Han Li shook his head and sighed. He raised his hand and summoned the green bottle back into his grasp before placing it into his storage pouch.
Then, he released an arc of golden lightning from his hand and pulverized the purple ice and the rest of Six Paths’ corpse, turning it into nothing more than shining specks.
As for his storage pouch, Han Li simply took it into his possession.
He quickly swept over its contents and found that most of them didn’t catch his attention at his current level, despite many treasures being amongst them. But there were a few slips detailing Devil Dao techniques that piqued his interest. It is a pity that he didn’t have the time to look at them.
With all that done, Han Li beckoned to his puppet and directly head over to the bone banner. The puppet blurred and strangely disappeared.
When he arrived at the bone banner, the five ghost heads cleanly devoured the skulls and had nearly devoured the entirety of the banner itself.
When Han Li arrived in front of it, he shook his head.
Although the bone banner was somewhat famous, it possessed too much fiendish Qi and wasn’t suitable for him. As such, he made no attempt to stop them.
A short moment later, the cinque devils finally finished destroying the banner and they let out odd screams as if in an expression of joy. The devil Qi they emitted seemed to be more concentrated than before.
When Han Li saw this, his expression remained unchanged. He waited until their laughs finished before commanding them with a single hand.
Although the cinque devils were somewhat unwilling, they didn’t dare to disobey and obediently arrived at Han Li’s side, having experienced the pain from Han Li’s restrictions several times before.
Rather than withdrawing them, he calmly flew back in the direction of Heavenly Star City and had the cinque devils closely follow after him.
The battle between him and the old devil didn’t last very long. Victory was achieved in only the time it took to finish a meal.
If the city fell in that amount of time, Han Li would simply turn around and leave without care for anything else.
It would simply illustrate that the city wasn’t worthy of his help!
Fortunately, this matter didn’t come to pass.
By the time Han Li let the Cinque Devils back to the Heavenly Windfire Formation’s core, the vast battle between the Star Palace and the Starfall Coalition was still being fought with great intensity.
Truthfully, it appeared the Starfall Coalition had somewhat of an upper hand.
This was because the Twin Lan Devils were truly formidable. As the blue devilish Qi and the pink fragrant mist spread forward, it pushed back the Star Palace cultivators. The two original elders of the Starfall Coalition were clearly superior to Old Man Zhao and the large purple-robed man. They could barely hold them back, let alone deal with the Lan Devils.
The lower-grade cultivators, on the other hand, would be immediately shredded to mist upon contact with the blue Qi, or fall as if drunk upon touching the pink mist.
As a result, the Lan Devils wreaked havoc unchecked.
In such turbulent fighting, Han Li’s silent return hadn’t caught anybody’s attention.
Han Li first swept his gaze at the huge windfire pillar and then glanced at the eye-catching display of the Twin Lan Devils. He sneered and wore a fierce expression on his face.
He wordlessly pointed at the Lan Devils. The cinque devils at his side let out a series of low roars and soon charged towards them in five grey streaks.
Then, Han Li slapped a spirit beast pouch at his waist and produced a ball of golden insects above him.
Han Li raised his hand and let out a soft yell. The insect swarm loudly buzzed and with a bang, turned into a dozen smaller clouds before dispersing.
After Han Li was done with that, he waved the wings on his back and disappeared in a gust of wind.
Although the Nascent Soul cultivators of the Starfall Coalition were fighting away from the formation core, there were still several Core Formation stage cultivators standing on guard above it.
This was to prevent the Star Palace from destroying the formation core in a surprise attack.
The guards whispered to each other on top of the pillar and they couldn't help but reveal their delight upon seeing that the Starfall Coalition held the slight advantage in the battle.
One of them turned around to speak to another cultivator, but then they saw something that made his complexion bloodlessly pale.
When the other guards saw this, they turned around in fright and immediately let out frightened shouts.
Thirty meters in the air behind them, there was a youth silently floating there. He had his arms crossed and he wore a mysterious smile.
This youth was the same grand cultivator that left the battle with their alliance leader. How could he be here?
These Core Formation cultivators suddenly felt an icy chill down their backs. Before these cultivators could even think of running or calling out for help, Han Li’s expression suddenly sank and he flicked his hand several times from within his sleeve.
Suddenly, golden sword streaks shot towards them.
The many Core Formation cultivators trembled in fright, each moving to flee away.
But several flashes later, the sword streaks flew past them and the guards fell down, all of their bodies riddled with holes.
There were a few that managed to summon their magic treasures, but they promptly exploded and their owners fell without resistance.
The sword Qi Han Li produced from the Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords were incredibly sharp, rivaling the power of even a top-grade magic treasure. Even Nascent Soul cultivators wouldn’t dare to casually receive them, let alone trifling Core Formation cultivators.
In a single breath, the Core Formation cultivators were extinguished. He retained a calm expression and indifferently looked at the giant pillar before him. Then with a wave of his sleeve, a clear sound rang.
Several small golden swords flew out from his sleeve like a school of fish and swelled to the size of a meter before fusing together.
In flourishing golden radiance, a ten-meter-long golden sword appeared above the pillar.
