Furthermore, all of them had become extremely slow and sluggish, as if they were flying through treacle.
A cold smile appeared on Bao Hua's face as she injected her immeasurable magic power into the full moon up above in a frenzy, and the moon immediately began releasing more beams of golden light.
Each beam of light that was released resulted in the premature explosion of a crimson stemborer, but it also made the moon dim ever so slightly.
The storm of golden light eradicated most of the crimson stemborers, but it also expended the last of the moon's power, and it reverted back into a small mirror that descended from above.
Bao Hua rushed out of the galaxy of stars to catch the mirror, then cast her gaze toward the remaining crimson stemborers trapped in the galaxy of stars before making a certain hand seal.
The galactic projection immediately surged back in reverse, and countless silver stars converged toward its center before exploding in unison, sweeping up gusts of fierce silver winds that created countless white spatial rifts.
"This is a space-time storm!" one of the Grand Ascension Stage beings exclaimed upon seeing this, and a contemplative look also appeared on Han Li's face.
In the next instant, all of the crimson stemborers swept up by the fierce silver winds were devoured by the white rifts and completely vanished.
Bao Hua heaved a sigh of relief upon seeing this, then waved a hand down below.
The silver winds immediately faded, and the silver flag re-emerged before flying back into Bao Hua's hand.
After unleashing that astonishing ability, the Starfall Flag had clearly been severely debilitated.
After all, space-time storms simply weren't phenomena that the average Profound Heavenly Treasure replica could create, so Bao Hua had to have unleashed this ability using a secret technique that harmed the Starfall Flag.
After stowing the two treasures away, Bao Hua said, "Rest assured, fellow daoists, the self-detonating stemborers have been wiped out."
After that, she slowly descended toward the giant ark.
Han Li and the other Grand Ascension Stage beings also returned to the ark shortly thereafter.
Upon returning to the hall, Bao Hua sat down in a corner with her legs crossed.
Meanwhile, all of the other Grand Ascension Stage beings were discussing the powers that had just been displayed by the pair of treasures.
As for Han Li, he merely returned to his seat and sat down with a faint smile.
Without the impediment of the self-detonating stemborers and high-grade stemborers, the group was able to continue onward without a hitch.
Close to half a day later, they finally emerged from the stemborer swarm and caught sight of the original sealed site in the distance.
At this point, most of the elite devilish warriors had perished, and only just over 10,000 remained as the giant ark arrived at the original sealed site.
Han Li and the Grand Ascension Stage beings emerged from the giant ark and began to inspect their surroundings with curiosity in their eyes.
The edge of this original sealed site was a barren mountain range, and littered between these mountains was the occasional building. However, the entire place was completely silent, and there was not a single person to be seen.
Strangely enough, as soon as the stemborer swarm reached this area, they immediately drew to an abrupt halt outside the mountain range, as if there were something extremely fearsome in their eyes up ahead, and they didn't dare to continue any further, even as Han Li and the others continued onward.
"This is the power of the ancient seal. As expected, it really is able to suppress these stemborers. Let's keep everyone else here to keep an eye on the stemborer swarm while we head deeper into this place," Old Man Copper Crow suggested.
Bao Hua nodded in agreement, and said, "Fellow Daoist Que, Brother Feng, you two will stay here to repair some of the restrictions on the outskirts as we planned earlier. These restrictions are directly connected to the ancient seal, so if you can repair some of them, it'll greatly benefit the recovery of the ancient seal."
Chapter 2228: Underground Palace
A pair of Sacred Ancestors immediately gave affirmative responses, while the other Grand Ascension Stage beings and their disciples continued deeper into the original sealed site.
There was clearly an extremely powerful flight restriction in this area, as evidenced by the fact that even all of the Grand Ascension Stage beings could only fly slowly onward at low altitudes.
Of course, this was only relative to their normal speed; in the eyes of normal people, they were still extraordinarily fast.
Around an hour later, the group had already covered a distance of close to 10,000 kilometers.
