Han Li swiftly formed hand seals, sending streaks of cyan incantations toward the small black bottle.
The bottle spun rapidly before flipping upside down, emitting several savage growls from within.
Five streaks of ashen qi shot out, transforming into five pristine, jade-white human skeletons.
Initially only a foot tall, the skeletons rapidly expanded to twenty feet in height, shrouded in ashen qi, their fangs bared as they let out eerie, bone-chilling laughter.
Embedded in their necks and limbs were gleaming silver rings, seemingly fused deep into their bones.
These were the Five Fiendish Demons that Han Li had forcibly subdued.
As soon as the skeletons enlarged, they spewed murky demonic qi and turned their ferocious gazes toward Han Li, as if preparing to attack.
Han Li’s expression darkened. With a muttered incantation, the five silver rings erupted with azure flames, emitting a scorched odor. The demons recoiled in panic, screeching wildly.
Raising his arm, Han Li spat out a strand of azure silk that grazed his wrist, drawing a small cut. Five thumb-sized drops of blood fell, then shot unerringly into the demons’ gaping mouths.
Instantly, the green glow in their eyes shifted, their demeanor turning docile.
“Go!” Han Li commanded, pointing toward the distant green-robed middle-aged man.
The demons’ demonic qi churned as their eyes regained their viciousness. With ghostly howls, they transformed into five wheel-sized demonic heads—ghastly visages with gnashing fangs, their eerie wails unsettling the mind.
They surged toward the elder of the Small Extreme Palace, trailing a vast tide of ashen qi.
“Five Fiendish Demons! So it was you who killed Elder Qian?” The green-robed man, initially puzzled, now paled in recognition.
The events at Mount Kunwu had sent shockwaves across the land. Even the Small Extreme Palace, though remote, knew of the devastation—the fall of the Ye Clan, the deaths of countless Nascent Soul cultivators, and the demise of Elder Qian, the Grand Elder of the Yin Luo Sect.
To the green-robed man, who had once witnessed Elder Qian’s terrifying control over the Five Fiendish Demons, Han Li’s possession of them signaled a foe far more fearsome than a late-Nascent Soul cultivator.
Panicked, the man hurled his bronze gong into the air, summoning a jade mallet to strike it.
A clear chime rang out, followed by waves of yellow light that condensed into hundreds of razor-thin flying daggers.
As the gong’s chimes intensified, the daggers swirled into a dense net, shielding him.
Still uneasy, he unleashed two black hooks from his sleeves, forming another barrier behind the blade net—fully retreating into defense.
The five demonic heads, wailing ominously, engulfed him in ashen qi before plunging in themselves.
Explosions and ghostly shrieks erupted within the roiling demonic mist.
Han Li, having issued his command, turned away. The Five Fiendish Demons could contend with late-Nascent Soul cultivators—a mid-stage opponent was no challenge.
Bai Mengxin and Frost Li the Transcendent, witnessing the demons, paled just as the green-robed man had.
Though they had never seen the demons before, their malevolent aura and the green-robed man’s exclamation revealed their identity.
Frost Li, confident in his own power, was helpless mid-ritual. Bai Mengxin, stunned, halted her own spellcasting—realizing ordinary techniques were futile against Han Li.
But Han Li gave her no respite. With a flicker, he split into four identical azure phantoms, two charging toward Bai Mengxin and two toward Frost Li.
His true form remained still, stowing the Void Sky Cauldron and drawing a feathered fan.
With a flap of his Wind and Thunder Wings, he vanished in a silver arc.
Bai Mengxin, wary of Han Li’s teleportation, dared not underestimate the phantoms.
She flicked her jade fingers, sending four crystalline spikes—unknown prismatic artifacts—streaking toward the phantoms.
Then she teleported beside Frost Li atop a boulder, conjuring a white icy flame that solidified into a jade-like glacier, shielding them both.
She wove silver threads into a protective net, mirroring the green-robed man’s defensive stance—abandoning offense to stall until Frost Li completed his ritual.
Three of the spikes pierced through the phantoms harmlessly, but the fourth—aimed at Frost Li—was dodged by a shadow that revealed itself as a plain-faced, green-robed man.
This was Han Li’s humanoid puppet, hidden among the illusions.
Though Han Li didn’t know what ritual Frost Li was performing, the white qilin phantom above him signaled grave danger.
He wouldn’t wait idly.
Bai Mengxin, startled by the lifelike puppet, redirected the spikes toward its back.
Ignoring them, the puppet drew a flame-wrapped bow, loosing a storm of fire arrows that engulfed half the sky in searing heat.
The Thunderfire Bow, a treasure rivaling ancient artifacts, unleashed its full might.
Bai Mengxin’s pupils contracted. Seeing the puppet disregard the spikes, she intensified her assault, hoping to destroy it and nullify the attack.
Yet when the spikes struck, a five-colored barrier flared, deflecting them effortlessly.
The puppet remained unscathed.
As the fire arrows battered the glacier, Bai Mengxin watched calmly—confident her icy defenses would hold.
But then—a thunderclap behind the glacier.
A silver arc flashed, revealing a figure wreathed in violet flames, lunging straight for the ice.
Tai Sui Yellow Amulet Paper FuLu Taoist Love Talisman Traditional Chinese Spiritual Charm Attracting Love Protecting Marriage