Chapter 1221: The Divine Essencefused Mountain
Magic power surged throughout Han Li's entire body in a frenzy as he let loose a low cry.
Brilliant spiritual light erupted from the surface of the huge sword, and it shuddered before instantly transforming into a wyrm-like streak of golden light, circling in the air above before crashing down with ferocious might.
A loud rumbling boom erupted as the golden light struck the massive bronze pillar.
In the face of the golden light, the mountainous pillar appeared as if it had been constructed from playdoh, and it was sliced in half with ease.
From a distance, it appeared as if a doomsday-like scenario was unfolding on the horizon.
All of the Starfall Coalition cultivators nearby hurriedly rose into the air atop their treasures.
Such a loud commotion had naturally drawn the attention of all of the cultivators on both sides.
Thus, Han Li was naturally thrust under the limelight.
At the sight of Han Li, completely contrasting expression appeared on everyone's faces; some were horrified, while others were ecstatic.
Of course, not everyone had the spare capacity to turn their attention toward Han Li.
For example, Han Li was currently looking at a man and a woman who were caught in an extremely fierce battle with five massive ghostly heads, and were unable to pay any heed to the earthshattering boom that had just erupted.
Coincidentally, the devilish Qi and pink fragrant mist emitted by the twin Lan devils were being completely dominated by the greyish-white devilish flames erupting from mouths of the five ghostly heads, so they had been forced firmly onto the back foot.
Elder Zhao and Elder Ma were ecstatic upon seeing this, and they immediately cast their treasures toward the twin L
an devils to plunge them into an even more perilous situation.
As for the dozen or so swarms of golden beetles released by Han Li, they were also dominating the battlefield.
At Han Li's behest, the beetles only targeted Starfall Coalition cultivators below the Nascent Soul Stage. They swept through the battlefield like golden clouds, and no matter what treasures were used to try and keep the beetles at bay, all of them were devoured into nothingness.
Within a span of a few moments, several tens of cultivators had been completely devoured by the Gold Devouring Beetles.
All of the Starfall Coalition cultivators nearby had been thrown into a complete panic, and all of them were desperately trying to get away from the swarms of beetles.
The fact that Han Li had just destroyed the core of the Heavenly Windfire Formation with a single sword strike further compounded their woes, and morale had dropped to an all-time low.
Many of the Starfall Coalition cultivators were already fleeing from the battle.
There were only a few at first, followed by a dozen or so, which quickly turned into hundreds of cultivators fleeing into the distance!
Han Li didn't even need to attack any further, and the Starfall Coalition's defeat had already been sealed. The old woman and the elderly man with the Long surname could see that the situation was in a drastic downward spiral, so they also immediately shook off their opponents and flew away as quickly as they could.
The twin Lan devils clearly also knew that it would be unwise to stay any longer, and they suddenly summoned several powerful treasures before detonating them all once. In doing so, the five ghostly heads were temporarily forced back, thereby creating an avenue of escape for the two of them.
Han Li's brows furrowed upon seeing this, and he immediately flapped his Thunderstorm Wings without any hesitation, disappearing in the blink of an eye.
The twin Lan devils had only just escaped from the ghostly heads when a dull thunderclap erupted up ahead, following Han Li appeared out of thin air, directly cutting them off.
The two devils' hearts immediately sank upon seeing Han Li's cold and expressionless.
However, both of them were powerful Devil Dao cultivators in their own right, so they certainly weren't going to give up and allow themselves be killed. As such, they glanced at one another before raising their hands in unison, summoning several treasures of various different colors. At the same time, their bodies swayed, and both of them unleashed devilish techniques to attack Han Li.
A hint of killing intent surfaced in Han Li's eyes upon seeing this.
Several days later, the entire Scattered Star Seas was in a massive uproar. Not only did the final battle between the Star Palace and the Starfall Coalition commence far earlier than everyone had expected, the end result also had most people's jaws dropping to the ground.
Not only had Wan Tianming of the Myriad Gates of Enlightenment perished during this battle, many high-grade Starfall Coalition cultivators had also been killed, as had the vast renowned twin Lan devils.
As such, Han Li's name became known to virtually everyone in the Scattered Star Seas. Some people had even dug up some information about Han Li's past, particularly about how he had obtained the Heavenvoid Cauldron from the Heavenvoid Hall even prior to reaching the Nascent Soul Stage, and how he had been hunted by the Starfall Coalition in the aftermath of that incident.
Countless cultivators in the Scattered Star Seas were amazed by those legendary tales, and there were no longer any Nascent Soul cultivators who dared to go after the Heavenvoid Cauldron.
In the next few months, the Star Palace deployed a large number of cultivators to recover their lost territory while also hunting down the high-grade Starfall Coalition cultivators who had managed to escape. In the end, they reached the main base of the Starfall Coalition in one fell swoop.
The Nascent Soul elders of the Starfall Coalition were unwilling to concede, and they gathered a group of powerful cultivators to engage the Star Palace in another battle at the Starfall Coalition's main base.
