This was entirely beyond what he had predicted!
A mere early Core Formation cultivator actually possessed countless Gold Lightning Bamboo treasures in his body. The Bone Sage felt regret, but even stronger sensations of shock and disbelief.
Just how many magic treasures of Gold Lightning Bamboo did he actually have? These swirling, inexplicable doubts formed an immense, massive weight upon his heart.
As the Bone Sage gazed on in astonishment, the sphere of lightning in Han Li’s hands grew to the size of about a meter and now floated a meter above his head. A deafening current of electricity could be heard from it.
The Bone Sage regained his bearings but his face still remained pale. His previous quantity of Divine Devilbane Lightning was nothing in comparison to this.
The Bone Sage furiously gritted his teeth and said, “Good! Very good! Although I don’t know how you managed to acquire so many Gold Lightning Bamboo magic treasures, you were doomed to become the nemesis of all Ghost Dao cultivators the day they came into your possession. Today, I will have you witness the might of the Ghost Dao’s Sacred Asura Flames!”
It was already too already too late for him to withdraw, so he prepared to combine the three energies to create the legendary Sacred Asura Flames. He hoped the flame would be able to break through Han Li’s Divine Devilbane Lightning in a single strike and still the disturbance in his heart.
Of course, forcefully creating these sacred flames in such a short period of time was extremely dangerous. The possibility of a backlash could occur at any moment, but the Bone Sage currently had no choice.
While he had other methods for slowly whittling away at Han Li’s divine methods and the ability to use both his techniques and abilities to avoid it, he didn’t have the time to use them. That would either allow Han Li to escape or cause enough of a delay for the others to return.
As a result, he could only clench his teeth and revolve his hands around the orb of light. Streaks of all sorts of magic seals continuously flew into it.
At that moment, the light orb seemed alive. The blue flame at its center started to quickly rotate as the outer shell of Profound Soul Yin Flames and Black Devilbane Lightning revolved in the opposite direction.
A short moment later, the entire orb released a blinding radiance. In the following moment, countless gray embers of astonishingly cold flame wildly rushed towards Han Li with overwhelming speed.
After a moment of surprise, Han Li’s face grew stern. Although he hadn’t heard of this Sacred Asura Flame before, he knew it would be no less powerful than the Celestial Ice Flames.
With a grave expression, Han Li ceased pouring more lightning into the huge sphere and used his fingers to quickly form many incantation gestures as he began to mutter an incantation.
The golden ball of lightning began to stretch, transforming into a web of lightning around him.
Soon after, the embers of grey flame ruthlessly struck the gold lightning. In that instant, gold light and white flames intertwined, releasing both rolls of thunder and screeching whistles.
Chapter 493: The Bone Sage's Death
Han Li’s expression became unsightly.
The web of lightning around Han Li had stopped the grey flames for the time being, but it appeared as if there was nothing that the flames couldn’t burn. The lightning had already been set aflame, transforming the web of lightning into a cage of grey flame, trapping Han Li within. Now, he couldn’t even escape if he wanted to.
But what worried Han Li even more was that as the grey flames burned away at the net of golden lightning, he could slowly feel the lightning contained inside his body slowly withering away.
The decaying nature of the flames gave the Sacred Asure Flames an overwhelming advantage.
The Bone Sage deeply sighed in relief and smiled. He felt confident that Han Li had no method of breaking free of the prison of grey flame.
Based on the flame’s legends, the Bone Sage believed that even a Nascent Soul cultivator trapped by it would have to greatly damage their Origin Qi by using a secret technique in order to escape. Once he refined his own asura flame and restored his Nascent Soul to the peak of his cultivation, he was convinced that it would be possible for him to rule over half of the Scattered Star Seas.
With that thought, the Bone Sage let his imagination run wild. In his eyes, Han Li was already a dead man.
The situation was growing increasingly dire!
