The skeleton gritted its teeth and grumbled an unintelligible string of words before sitting down with its legs crossed once again.
Thus, the interior of the secret chamber fell completely silent again, and the green flames within the 12 lamps continued to flicker, illuminating the secret chamber in an unsteady light.
......
Green light flashed from the Profound Heavenly Sword, and its blade quickly vanished as it reverted back to its original wooden rod form.
The sword then emitted a clear ringing sound before drifting toward Han Li's arm as a ball of yellow light. The same faint yellow insignia then reappeared on Han Li's forearm, indicating that the Profound Heavenly Sword had been sealed again.
Han Li stared at the insignia on his arm with an elated look in his eyes.
He heaved a long sigh of relief before attempting to stand up from within the crater.
In the instant that the golden disc had been destroyed, all of his pain had been alleviated, leaving him feeling as if he had just survived an ordeal that would've surely resulted in his death.
However, it was still too early for him to be relieved. As soon as he rose to his feet, his legs suddenly gave out from under him, and he collapsed onto the ground again. Immediately thereafter, his entire body became numb, and this development was naturally quite alarming to Han Li, prompting him to release his spiritual sense to inspect his own internal condition.
The result of his inspection brought a wry smile to his face. Even though he was currently at the pinnacle of the late-Spatial Tempering Stage, his body was completely devoid of magic power.
It was quite clear that although that slash from the Profound Heavenly Sword had been devastatingly powerful, it had also sapped away all of the spiritual power within his body. On top of that, it had also completely devoured all of that mysterious energy that had flowed into his body. Otherwise, without that additional energy, there would've been no way for him to unleash that slash with the Profound Heavenly Sword.
Thankfully, only his magic power was currently completely depleted; everything else had been left largely untouched, so he was already extremely fortunate.
However, his meridians had been damaged by the excessive influx of energy from earlier, and now that his energy and magic power had been completely depleted, the after-effects naturally began to rear their ugly heads.
However, Han Li wasn't concerned about this. With his powerful self-regenerative abilities, he would be able to easily recover from this. However, the severe exhaustion of magic power was something that would take some time to recover from.
In any case, he was still extremely pleased overall.
He had confidence that he was different from other cultivators, and that it was only a matter of time before he reached the late-Spatial Tempering Stage with the assistance of his Rising Dragon Pills and other pills, but the rapid progress he had made today had saved him around 500 years or perhaps even 1,000 years of arduous cultivation. This was naturally a massively fortunate event for him.
With that in mind, a faint smile appeared on Han Li's face, and he cast his gaze toward the center of the tall platform.
There, the golden body was hovering in mid-air, and it was also seated with its legs crossed and its six eyes closed.
Through the spiritual connection between his primary and second Nascent Souls, he was immediately able to determine that his second Nascent Soul was completely fine; it was merely consolidating its current cultivation base with all its might after making so many breakthroughs in quick succession. Otherwise, if it weren't careful, its cultivation base could immediately fall back down a stage or two.
Furthermore, it had only been able to survive that rapid string of breakthroughs as Han Li was a Spatial Tempering cultivator himself. Otherwise, if the second Nascent Soul had truly only been a Nascent Soul Stage being, then just the inner demon backlash resulting from the massive cultivation base disparity would instantly drive it mad and result in its death.
Even so, the second Nascent Soul definitely wouldn't be fit to fight anyone in a short time. Without over 10 years of meditation, inner demons would potentially appear at any time to destabilize its cultivation base.
However, what was most remarkable to Han Li was the current state of the Provenance Golden Body.
After being broken down and refined on multiple occasions by that mysterious energy, countless purplish-golden runes had appeared over its body, and the aura that it was releasing was over twice as powerful as it had been in the past.
The Provenance Golden Body had been extremely powerful to begin with, and now that its powers had more than doubled, it had naturally become an extremely fearsome force to be reckoned with.
This was an unexpected pleasant surprise to Han Li, and even though he was doing his best to remain calm, he couldn't prevent a faint smile from appearing on his face.
Around two hours later, Han Li sat up before folding his legs. The damage that had been inflicted to his meridians had already largely healed, and he flipped a hand over to summon several medicine vials of different colors, then tipped out a few pills that were emanating fragrant medicinal aromas before taking them all at once.
The medicine vials then disappeared and were replaced by a pair of extremely vibrant green crystals.
Han Li immediately closed his eyes and began to absorb the pure spiritual Qi within these top-grade spirit stones as quickly as he could with the assistance of those pills.
Not long ago, Han Li had wished he could expel all of the spiritual power within his body, which was threatening to make him explode. However, now that he truly had no spiritual power left, he was forced to accumulate it little by little once again.
Han Li was left feeling rather speechless by this string of developments.
Time passed by quickly, and over half a day flew by in a flash.
Han Li abruptly opened his eyes, and a burst of light flashed through them, indicating that he seemed to have recovered some of his magic power.