All of a sudden, an extremely long canyon appeared up ahead, from within which clouds of thin purple mist were emerging before drifting up into the heavens.
What was rather concerning was that there was a rank odor being released from the mist that struck one with a sense of dizziness and also made one's spiritual sense very sluggish.
All of the Grand Ascension Stage beings swept their spiritual sense toward the purple mist, upon which all of their expressions changed slightly.
"Take care not to come into contact with too much of this stuff, fellow daoists. This is a manifestation of the Stemborer Queen's aura, and this is what's transformed the devilish insects of our holy realm into stemborers," Bao Hua cautioned.
All of the Grand Ascension Stage beings' hearts jolted upon hearing this, and some immediately bolstered the protective spiritual light around them, while others even went as far as to summon a few protective treasures.
However, the majority of the Grand Ascension Stage beings seemed to be quite confident in their own powers and didn't display any reaction.
Finally, everyone arrived in the air above the canyon, and they all drew a sharp breath at the sight that greeted them down below.
The canyon was immeasurably deep, and gusts of bone-chilling winds were surging out of it alongside the purple mist.
"Is this the place where the ancient seal is situated?" Han Li asked.
Bao Hua smiled, and replied, "The ancient seal is indeed located deep underground here. Back in ancient times, our holy race constructed a massive underground palace that encompasses the entire area with a radius of thousands of kilometers around this place. On top of that, a series of profound restrictions were set up, and the Stemborer Queen is situated right at the center of the underground palace. Due to the fact that a part of the ancient seal's power is now under the Stemborer Queen's control, we had been unable to enter the underground palace.
"However, this just so happens to be a period of time that comes around cyclically where there's a massive eruption of the world's origin Qi. As a result, the power of the ancient seal is quite unstable, and we'll be able to enter the underground palace. Otherwise, we'd still be able to force our way into the underground palace, but that would definitely awaken the Stemborer Queen.
"Is the Stemborer Queen really that alert and receptive? According to my knowledge, it's very difficult for the vast majority of insects to awaken from hibernation for recovery purposes; the only exception would be if someone approached them and tried to take their lives," an elderly man in a set of daoist robes said with furrowed brows.
Bao Hua cast her gaze toward the elderly man, and replied, "You may be renowned for your understanding of insects, but don't forget that Stemborer Queen is no ordinary insect, so there are some conventions that simply don't apply to it, Fellow Daoist Gu."
"Hmph, I'll take your word for it then," the elderly man harrumphed coldly, seemingly unconvinced by Bao Hua's words.
Bao Hua didn't seem to be very fond of him, either, and her expression immediately darkened as she replied, "If you don't believe me, you can go on ahead and see for yourself." She then cast her gaze deep into the canyon, seemingly waiting for something.
The elderly man's expression changed slightly upon hearing t
his, and a hint of fury flashed through his eyes, but he remained silent in the end, and of course, he certainly wasn't going to recklessly venture into the canyon on his own.
Han Li couldn't help but cast an intrigued gaze toward this elderly man.
He clearly knew that Bao Hua was no ordinary Grand Ascension Stage being, yet he still dared to speak to her in such a rude manner; it was clear that he was no slouch, either.
All of a sudden, Bao Hua transmitted her voice to Han Li. "Fellow Daoist Han, this Daoist Gong has a very abrasive personality, and he specializes in poison abilities that pose a huge headache even to me. I'd advise you not to get involved with him."
Han Li merely nodded in response, but remained silent.
Perhaps it was due to the purple mist or the power of the ancient seal, but as soon as one's spiritual sense descended more than 1,000 feet into the canyon, it would involuntarily scatter, making it impossible to glean the contents of the canyon.
As such, everyone could only look on with wary expressions.
Right at this moment, Bao Hua suddenly produced a shimmering silver formation plate, which she cast a string of incantation seals onto.
The silver formation plate began to fluctuate in brightness as if it had suddenly attained sentience, and after a short while, bright silver light radiated from the formation plate alongside countless silver runes.