As the golden net of lightning shrank, it eventually arrived on the verge of collapse. In response, Han Li expressionlessly spread out his palms and shot out dense arcs of golden lightning towards the net.
The seemingly unending stream of golden lightning from Han Li’s palms merged with the net, causing the withering net to immediately flourish brightly once more. Not only was it restored to its original size, but it also began to astonishingly launch an unending storm of lightning against the surrounding grey flames, pushing back the flames with great momentum.
The Bone Sage’s eyes widened and he nearly jumped! He now truly understood what it meant for Heaven’s will to overturn man’s.
The absurd amount of Divine Devilbane Lightning in Han Li’s body was wreaking havoc on the Bone Sage’s nerves.
Even though the Sacred Asura Flames were an existence a level above the Divine Devilbane Lightning, there was just far too much lightning. It was uncertain which would win!
The Bone Sage glared at Han Li as if he were looking at a monster.
Yet again, his mind was plagued by doubts. Just how many Gold Lightning Bamboo magic treasures does Han Li have stored in that small body of his? Was it possible that his supply of Devilbane Lightning was endless?
Just as that thought entered his mind, the Bone Sage fiercely bit down on the tip of his tongue. With sharp pain and the taste of blood, he managed to regain clarity of mind. He lightly shook his head and dismissed such absurd thoughts.
Endless amounts of Devilbane Lightning? That was obviously impossible. He was merely unsure about the quantity of Han Li’s lightning.
However, the Bone Sage was convinced that with few a more bursts of lightning, Han Li was certain to run dry. When that happened, he would be able to easily kill Han Li, and take his many Gold Lightning Bamboo magic treasures for himself.
With that thought, the Bone Sage roused his spirits and fiercely gazed at Han Li with newfound greed, raising his orb of light above his head.
Earlier, the Bone Sage had only refined less than half of his Celestial Ice Flames into Asura Flames in order to reduce the odds of backlash. But it appeared that this wouldn’t be enough to kill Han Li as he still had Devilbane Lightning in reserve. In order to kill Han Li in one move, he would have to refine all of his remaining Celestial Ice Flames.
He then nodded his head in approval of his thoughts and formed an incantation gesture once more. The orb of light quickly rotated, glowing once more with dazzling brilliance.
When Han Li saw this, his heart broke out into a chill.
It was as the Bone Sage had anticipated. Han Li’s continuous use of the Devilbane Lightning had left it on the verge of being exhausted after having dealt with the Bone Sage’s Celestial Ice and Sacred Asura Flames. Having seen the Bone Sage about to launch another attack with his Sacred Asura Flames, Han Li pondered whether or not his remaining Devilbane Lightning would be enough to break himself free.
His only option was to break through the cage of flames and flee. After all, no matter how mighty the Sacred Asura Flames were, their power meant nothing if it couldn’t connect.
With that thought, Han Li came to a decision. He released the remaining Devilbane Lightning in a single, instantaneous burst, shooting out two arm-thick bolts of lightning from his hands into the net.
The gold net of lightning rapidly swayed with muffled rolls of thunder before exploding in a burst of golden brilliance. Countless arcs of golden lightning pushed back the few remaining grey flames far away.
At that moment, Han Li’s bod
y flickered several times and reappeared about ten meters away. During that moment, Han Li was filled with apprehension.
He feared that if he wasn’t careful, he would make contact with a sliver of grey flame, something that would prove to be absolutely deadly. But now that he had made it past the barrier of Sacred Asura Flames, he used his cloak without the hesitation. With a flash of blood-red light, he started to float off the ground.
He had already decided to shoot straight towards the stone stairs and have his Cloudswarm Bamboo Swords break through the barrier, allowing him to make a clean escape.
The Bone Sage guessed what Han Li intended and immediately grew anxious. He immediately surged his magic power into the light orb and quickened its transformation. With a huge rumble, the entire light orb was set alight with grey flame as if it were made completely out of Sacred Asura Flames.
But strangely, the center of the orb still had a small ball of blue light. It continuously flickered, appearing quite unstable.
