The Lion Hawk and the Silver-winged Nightfiend simultaneously flew on top of her shell. Then, the tortoise entered the range of the trees.
As a result, the two on top were fully suppressed and found themselves incapable of moving. However, light continued to shine from the tortoise and she tenaciously crawled forward as if completely unaffected.
Meanwhile, the Goldweight Spirit Trees began to strangely shine with golden talisman characters. They floated into the air and quickly sank into the bodies of the three.
They attempted to protect themselves with blinding light, but the talisman characters continued to enter their bodies without resistance. It didn’t appear to have much of an effect on the tortoise, but the other two immediately grew despondent as if put under a restriction.
Fortunately, the range of the remaining trees wasn’t far and the tortoise was able to escape after a short while.
The demons immediately let out a long sigh of relief as their minds were restored to their original state.
Chapter 1023: An Ambush
Having escaped the range of the Goldweight Spirit Trees, the two demons climbed off the tortoise’s back and she immediately returned to her human form. It appeared that passing through the trees had taken a toll on her as her complexion was now bloodlessly pale.
Then, their bodies blurred and they quickly made their way towards the hall.
Old Devil Qian’s crimson incarnation was one step ahead of them. The three saw the mass of silver threads tear the silhouette to shreds as it passed by, but at the same time, blinding crimson light erupted from its body and continuously mended it.
As this happened, the silhouette vanished behind the Greathnorth Essence Lights.
The three didn’t dare to delay at the sight of this. In a practiced fashion, the Lion Hawk blurred and appeared in front to widely open its mouth to silently release a golden soundwave. As a result, a small gap from the silver threads began to split.
Immediately after, the Silver-winged Nightfiend unfolded his wings and produced an azure wind as well, blowing away the fractured silver threads.
With continuous alternation between the two abilities, a gap had finally opened and the three quickly rushed in before slowly exploring the hall.
Still outside, Lin Yinping’s expression turned unsightly. So rapidly, their party had been reduced to five.
She gritted her teeth and tensely frowned. She turned her head to Grand Immortal Xu and said, “Brother Xu, we...”
As the Grand Immortal continued to chop at a huge tree with a jade sword, he calmly interrupted, “The Saintess need not worry. Our main goal is that Han fellow, not the treasures. With so many people entering, they won’t be easy to contest either. Let us rid ourselves of the remaining trees and guard the gate.”
Ge Tianhao grinned and said, “Ah hah! Brother Xu’s words are reasonable. Even if the others acquire the treasure, they must also leave through here. Although we aren’t able to pass through the Greatnorth Essence Lights, they won’t be able to get past us once they leave.”
Lin Yinping glanced at the deceptively lethal silver strings and nodded after a moment of thought.
The two black-robed old men also found this plan to be reasonable. Although they worried about the lost opportunity for profit, they continued to chop away at the huge trees.
In the blink of an eye, an explosion sounded out and a thirty meter tall tree fell down.
...
Han Li stood in front of Kunwu Hall and breathed out a long sigh. He glanced behind him and saw a dense mass of silver threads.
“Those ancient cultivators are quite cunning to intentionally place an illusion formation inside the Greatnorth Essence Lights. If it weren’t for my Brightsight Spirit Eyes, it would’ve proved quite troublesome,” Han Li muttered.
He turned around and found himself in the rear section of Kunwu Hall. It couldn't be considered large, but there were two rows of a dozen variously-styled wooden chairs that formed an official affairs hall.
At the end of these rows, there was a faintly golden chair between them with a three-meter-tall table standing to its side.
The chair was made from common Goldstring Spirit Wood, but the table was made from a single piece of glistening marble. Its entire body was unordinary and filled with spiritual Qi. At the moment, a green barrier covered it, but he could faintly see a few items laying on it.
These should be the treasures of Kunwu Hall!
Han Li raised his brow and looked around to see that the hall was completely empty and void of anything else eye-catching. He then turned around and looked above him.
