped down at the Endless Sky Beast with astonis.h.i.+ng speed.
Ablaze with purple flames and golden lightning, the sword left claps of thunder in its wake; it was only moments before splitting the beast into two.
Han Li watched with delight, but soon his expression twisted with disbelief. The Soaring Sky Beast’s body turned into rolls of white mist before disappearing from sight. Losing his judgment in his excitement, Han Li wasn’t able to see through the beast’s illusion and had impulsively taken action.
‘Not good!’ Han Li shouted out in alarm. No longer attempting to look for the Endless Sky Beast’s true body, he quickly withdrew, but a large sparkling azure light s.h.i.+ned above him and immediately slowed his movements. At that same moment, he could hear the Saintess chanting an incantation.
Ha hastily looked up in alarm and saw a ball of silver light. The Saintess was floating a hundred meters above him and ancient silver patterns appeared on her forehead. As she continued chanting, a small cauldron appeared in her hand. The cauldron then released a large expanse of silver light that enveloped an area of a hundred meters around it.
“The Heavenvoid Cauldron!?” Han Li shouted out its name in alarm and his face completely paled.
He hastily looked inside of himself to find the Heavenvoid Cauldron safely stored. "What was happening? Could there be a second Heavenvoid Cauldron in this world?"
Yet to recover from his bewilderment, the small cauldron above him began to glow with light and surge in size. In the blink of an eye, it grew to twelve meters in size. Then under the command of the Saintess’ spell seal, the cauldron dazzlingly glowed and release an unending stream of sparkling azure sand. The stream of sand gathered together into a cloud before moving to envelop Han Li.
When Han Li saw this, his wings flapped without another thought and silver lightning sparked from his back.
But then, faint roars of thunder could be heard from the white mist. The soundwave of the thunder swept past Han Li and caused the silver lightning of his wings to flicker and completely disappear, disabling his lightning movement for the time being.
‘What ability is this?’ Han Li hastily glanced at the mist in alarm and saw the faint silhouette of the Endless Sky Beast at the edge of it, but he was unable to tell if it was its genuine body.
With the cloud of sand only thirty meters above him, Han Li was helpless to escape it. He could only point at the Bluelight s.h.i.+eld and have it wrap around him in a large blue barrier.
As soon as the sand and blue light barrier made contact, the azure sand brilliantly s.h.i.+ned and ma.s.sively expanded in size, each grain turning into the size of a boulder as it smashed down on the blue light barrier.
A series of booms echoed through the air. No matter how formidable the blue light barrier may be, it wasn’t able to withstand such a vast number of powerful strikes. In an instant, it blurred and dimmed. In addition, the cloud of sand split into two and transformed into two flood dragons, wrapping around the light barrier to restrict Han Li.
Without another thought, Han Li opened his mouth and spat out a small cauldron. He flicked his finger against it and a blue icy flame appeared on its surface. It was the Divine Spirit Treasure he cultivated to its first layer, the Heavenvoid Cauldron!
Although he was only able to make use of only a small portion of the cauldron’s power, Han Li had no choice but to use it after being pushed to the brink. He swept his hand past the surface of the cauldron and a wave of blue light flew out from it, tightly wrapping around him.
Han Li then spread out his arms and flicked his fingers at the two sand flood dragons. A dozen streaks of azure sword Qi were released, weaving through the air and fiercely striking the flood dragons. As a result, a dozen thumb-sized holes appeared in the flood dragons’ heads but to little effect.
Han Li felt his heart grow tense. Just as he thought to avoid the incoming attacks, his body felt as heavy as a mountain and his actions were brought to a standstill, restricting his movements in their entirety.
The flood dragons appeared before him and charged into him, collapsing into clouds of sand on impact in two m.u.f.fled groans. Then with bright light glowing around Han Li’s body, the cloud of sands condensed into a giant coc.o.o.n around him, soundly sealing him inside.
The Saintess had been initially shocked when Han Li brought out a small cauldron similar to her own holy cauldron, but when she saw how easily Han Li had been trapped by the sand, she simply smiled.
The might of the holy cauldron’s sand was immensely powerful. So long as someone was trapped in it, they would be completely disabled and at her mercy. Even late-Nascent Soul cultivators wouldn’t be able to escape in a short time.
A huge bang sounded out as Han Li’s blue light barrier was shattered and another layer of sand immediately wrapped around his body.
In that moment, the woman felt at ease and floated down as she stood on top of her huge cauldron. But after descending only thirty meters, a ma.s.sive changed occurred.
Countless beams of light suddenly penetrated from within the hardy coc.o.o.n from every direction. Before the Saintess could give another command, the sand coc.o.o.n collapsed back into a cloud and floated motionlessly in the air. At the center of the sand cloud was a large dazzling blue light. Han Li was inside of it, holding a small cauldron in his hand as he stared at the Saintess.
The Saintess came to a sudden stop and looked at Han Li with an unsightly expression, disbelief flooding her mind.
A cold snort could be heard from Han Li as he slapped the lid of the Heavenvoid Cauldron. Ripples upon ripples of blue light clearly resonated from the cauldron and soon spread around him, causing the surrounding sand to vanish as soon as the ripples of light pa.s.sed by them, appearing almost as if the light had consumed it.
The Saintess was wildly alarmed by the scene and hastily formed a hand incantation, ordering the sand to resume its attack. However, the sand quietly remained in place as if having completely lost connection to the Saintess’ spiritual sense.
Suddenly, the Saintess betrayed panic from her face and stamped down on the huge cauldron. It continued to revolve for a time before spouting out a blinding azure light to envelope Han Li.
[1] Bagua, also known as the eight trigrams. It is most often represented as a Yin-Yang symbol with eight different trigrams surrounding it in an octagon.