The Bone Sage was initially surprised when he saw this, but he didn’t take it very seriously. As his current magic power wasn’t much, it wasn’t particularly alarming if the transformation was incomplete..
He was currently focused on Han Li’s imminent escape. Nothing he could say would stop him now.
The Bone Sage lightly beckoned to the orb of grey flames. The orb of flames lightly trembled several times and started to follow his orders to attack.
But a sudden transformation had occurred.
The remnant of blue light inside the orb suddenly flickered several times before it ruptured from the center of the orb. The orb suddenly became uneven and distorted, releasing a faint but shrieking whistle from it.
The Bone Sage was greatly frightened and hastily attempted to control the orb’s distortions. He had long since forgotten that the Sacred Asura Flames wasn’t something that he had truly refined. He was only able to manipulate it through the aid of external forces.
Now having encountered the disturbance of its core rupturing, the flame orb was completely unstable and had gone frantically out of control. His meager magic power didn’t have the slightest effect in controlling it!
As his head was lined with sweat, the flame orb suddenly dissolved into the colors of white, green, and black, and ruptured above the Bone Sage’s head, releasing countless embers of grey flame.
The Bone Sage’s expression turned bloodlessly pale! He hastily started to turn his body without a thought, forming a vortex of black and green ghost Qi towards the embers in an attempt to restrain them.
In the following instant, an arrow-like bolt of black lightning shot towards the ruptured orb in an attempt to save the Bone Sage’s life.
Although the vortex of ghost Qi appeared overbearing, they melted away into nothingness upon touching the embers of grey flame to no effect.
While the embers did not fall at a fast speed, they were widely spread out over a great distance and drifted from place to place. But he should still be able to run from them, if just barely!
When Han Li witnessed this reversal, he immediately changed his mind. He made use of the opportunity to shoot out ten streaks of Azure Essence Swordlight from his fingertips and blocked the Bone Sage’s path of escape.
The Bone Sage inwardly cursed with alarm and fury.
He was too preoccupied at that moment to dodge! He could only cross his arms in front of him with gritted teeth and emit a thin layer of green Qi before charging forwards.
Just before a streak of azure light struck him, he shot out a black streak of light from his mouth, his magic treasure - the Gold Lightning Bamboo arrow. After striking the fifth streak of azure light, it was knocked to the side. As for the rest of the sword streaks, the Bone Sage directly received them with his arms.
Five muffled explosions sounded out.
The Bone Sage had clearly underestimated the might of Han Li’s Azure Essence Swordlight. Although he managed to repel the first four streaks of azure swordlight, the last strike had broken through his green Qi and struck his true body, pushing him back by several steps.
In that moment, the Bone Sage’s mind froze in terror! With a faceful of panic, he hastily reached to take something out from his robes. But before that happened, a miniscule, faint ember of grey flame had landed on his shoulder.
Woosh. Grey flame wildly ignited.
Without even the slightest scream, the Bone Sage’s body succumbed to the flames, leaving nothing but drifting ash behind.
Of course.
Chapter 494: Celestial Ice Pearl
Han Li felt his blood run cold and his face trembled upon witnessing the ferocity of the Asura Flames.
After the grey flames incinerated the Bone Sage, they condensed into a delicate ember and flew off.
For some unknown reason, the Bone Sage’s death had caused a strange transformation in the Asura Flames. All of the grey embers simultaneously released a thread of dark green Qi along with a spark of black lightning, turning the embers blue in an instant. The embers appeared to have returned to their original form as Celestial Ice Flames.
Han Li suddenly felt his surroundings compress, as the air filled with blue glacial Qi. The glacial Qi started to cover the ground in thin layer of ice, spreading to the rest of the area within the light barrier.
Han Li turned pale from fright at the sudden onslaught of cold and wildly poured spiritual power into the White Rhino Emblem. A scorching white light was emitted that repelled the cold Qi, barring it from approaching his body.