Behind the faint golden chair, an unremarkable painting hung on the wall of three men looking at the moon.
A Buddhist, a Daoist, and a Confucian stood inside a bamboo forest and were speaking vigorously about something as they gazed at full moon.
Because the image was only a foot tall and faded from the test of time, Han Li hadn’t taken note of it at first. But now, it caught his eye and he looked at the painting with scrutiny.
A long while later, Han Li lowered his head and mulled over his thoughts.
He wasn’t able to see anything strange from the painting, spiritually or physically. His intuition, however, gave him a distinctly odd feeling. How could such an ordinary item exist in a place like this?
As his expression wavered, Han Li suddenly swayed his hand with resolution. A three-meter-long streak of golden light shot out and rend the painting.
In a flicker, the painting was torn to shreds and the pieces fell to the ground.
‘Could it just be my imagination?’ Han Li puzzlingly thought.
But since he had already started, he wasn’t about to leave matters unfinished.
With a casual wave of his sleeve, several fist-sized fireballs appeared in front of him and he prepared to incinerate the remains of the portrait.
“Master, be careful!” Silvermoon cried out.
In his alarm, his figure blurred into eight exact copies of himself before he even realized what was happening.
Just then, a large stone burst from the ground three meters behind him. Spiritual light shined behind the rubble and several blinding streaks of gold and silver struck at Han Li’s copies from behind. A crisp clang sounded out as one of them was blocked, revealing a gold-silver shuttle.
Han Li tumbled from the strike and blurred twenty meters away. He then turned his head around and wore a face full of furious alarm.
Were it not for the Silver Tailstar Shield he had prepared ahead of time, he would’ve likely been gravely injured.
His normally stoic face now held shock and fear with rage burning in his heart. He suddenly flipped his hand and recovered the shining small silver shield into his hand. He flicked his other arm to summon over thirty small golden swords, cleaving at the mound of rubble in front of him.
Then, a woman’s laugh rang out in a flash of light to reveal a huge gold-silver object. Although so many swordlights moved to attack the object, they all strangely fell to the ground.
When he saw this, his heart trembled and a majority of his fury vanished. He immediately looked over.
The gold-silver object was actually a ten-meter-tall textile shuttle. Its surface shined like a golden mirror. It was the same shape as what had attacked him earlier, but those shuttles were many times smaller.
“Fellow Daoist must be quite vigilant for that strike to fail. Tch tch, could you tell me what techniques you cultivate?” The small shuttles that attacked him earlier appeared at the huge shuttles side. They revolved around it once, before entering inside. The young woman’s voice had come from within the shuttle.
Han Li gloomily recalled his flying swords and thoughts quickly flew in his mind. Spiritual light flashed from his entire body and he shot towards the nearby table in an azure streak.
Since there were others here, he planned to first grab the treasures and handle the rest later. The longer he was tied down, the more people who would be able to
make it past the Greatnorth Essence Lights, decreasing his chances of acquiring treasures as well.
But just as he took off, he felt that there was something odd and found the woman’s voice to be unfamiliar. She definitely wasn’t one of the demons or humans he saw up to now. Could it be there were more that entered Kunwu Mountain at an even greater speed than them?
The young woman suddenly shouted out in alarm. Han Li was over sixty meters away and had arrived above the table.
But then, the air above him suddenly warped and an azure scarf appeared above his head before falling onto him.
It was nearly twenty meters wide and appeared right next to him when he least expected it. Even with his vast abilities, he was helpless to act as it covered him. He had become completely trapped!
Azure light shined everywhere he looked and he hastily produced the Silver Tailstar Shield as he cursed in his mind. A layer of white mist then surrounded him.
A woman strangely appeared on the surface of the azure scarf, the Immortal Form Sect’s Lady Mu.