His brows furrowed slightly as he slowly rose to his feet, and due to the breakthroughs he'd made, his body was now able to hold far more magic power than in the past.
The spiritual Qi in this place was far more abundant than that of the Spirit Realm, and so much time had passed since he'd taken those pills and began to use those spirit stones to replenish his own energy, but he had only recovered around 10% of his total magic power.
Of course, this so-called 10% was comparable to close to half of the magic power he had once had prior to his breakthroughs.
However, in this current situation, Han Li naturally couldn't just meditate for a few days and waste that much time. After he felt like he had recovered enough energy to protect himself, he immediately sprang into action again.
However, he didn't exit through the broken gate. Instead, he made his way toward the center of the stone platform.
The most precious treasure here, that golden disc, had been destroyed, but all of the other treasures here were still quite tempting to him, and he planned to take all of them.
This green chair that he was currently appraising was naturally one of those treasures.
The chair had cooperated with the golden disc up above, and it was clearly quite an extraordinary treasure in its own right. Han Li swept a sleeve through the air, and a burst of azure light immediately surged forth, following which the chair vanished in the blink of an eye.
After that, he cast his gaze around him, then abruptly appeared in front of one of the armored puppets.
Compared to the spirit chair, Han Li was more interested in these puppets. Following the destruction of the golden disc, the puppets had returned to their original stationary statuesque state, but Han Li didn't dare to look down on them at all.
Back when the armored puppets had been fully activated, the spiritual pressure they released was almost comparable to that of a Body Integration Stage being. If he could control these puppets to fight for him, then they would be
an enormous asset.
With that in mind, he released his spiritual sense to infiltrate the puppet before him, but a peculiar look suddenly appeared on his face moments later.
The construction of this puppet was extremely rough, and the only thing that Han Li was unable to identify was the strange crimson stone embedded into the core of the puppet, which wasn't an ordinary spirit stone.
He didn't know what this strange stone was, but its surface was as smooth as a mirror, and it was flashing incessantly with countless thin golden threads within it. The spiritual light emanating from it was extremely faint, and it looked as if it could be snuffed out at any moment.
It was quite clear that the puppet's actions had already exhausted most of the energy within the strange stone. At present, it appeared that the stone only possessed enough energy to support one or two more attacks from the puppet.
Han Li's brows were tightly furrowed as he inspected the puppet for a long while, but in the end, he still swept a sleeve through the air to try and stow the puppet away amid a flash of green light.
Chapter 1728: Collapse
However, the turn of events that unfolded next gave Han Li a massive fright.
Right as the azure light settled over the puppet before him, light suddenly began to flash erratically from its body, and it released an extremely dangerous aura.
Just this aura alone was enough to force back the azure light, and Han Li immediately rushed back in an alarmed manner, leaving a trail of afterimages in his wake.
After just a few flashes, he appeared in the air outside the platform, and right at this moment, the nine puppets swung their halberds through the air in unison, sending powerful streaks of silver light hurtling toward their closest puppet.
A string of dull thumps rang out, and the nine puppets were all sliced in half at the same time before exploding as they collapsed to the ground, leaving only shattered puppet shards littered all over the platform.
Han Li was naturally feeling rather wistful that he hadn't been able to take the puppets with him, but he then quickly flew over to the platform and collected all of the puppet fragments amid a flash of azure light.
The construction of these puppets was a little rough, but Han Li had never seen this type of material before, so he was planning to take it for further research. After doing all that, he looked down to find that the platform was now completely empty, but the massive starry sky diagram was still perfectly preserved.
Han Li had experienced firsthand just how powerful this illusionary formation was, and even with his significantly enhanced cultivation base, he didn't dare to look at it for too long.
After taking a deep breath, he flipped a hand over to produce a white scroll. He flicked a wrist and tossed the scroll downward, upon which it descended as a streak of white light.
However, when it was still over 100 feet above the platform, it paused in mid-air, and Han Li made a hand seal while chanting something before pointing downward in a solemn manner.
The scroll unfurled to reveal a blank image that was several feet in length. The scroll then began to expand at a drastic rate as Han Li chanted his incantation, and mere moments later, it had expanded to around the same size as the stone platform, making it look as if it were a massive white canopy that was hovering in mid-air.
A faint smile appeared on Han Li's face, and his chanting ceased as he flicked his 10 fingers downward in succession.
One incantation seal shot forth after another before vanishing into the white scroll down below, and lights of all different colors erupted from the scroll before slowly descending and encompassing the entire stone platform.
The vibrant lights swirled incessantly over the blank scroll, creating a spectacular sight to behold.
Only after a full 10 minutes had passed did the light on the scroll gradually fade into nothingness, but the white scroll had now become a five-colored one.
Han Li waved a hand through the air, and the scroll immediately rose up from the platform in a flash before quickly shrinking down to its original size of several feet.
