With Hai Da Shao’s naturally sociable personality, it didn’t take long for him to gather information about the residents of the ninth floor of the nearby Yingxian Palace from the bustling market. He immediately felt a chill in his heart but maintained a calm expression as he hurriedly left.
“What? The Long Family?” Han Li, seated cross-legged on a rock, showed a flicker of surprise in his expression.
“Exactly. I’ve confirmed it. The ninth floor is said to house not only the Long Family’s ancestor and a guest elder but also the current head of the Long Family and several Void Refinement-stage elders.” Hai Da Shao couldn’t help but look worried.
“That is indeed troublesome, but it’s not the main issue,” Han Li said slowly, narrowing his eyes.
“What do you mean, Master?” Hai Da Shao was puzzled.
“The real problem is that my relationship with the Long Family isn’t great. Originally, if it were just an ordinary Body Integration cultivator, I would have gone directly to demand your junior brother’s return. Normally, unless they were completely unreasonable, they would give some face to a fellow cultivator of the same rank. But with the Long Family, that’s unlikely.” Han Li’s voice turned cold.
Hai Da Shao’s expression changed drastically upon hearing this.
“However, not being able to demand his return doesn’t mean there’s no way to retrieve your junior brother. Heh, I’ve already offended the Long Family once—doing so again doesn’t matter. Besides, they might not even notice me. Yue Tian, return to our quarters alone. I’ll be back shortly!” With a cold laugh, Han Li’s body suddenly radiated green light, and in a flash, he vanished from the spot.
Hai Da Shao immediately understood Han Li’s implication, his expression a mix of surprise and excitement. Without waiting to confirm whether Han Li was still nearby, he respectfully acknowledged the order and hurried down the mountain.
A distance of several dozen miles was nothing to Han Li, who arrived in an instant.
Appearing silently in mid-air far from Yingxian Palace, Han Li gazed at the ninth floor of the massive palace, recalling a detailed diagram of the formation restrictions in his mind.
Though the nine Yingxian Palaces were located in different places, he had observed that their formation restrictions were quite similar.
While these restrictions were intricate and formidable, for someone like him, who possessed several powerful divine abilities, infiltrating them undetected wasn’t impossible.
After a moment of contemplation, he flipped his hand, revealing a shimmering silver mask—the Thousand Illusion Mask he had obtained from Liu Shui’er in the Guanghan Realm.
This extraordinary artifact had proven useful in the past, and since Liu Shui’er hadn’t reclaimed it after their journey through the Dark Beast Forest, it was now at his disposal again.
Without a word, Han Li tossed the mask into the air and flicked his wrist. A green light flashed from his storage bracelet, and a piece of golden, furry beast hide flew out.
With one hand forming a seal and the other pointing at both objects, the mask dissolved into a silver light and merged into the beast hide.
The golden hide spun rapidly before shooting toward Han Li and disappearing into his body.
At the same time, Han Li let out a low growl, and his face underwent a dramatic transformation.
His smooth skin sprouted long golden fur, completely obscuring his features. His eyes flashed blue, the pupils turning deep azure, filled with an indescribable ferocity.
Han Li touched the golden fur on his face and muttered,
“This Golden Arm Ape hide works well. This should be enough to deceive the Long Family.” Taking a deep breath, black light shimmered around him, and two black veils appeared.
The veils spun around him before transforming into black mist that enveloped his body.
Moments later, Han Li’s figure blurred within the black light and vanished entirely from sight.
Looking down at his now-transparent form, Han Li nodded in satisfaction.
Using the Taiyi Concealment Talisman would have provided better invisibility, but it would have hindered his ability to break through the restrictions with other techniques, so he had to forgo it.
With that thought, Han Li drifted silently toward the ninth floor of the palace. Soon, he approached his target without a sound.
Suddenly, a white light flashed, and a white barrier appeared before him, crackling with faint arcs of lightning.
Unfazed, Han Li extended a hand from his sleeve and flicked his fingers, releasing several golden lightning arcs.
The white lightning dissipated upon contact with the golden arcs before they could even crackle.
A gray mist swirled around Han Li as he passed through the white barrier as if it weren’t there.
A human-sized hole appeared in the barrier, but Han Li was already gone. The hole rapidly shrank and sealed itself, and the white barrier vanished moments later.
Shortly after, two Nascent Soul-stage guards flew out from the first floor of Yingxian Palace, heading straight for the spot.
After a few flashes, they arrived in the air nearby.
“The restriction fluctuation definitely came from here, but there doesn’t seem to be any issue,” a young man in his late twenties muttered, scanning the area with a puzzled expression.
“If there’s no problem, it might have just been a bird hitting the restriction. Otherwise, the reaction wouldn’t have been so minor,” said the other guard—a gaunt, goat-bearded elder with short horns and sharp, triangular eyes.
He was a demon cultivator.
“Brother Gongsun, don’t joke! If a mere bird could trigger Yingxian Palace’s restrictions, the formation masters who set this up would be utterly useless,” the young man retorted irritably.
“Whether it was a bird, a lost spirit beast from the market, or a Body Integration senior accidentally brushing against the restriction, what can we do about it? Even if someone did infiltrate Yingxian Palace to trouble a senior, do you think we could handle it?” The demon elder chuckled, clearly uninterested in meddling.
“Hmm… You have a point. Since the restriction isn’t damaged, we don’t need to take it too seriously. I almost treated this place like the inner hall of Xuanwu City.” After a moment of hesitation, the young man laughed.
“Haha, I knew you were smart. Come, I have a fine jug of spirit wine back at my place. Let’s enjoy it.” The elder grinned, pleased the young man had dropped the matter.
With that, the two descended, arm in arm, without another glance at the restriction.
A burst of silver flames spewed forth, incinerating the dense web of light threads before him.
In a flash, Han Li stood before a pristine white wall on the ninth floor, covered in shimmering silver runes of varying sizes.
His expression turned solemn.
These runes weren’t ordinary—they were spatial restrictions manifested on the wall. Ordinary techniques would have no effect here.
Fortunately, he possessed spatial abilities of his own, making infiltration possible.
With a thought, Han Li formed a hand seal, and a black light emerged between his brows. It spun rapidly before splitting open, revealing a crystalline black third eye.
The eye fixed on the wall, and a beam of black light shot out, striking the surface.
A bizarre scene unfolded.
The nearby silver runes dimmed and vanished the moment the black light touched the wall.
Han Li let out a low shout, and the black beam thickened several times over.
The white wall trembled, and a foot-wide black hole appeared.
With a cold glint in his eyes, Han Li retracted the black light and transformed into a green streak, diving into the hole.
The hole vanished instantly.
Han Li found himself in a flash of white light, emerging in a forest beneath a towering green tree.
But his face twitched when he saw a middle-aged man and a beautiful young woman staring at him in disbelief, barely ten feet away.
Reacting first, Han Li sighed and suddenly lashed out with both arms.
With two sharp cracks, his arms elongated several times, striking the pair with a muffled thud.
The two—a Core Formation and a Foundation Establishment cultivator from the Long Family—collapsed unconscious as Han Li injected a wisp of spiritual power into their minds.
Without hesitation, Han Li reached for the man’s head.
With a dull thud, his fingers closed around the man’s skull, and a green aura flickered across Han Li’s face as he performed a soul search.
After a short while, Han Li released the man with a grim expression and repeated the process on the woman.
When he finally let her go, he muttered,
“So Qi Lingzi was indeed brought to the Long Family. That old woman is the Long Family head’s sister. Pity these Long Family members have their memories sealed—I couldn’t extract much.”
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