Having witnessed the power of Han Li’s Triflame Fan, she naturally knew that the scarf wouldn’t be able to hold him down for long. But with the success of her attack, she didn’t dare to delay and shot towards the table.
She raised her hand and produced a silver command medallion. Then in a flash, it struck the green light barrier covering the table with a mist of silver light.
Under the shine of the silver light, the seemingly formidable barrier melted away and revealed the true appearance of the treasures that lay there: four crimson wooden tiles, a small purple sword, a palm-sized monk staff, and a scroll brimming with red light, and a dark green block seal with the imprint of a life-like five-clawed dragon.
Lady Mu rejoiced when she saw these items and her gaze dropped onto the dark green seal. After a moment’s pause, she waved her sleeve, intending to take all of the items at once.
Chapter 1024: Seizing Treasure
Just as Lady Mu was about to seize the treasures, the ground below her flashed bright green and several verdant serpents shot out and wrapped around her at lightning speed. With their prey fully restricted, the snakes immediately struck at her with their fangs.
Bang. The woman’s sentient treasures formed her a barrier of white light, repelling the attack and revealing their true form as green vines, but they still restrained her nevertheless.
Lady Mu expressed the same alarmed fury as Han Li had.
She hadn’t expected that there was someone following her as well. Having trapped Han Li and cleared the barrier for the treasures on the table, wasn’t she being taken advantage of? Who could’ve closely followed behind her Sun Moon Shuttle and remain completely undetected?
The reason why she was able to stealthily burrow underground was because she possessed a silver medallion that the Three Elders of Kunwu had left behind. It allows her to temporarily control a portion of the restrictions in the hall, giving her access to burrow underground.
At that moment, a strange tinkling laugh rang clear and a tall green silhouette silently emerged from the nearby ground. A pair of icy green eyes stared at her, causing her heart to shudder.
After clearly seeing the form of the new encounter, she cried out in shock, “A Treant Lord! How can such a monster exist in this world?”
Although the green silhouette had a human-like appearance with all the appropriate limbs and head, its body was made of bark skin and more akin to a walking tree.
When the Treant Lord heard her cry, it sneered and paid little heed as it blurred towards the table, clearly intending on claiming the treasures for itself.
Lady Mu’s heart sank. Even if she could escape, it was too late to block the monster.
But an unimaginable scene soon followed.
Before the Treant drew close to the table, the fragments of the painting Han Li tore up suddenly shined with specks of yellow, white, and red. They formed a tri-color gust that flung the ball of green light over thirty meters back.
The ball was dispelled back into its original position and was thrown into an uncontrollable tumble.
After several rolls, the tall monster managed to regain control and stood up. It looked at the mists of light with unspeakable terror.
The three mists circled around the table and transformed into three indistinct foot-tall silhouettes: the Daoist, the Confucian, and the Buddhist figures from the painting! Their eyes emotionlessly gazed at the Tree Spirit in the distance as if it was already dead.
“The Three Kunwu Elders!” The Treant Lord shouted in terror. Without another thought, its body glowed green and it flew headfirst into the Greatnorth Essence Lights, not daring to turn back.
Then, the three miniature men silently pointed at the small sword, monk staff, and the scroll on the table.
The three treasures hummed and trembled, jumping into the air and forming three streaks of light, immediately disappearing as soon as they appeared. In that next moment, just as the Treant Lord was about to enter the Greatnorth Essence Lights, the streaks re-appeared and converged together in a single attack. It was too late for the treant to dodge!
A flare of tri-colored light ruptured, followed by a deafening explosion. An instant later, the green light drowned it all out as it flared like a sun. When it eventually faded away, all that was left behind was the three treasures.
The combined strike had entirely vaporized the fearsome Treant Lord.
At that same moment, one of the four crimson wood tiles had combusted into ash.
The three treasures used to exterminate the demon circled once in the air before floating down to their original position on the table. As for the three men, they vanished as if they had never existed.