There was now a miniature diagram on the scroll that was completely identical to the one down below. Han Li had used a secret technique to replicate the starry sky diagram on the stone platform.
The scroll then transformed into a five-colored streak of light that vanished into Han Li's sleeve in a flash.
With this starry sky diagram replica, he was confident that he would be able to glean some secrets from it. At the very least, studying it would greatly assist him in bettering his understanding of illusionary techniques.
As such, there was nothing of value left in this place. However, Han Li still carefully searched through this place, and only after ascertaining that there were no hidden items did he fly out of the shattered gate as a streak of azure light.
He had already been in this space for close to a day, so he naturally didn't want to linger here any longer.
A resounding boom rang out as a certain section of the giant screen in the main palace suddenly exploded. A ball of black light that was around 10 feet in size abruptly surfaced on the screen before quickly swirling to form a small vortex.
A streak of azure light emerged from the vortex before fading to reveal Han Li at the center of the palace. He turned to look back at the screen before his third Law Destruction Eye slowly fell shut on his glabella.
"It's a pity that this Xumi Treasure has already been completely refined by someone else and can't be used by others. Otherwise, this would be a very useful treasure," Han Li murmured to himself in a slightly wistful manner before looking around at the palace, and sure enough, Liu Shui'er and Shi Kun were already nowhere to be seen.
Despite this, Han Li's expression remained calm, and after a brief moment of contemplation, he strode out of the palace.
He had remained in that Xumi Paradise for such a long time, so the other two had presumably already searched through every other place here. As such, all he wanted to do now was to find them and leave this place as quickly as possible, then meditate somewhere for a few days to recover his own soul power.
However, just as Han Li emerged from the palace and was about to let loose a long cry to contact Liu Shui'er and Shi Kun, a loud rumbling akin to a thunderclap suddenly erupted from the ground, immediately following which everything began to quake violently.
Han Li was quite startled by this development, yet before he had a chance to do anything, the sky suddenly dimmed, and a vast expanse of dark clouds suddenly appeared to obscure the entire sky.
Lightning flashed and loud thunderclaps rang out while gusts of powerful grey winds erupted from the ground in the distance, disappearing into the dark clouds like wyrms rising into the heavens.
From a distance, it looked as if countless gargantuan pillars were rising into the air, creating a very spectacular sight to behold.
Han Li's expression immediately darkened upon seeing this. Even without releasing his spiritual sense, he could tell that the world's origin Qi in this place had been plunged into complete disarray, and all types of spiritual Qi had filled the entire sky.
What was even more alarming to him was that many bursts of restriction fluctuations had emerged in the nearby space, and they were fluctuating in power in an extremely unstable manner.
Azure light immediately flashed from Han Li's body as he slowly rose up into the air. Only after elevating to around 50 to 60 feet above the ground did he stop in his ascent. The flight restriction here hadn't completely disappeared, but its power was less than half as potent as it originally was. As such, Han Li had no difficulty flying at low altitudes.
Right at this moment, the ground began to quake more violently, and a layer of purple light began to appear over the main palace behind him before fluctuating in brightness in an extremely erratic manner.
A ball of yellow light abruptly erupted out of the roof of a certain building among the cluster of pavilions behind the main palace, and it hurtled directly toward the main p
alace.
At the same time, a streak of white light also flew toward the main palace from one of the side palaces.
These were none other than Liu Shui'er and Shi Kun, and both of them wore alarmed expressions, clearly having been caught by surprise by this sudden development.
Han Li's eyelids twitched slightly, and he didn't hesitate any longer as he flew toward the plaza in front of the main palace as a streak of azure light. After just a few flashes, he reached the mountain path outside the palace gate, then rushed down the steps toward the foot of the mountain.
At first, he had been concerned that the suction force of the mountain path would still exist, and that it would impede his efforts to rush down the mountain, but after flying for over 100 feet, those concerns were completely laid to rest.
Perhaps it was due to the sudden changes taking place in this space or perhaps this restriction only applied to those scaling the mountain; in any case, he didn't encounter any impediment and reached the foot of the mountain after just a few flashes.
Shi Kun and Liu Shui'er also arrived beside him almost immediately thereafter.
As soon as Shi Kun appeared, he immediately bellowed in rage and frustration, "What happened? Why does this space suddenly look like it's collapsing? I was just about to secure a powerful treasure!"
"Hmph, you think you're the only one? I had just broken the restriction on a secret chamber and was about to enter it," Liu Shui'er snapped.
Neither of them appeared to be explicitly pinning the blame on anyone, but both of them turned to look at Han Li in unison.
"Do you think I have something to do with this? I only just emerged from that space as well; how could I have possibly done anything to result in this situation?" Han Li's expression darkened, and he certainly wasn't going to take the blame for this.
"But - "
"Let's discuss this after we get out of here. If we don't leave this place, we'll all be dead once the space collapses."
A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248 Page 992