With great alarm lingering within, the old man thought to retreat. Han Li on the other hand glanced at the black mountain with a trace of awe.
Such a peculiar and astonis.h.i.+ng treasure wasn’t something that this old man was able to refine. It was most likely some ancient treasure that had remained from antiquity. Han Li was certain that this treasure’s might wasn’t something that even a late Nascent Soul cultivator could endure.
So long as the strike landed, it would decide any battle in a single blow. With this item in hand, he would be able to resolve his lacking attack power. Not to mention that he was also interested in the old man’s Wind Riding Chariot.
With that in mind, Han Li’s gaze s.h.i.+fted to the old man and his expression gradually grew hostile. A trace of killing intent could be seen deep within his eyes.
Although he hadn’t fought much with the old man, Han Li was confident that he understood most of his techniques. It seemed to be the old man’s misfortune that he was specialized in ice-attribute techniques.
With the Celestial Ice Flames, they wouldn’t pose much of a threat against Han Li. Despite the vast number of ice crystals that had attacked him, he was able to easily dissolve them with the Celestial Ice Flames.
This teleporting black mountain should be the old man’s most powerful treasure. However, with the instantaneous movements of the Thunderstorm Wings, it was of no use against Han Li. In this case, it should be possible for Han Li to kill the old man.
Having come to a decision, Han Li no longer held any hesitation.
The ice flowers in his grasp trembled and flickered with blue light, quickly transforming into an egg-sized flame. It hovered in his palm and emitted a bizarre aura.
At that same moment, Han Li pointed to the huge sword and the silver bell with his free hand. Soon after, he flapped his wings and disappeared, leaving only thunder in his wake. In the next instant, he reappeared three hundred meters away from the old man, with blue flames in his grasp.
The huge sword and the silver bell flourished with radiance as they shot towards the old man in brilliant streaks of light. Along the way, the huge sword suddenly dissolved into several hundred foot-long swordlights which filled the sky, surrounding the old man within a swarm of swords.
Azure light flickered without end as the swordlight began to fiercely pierce through the old man’s light barrier. The bell unleashed wave after wave of silver soundwaves, shaking the old man’s light barrier upon impact.
Although these attacks greatly alarmed the old man, he still kept a sound mind. In addition to pouring a large quant.i.ty of spiritual power into the pearl above him, strengthening the barrier around him, he also quickly formed a hand incantation. Blue light pulsed from his body and shed off from it.
After a quick rotation in the air, the light transformed into four, meter-long ice s.h.i.+elds that rotated around him. They were small and exquisitely refined.
The old man felt more at ease with these ice s.h.i.+elds protecting him. He immediately beckoned to the black mountain in the distance, and it began to fly back towards him in a streak of black light. As this happened, he continuously glanced around him in fear that Han Li would launch a sudden attack on him. As expected of a Nascent Soul stage spell warrior, he possessed much combat experience.
With another burst of thunder, Han Li appeared about forty meters away from the old man in a flash of lightning. A dense barrage of incisive, azure threads suddenly shot out from his hand - a display of the Nightazure Needles treasure talisman [1].
At such a short distance, the old man was unable to respond in time. The myriads of azure threads pierced through the blue light barrier and directly struck the ice s.h.i.+elds.
Sounds of cracking ice filled the air as the azure threads struck the ice s.h.i.+elds. In a brilliant flash of white light, the needles became covered in dense, glistening ice and began to fall to the ground.
When the old man saw this, his alarm turned to joy. With a chuckle, he opened his mouth and shot a beam of blue light directly towards the nearby Han Li. In response, Han Li disappeared from sight in a flash of silver light.
In that moment of delay, the black mountain flew above the old man. Its towering figure made for an astonis.h.i.+ng sight.
Without any hesitation, the old man struck the mountain with a spell seal. The mountain then began to tremble and released a large glow of black light from its bottom. With the old man at its center, the mountain enveloped the several hundred azure swordlights and the huge silver bell in its radiance.
These treasures immediately began to swivel and shake in an attempt to break free, but their power was greatly weakened. The swaying light barrier had returned to normal once more.