These three were threads of spiritual sense that the Kunwu Masters had left behind in order to prevent the treasures from falling into the hands of any demons or other evil beings. They were the last restriction that existed in Kunwu Hall.
The Treant Lord possessed the greatest cultivation of the four demons, but it had been destroyed by the treasures in a single strike. It was completely out of luck to have lost its life in such an abrupt manner.
Lady Mu rejoiced at this sudden turn of events. With the death of the treant, the vines clasped around her immediately lost their spiritual nature and burned to nothing in contact with the white ethereal flames.
She took a deep breath and recovered her bearings, only to be interrupted by a muffled bang from behind her, followed by a roar of thunder.
“Senior Martial Sister, be careful!” The beautiful female cultivator shouted out.
Lady Mu felt her heart tremble and she waved her hand without another thought, commanding all the treasures to rise as they shakily floated towards her.
In that mere moment, a clap of thunder called out from above and a silhouette appeared with it. He reached out for the treasures, causing them to cease flying in Lady Mu’s direction and towards him instead.
Having seen his escape from the scarf’s imprisonment and his use of lightning movement, Lady Mu released several glacial needles from her mouth in furious alarm, tearing through the air towards Han Li.
At the same time, she flung her sleeve, sweeping up the treasures in a red mist.
Han Li’s expression sank, and he spat out the Snow Crystal Pearl to face the incoming needles. With one hand, he created a large azure hand and grasped at the treasures. With the other, he summoned the Triflame Fan.
An ominous glint shining from his eye, he waved the fan at Lady Mu without any hesitation.
Although he planned on first dealing with the woman who originally ambushed him from within the shuttle, he was resentful at Lady Mu for having trapped him in the scarf and found himself in a crucial moment in the struggle for the treasures.
As a result, the silver needles were blocked by the Snowcrystal Pearl, and the hand of light grabbed ahold of her mist. Then, the fan trembled and a tri-colored inferno burst forth in the face of Lady Mu. Having previously witnessed th
e fans fearsome might, she knew it wasn’t something she could withstand. Helpless, she could only quickly fly backward.
When the Triflame Fan’s strike missed, the attack ruptured and filled the air with a halo of tri-colored light and immense spiritual pressure. Even Han Li couldn't help but take several steps back. The large azure hand and Lady Mu’s red mist had been on the edge of the attack’s scope and completely disappeared.
With all of the treasures falling out from the red mist’s grip, he felt elated.
However, it was then that three opposing lights emerged from the Greatnorth Essence Lights at the front of the hall: a crimson silhouette, a silver streak, and a ball of purple mist. All of these figures immediately fade from sight as soon as they disappeared, in a display of clear skill.
Han Li inwardly cursed, but he was quick to react. Rolls of thunder sounded out as he arrived above the treasures. He was only the first one there, and the other three each appeared nearby in quick succession and simultaneously attacked him as they attempted to seize the treasure for themselves.
Unable to deal with any of the others, He quickly swept up the two treasures closest to him with azure mist: a wooden tile and a sparkling red scroll. When he attempted to take the next closest item, the monk staff, over ten beams of crimson light attacked him from above along with a series of golden soundwaves.
With no better option, Han Li could only retreat and evade the attacks for the time being.
As a result, the crimson silhouette had seized the monk staff itself.
The purple mist and silver streak cared little for anything other than the two wooden tiles that dropped nearby for fear that they would be seized by someone else.
When he saw this, he paused in surprise. Then, the crimson silhouette reached out to grab the green seal.
“Stop, The Dragon Call Crest isn’t yours!” A woman’s voice hastily shouted. A white jade ruler suddenly floated above the crimson silhouette and smashed without mercy.
Before the ruler even landed, it released what sounded like a Buddhist chant and summoned countless white lotuses into the surrounding air, each of them the size of a bowl. They all radiated with seven-colored Buddhist light, covering not only the silhouette, but the silver streak and purple mist as well.
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