It seemed the Celestial Ice Flame’s true capabilities were only displayed after the Bone Sage had lost control. In only a short moment, the entire surface of the stone platform had been covered in a sheet of frost. Han Li’s barrier of white light barely managed to protect him, but it massively drained his magic power, causing him to bitterly curse.
Han Li now understood that the Bone Sage’s Celestial Ice Flames were weakened from either his shallow cultivation or a lack of time to refine them. This would explain why he had only been able to use a faction of its true power a moment ago.
Had the Bone Sage displayed this fearsome power with his Celestial Ice Flames from the start, he would’ve been able to kill Han Li several times over without having any need to refine the Asura Flames. In addition, it is likely that the true power of the Asura Flames hadn’t been displayed either. Its power had probably only reached a tenth of its potential!
As these domineering thoughts entered his mind, he had nearly deduced the entire truth of the matter. Regardless, he wasn’t about to let himself to foolishly meet his end by the masterless Celestial Ice Flames after having put so much effort into eliminating the Bone Sage.
At that moment, he grit his teeth and reached for the spirit beast pouch at his waist. He was going to release the Gold Devouring Beetle’s and see whether or not they could increase his odds of survival.
The still immature Gold Devouring Beetles were certain to be unable to resist the fearsome chill, but Han Li didn’t have many options left to keep his life.
Han Li’s palm moved and just as he was about to open the spirit beast pouch a sudden change occurred.
The floating blue embers throughout the room suddenly flickered several times before releasing a clear ringing sound. They seemed to have received some sort of command and started to shoot towards the sky, condensing into a single solid form.
A short moment later, a shining blue light sphere appeared in the sky. As soon as this fist-sized blue ice pearl had appeared, the fantastical chill within the stone platform instantly disappeared as if it had never been there.
Having already opened his spirit beast pouch halfway, Han Li was dumbfounded, but he soon found himself overwhelmed with delighted surprise. Regardless of what strange transformations the Celestial Ice Flames underwent, he could now safely make his escape.
At that moment, the blue ice pearl slowly floated down from the sky and stopped in front of Han Li.
Han Li looked at the ice pe
arl with a strange expression. After some contemplation, he reached out his hand and shot a bolt of the remnant lightning at it. After winding around the ice pearl for a moment, the pearl had been restrained and obediently entered the lightning’s control with no further surprises.
Han Li’s expression grew solemn. He didn’t dare to be overly confident, and carefully flicked his wrist, having the golden lightning slowly draw the ice pearl towards him.
He had the pearl stop about a foot away from him, and looked at it with trepidation. With his hand firmly covered in azure light, he carefully reached out to it.
Although his hand was still covered in dense true essence, Han Li could feel a slight chill through it. It seemed that after the Celestial Ice Flames had condensed into this pearl, its glacial qi had been completely sealed.
As such, Han Li breathed a sigh of relief and dispersed the light surrounding his hand. He grabbed the pearl with three fingers and carefully examined it.
The blue pearl’s exterior was solid blue crystal while its interior consisted of raging flames.
Han Li hesitated for a moment. This Celestial Ice Pearl was a treasure that had scarcely, if ever, appeared in this world. It could be considered a treasure even more valuable than the Heavenvoid Cauldron.
With this, he would be able to fulfill his long desire of possessing some truly ferocious flames. Although attempting to use and acquire it possessed a certain degree of danger, Han Li was more than willing to brave the risk.
With that thought, Han Li shot out a spark of gold lightning and wrapped the ice pearl in successive layers of lightning. A short moment later, he held the lightning-clad pearl in his hand while sparks of lightning occasionally arced off the ball. The result set Han Li’s mind at ease.
If the ice pearl was to rupture once more, the cover of Devilbane Lightning would be able to buy him enough time to wrest control over it. After having just battled against these very flames, he was completely confident that the Divine Devilbane Lightning could restrain them if need be. There would be no fear of any sudden backlash.
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