When the old man saw this, he felt greatly relieved.
Soon after, he flipped his hand. The Wind Riding Chariot reappeared in his palm with a flash of white light. He lightly tossed it into the air, and it began to expand to its original size. A short moment later, it was successfully restored and flew off to the side.
For some unknown reason, the old man felt a sense of dread ever since Han Li transformed the ice flowers in his palm into small blue flames. With the additional appearance of Han Li’s Thunderstorm Wings, he felt that matters had turned for the worse, and decided to flee, rather than continue the fight.
Seeing that the Wind Riding Chariot had been successfully prepared, the old man immediately transformed into a streak of light. Several flashes later, he charged past the obstructed flying swords and towards the Wind Riding Chariot in nearly the blink of an eye.
When the light faded away, the old man was already safely located inside the Wind Riding Chariot. With relief in his heart, he thought to retrieve his pearl and the black mountain, when he suddenly heard thunder at his side.
In flash of light, Han Li suddenly appeared before him.
“Ah!” The old man roared and raised his hand, but it was too late. Han Li’s arm was already shooting towards the old man like a bolt of lightning. The Celestial Ice Flames completely enveloped his hand.
The old man felt his heart sink, but the s.h.i.+elds of ice floating around him automatically moved to protect him. In a flash of white light, they appeared in front of the old man just in time.
The old man felt a trace of joy after seeing this. Han Li had attacked his Crystal Ice s.h.i.+elds without any defenses. ‘He was simply courting death! Surely in just a moment, his arm will be frozen through by the frigid Qi.’
With a m.u.f.fled peng, white and blue light brightly shone.
The old man felt his heart drop at the sudden turn of events. The flame-clad hand was already pressing against his chest. It felt extremely soft to the touch.
Before the old man could even scream, the strange icy flames had quickly spread from Han Li’s grasp, engulfing the old man in a single breath. In a short instant, Han Li saw a majority of the man’s body turn into a statue of ice.
With a fearful expression, the old man hurriedly summoned the core Yang flames that he spent several hundreds of years diligently cultivating. It wound around his neck and released a blinding white light, preventing the ice from spreading to his head. For a moment, the core flames were in a deadlock with the blue ice.
When Han Li saw this, he scoffed. He waved his free hand. A streak of azure sword Qi then appeared in the air and ruthlessly chopped towards the old man’s head. A short moment later, the white light trembled, and the blue frost quickly covered whatever remained of his head.
The severed half of the old man’s face revealed despair, but soon, hostility filled his eyes. A clear sound rang from the top of his head. A Nascent Soul with the old man’s face had manifested.
Han Li’s expression grew sullen and he spat a bolt of lightning towards the Nascent Soul without any reservations.
However, the Nascent Soul immediately disappeared from sight in a pulse of blinding blue light. The bolt of lightning had missed.
When Han Li hurriedly glanced around, he saw that the Nascent Soul was already three hundred meters away. Without any hesitation, it disappeared once more in a flash of blue light.
At that moment, the blue pearl trembled for a moment before disappearing as well. The pearl then reappeared inside the Nascent Soul’s grasp.
The Nascent Soul gazed at Han Li with a resentful expression before silently blurring out of sight. Not long after, it turned into a speck of light that flew towards the horizon. At that distance, it no longer used instant movement and simply tore through the skies, blue pearl in hand. A few seconds later, it could no longer be seen.
Han Li coldly glanced at the departing Nascent Soul and simply grabbed onto the old man’s corpse without moving.
Although his Thunderstorm Wings were also capable of instant movement, the delay between each movement made it so that he was still too slow to catch up to him. Since it escaped his first blow, he allowed it to go free as there was no immediate need to kill it.
At that moment, the old man’s Nascent Soul had already disappeared without a trace. Han Li expressionlessly shook his hand and caused the old man’s frozen corpse to shatter, filling the sky with glossy blue dust.
[1] Given to him by Layman Qing Yi in Heavenvoid Hall(chapter 468), this treasure talisman was only used once in his battle with Wen Tianren, the disciple of Archsaint Six Paths (Chapter 572).