On this occasion, the Starfall Coalition naturally crashed to an even heavier defeat without a late-Nascent Soul cultivator among their ranks.
They had deployed three mid-Nascent Soul cultivators at once to take care of Han Li, only for two of them to be slain by Han Li with ease. The final cultivator was able to escape with his Nascent Soul intact using some kind of secret technique, but his body had been sliced in half and even if he could successfully possess a new vessel, he would most likely be unable to recover to his original cultivation base.
Thus, in the short span of just half a year, the Star Palace had become the ruler of the Scattered Star Seas again, and all of the other sects and powers pledged their allegiance to the Star Palace once again.
Ling Yuling took this opportunity to extend an olive branch the low-grade Starfall Coalition cultivators who had managed to escape, but she showed no mercy to the very few Nascent Soul Stage Starfall Coalition elders that remained.
As such, the Starfall Coalition began to crumble from the inside as all of the low-grade cultivators switched their allegiance to the Star Palace, while the remaining high-grade cultivators fled for their lives. In what seemed like the blink of an eye, the mighty Starfall Coalition had been wiped off the face of the Scattered Star Seas.
Half a year later, there was a man and a woman making their way through a long passageway within the belly of Heavenly Star City's sacred mountain.
This passageway had been completely paved with pristine white jade, creating spotless mirror-like surfaces.
The woman was an exquisite beauty while the man's appearance was much more mundane; they were none other than Han Li and the master of the Star Palace, Ling Yuling.
Han Li was walking behind Ling Yuling, and he inspected the jade walls around him as he asked, "I can't believe the Divine Essencefused Mountain was placed in such a location; is it really that fearsome?"
"Fearsome is an understatement, Brother Han. Any cultivators below the Nascent Soul Stage who accidentally approach this mountain would immediately suffer from spiritual power backlash, and they could easily perish as a result. Nascent Soul cultivators can stay around the Divine Essencefused Light a little longer, but prolonged exposure to the mountain could still result in a regression in cultivation base," Ling Yuling explained with a smile.
"I'm even more curious about this Divine Essencefused Mountain now. I wonder how this mountain was discovered in the first place," Han Li mused with a contemplative look in his eyes.
"Father did actually mention this to me in the past. During one of his journeys to the outer seas, he witnessed this mountain erupting out from an underwater volcano. In order to transfer the mountain to this place, Father had to expend extensive efforts, and there were even several Core Formation cultivators whose cultivation bases had severely regressed during the process. After that, my parents attained initial mastery of the Divine Essencefused Light before attempting to refine this mountain bit by bit as if it were a treasure. However, this is an extremely time-consuming task, and even when they passed away, they had only refined a small portion of the mountain," Ling Yuling explained.
"Hehe, if they had successfully refined this mountain, they most likely wouldn't have been bound to it as they were," Han Li chuckled.
Ling Yuling merely smiled in response, yet gave no reply to this. After rounding a corner, her footsteps came to a halt.
There was a massive green jade door up ahead further down the corridor, and there were countless shimmering restriction talismans of different colors plastered over the door.
"This is where my parents once cultivated. These are the restrictions that they painstakingly set up in order to isolate the Divine Essencefused Mountain's five-elemental power." As she spoke, Ling Yuling raised a hand, and a snowy white jade badge surfaced over her palm.
She then waved the badge gently toward the gate, upon which a clump of white threads short forth from the jade badge, sweeping
away all of the restriction talismans on the jade door.
The jade door abruptly began to tremor violently, following which a low buzzing sound rang out, and the entire door began to move.
A serious expression appeared on Ling Yuling's face as she opened her mouth to blast forth a blue jade hook.
The hook seemed to possess some kind of mystical property, and it transformed into a veil of blue light that settled over Ling Yuling's body.
Only then did she turn to Han Li as she cautioned, "Treasures that don't contain any powers of the five elements are affected the least by the Divine Essencefused Moutain. You're obviously a lot more powerful than I am, but it's still best to exercise caution in there."
"Don't worry, Fellow Daoist Yuling, I know my limits," Han Li replied with a smile.
Golden light abruptly shimmered all over his body, following which a shiny golden light barrier suddenly appeared.
It was none other than the vajra barrier that Han Li had cultivated. Even though this wasn't an item constructed from jade, it was something that was outside of the realm of the five elements.
Ling Yuling faltered initially upon seeing this before a smile appeared on her face. She raised a hand to toss the jade badge into the air, then chanted something in a heavenly voice.
The jade badge shuddered as runes of all types of different colors flew out from it before disappearing into the jade door.
The ringing emanating from the jade door also came to an abrupt halt, following it opened outward, revealing a cavernous space and a vast expanse of white light.
As soon as the jade door was opened, Han Li was struck by a bone-chilling sensation as the hairs on the back of his neck stood up on end. His heart jolted with shock as pure wood-attribute spiritual power surged through his meridians like frantically galloping wild horses.
Thankfully, he was somewhat mentally prepared for this and activated his Azure Essence Sword Art. Only then was he able to shrug off this asphyxiating spiritual pressure, and spiritual power within his body began to circulate in a normal manner again.
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