"This is it! It's time to go in, fellow daoists," Bao Hua said with an elated expression as she flew toward the canyon as a ball of pink light while holding the silver plate in her hand.
The other Grand Ascension Stage beings immediately followed along.
Golden light emanated from Han Li's body, easily keeping the purple mist at bay, and he also descended along with everyone else.
To their surprise, the canyon wasn't as immeasurably deep as it had appeared on the surface. After flying for only around 10,000 feet, a patch of gentle white light suddenly appeared up ahead.
Everyone quickly landed on the solid ground down below, and Han Li looked around to discover that they were all situated on a massive plaza that was over 100 acres in size and paved with translucent white jade.
There were fist-sized jewels embedded onto the ground at regular intervals, illuminating this area and making it as bright as day.
There were eight winding paths around the plaza leading in different directions, and Han Li looked up as the purple mist slowly converged from all directions before rising upward.
"Alright, the fact that we've managed to arrive safely indicates that the Stemborer Queen is still in its slumber. Now then, let's proceed according to the original plan. I'll lead a group of people to contact the spirit of the ancient seal, while Fellow Daoist Copper Crow and our fellow daoists from the Heavenly Crow Realm will venture deep into the underground palace to try and get into contact with our trapped allies. Our two fellow daoists from the Black Night Realm will go to the deepest part of the underground palace to find where the Stemborer Queen is hibernating and conduct surveillance on it, but make sure not to alert it.
"With the concealment secret techniques of the Black Night Realm, I'm sure this won't be a difficult task. As for everyone else, split up and travel to the formation cores of the underground palace to repair some of the key restrictions there. Those places may be guarded by the descendants of the Stemborer Queen, so be careful. The true descendants of the Stemborer Queen are far more powerful than the stemborers outside, and they're extremely dangerous even for Grand Ascension Stage beings like us," Bao Hua instructed.
"Hehe, we'll look after ourselves."
"I'll be going on ahead then."
"You be careful too, Fellow Daoist Bao Hua."
Thus, all of the Grand Ascension Stage beings split up into groups and departed from the plaza.
Han Li and Daoist Xie were split into a group with two other Grand Ascension Stage beings, and the four of them disappeared down one of the paths leading away from the plaza.
These other two Grand Ascension Stage beings were Xie Lian, and the foreign Grand Ascension Stage being enshrouded in green Qi, Lü Shi.
Their mission was to repair some of the restrictions at the formation core of the underground palace.
Xie Lian was walking on ahead while inspecting a jade slip in her hand, and Han Li and Daoist Xie were in the middle, while Lü Shi brought up the rear.
None of them said anything, and they gently glided along several feet above the ground.
Their spiritual sense was able to encompass the entire area within a radius of over 1,000 feet, and as long as there wasn't anyone far more powerful than them here, no one would be able to escape their detection.
Han Li was inspecting his surroundings with a calm expression, and he discovered that the path that they were traversing was lined with tall rectangular pagodas.
These pagodas were quite antiquated in design, and their surfaces were riddled with simplistic ancient runes, seemingly having already stood for countless years.
After flying along for around 15 minutes, they still hadn't reached the end of the path.
All of a sudden, Han Li's brows furrowed slightly, and he drew to an abrupt halt.
"Did you discover something, Fellow Daoist Han?" Xie Lian asked as she turned around.
Lü Shi also stopped in his tracks to hear what Han Li had to say.
"There seems to be something interesting over there; would you two like to take a look?" Han Li said with a smile as he cast his gaze toward a certain direction.
Xie Lian swept her spiritual sense toward the same direction, but was unable to discover anything, and her expression changed slightly as she said, "Your spiritual sense can detect things that far away?"
Lü Shi was also unable to detect anything with his spiritual sense, and he said, "I'd be happy to accompany you, Fellow Daoist Han."
It was clear that Han Li's spiritual sense was far more powerful than his and Xie Lian's.
Han Li nodded before drifting toward the same direction that he had cast his gaze toward, followed by an expressionless Daoist Xie.
Xie Lian and Lü Shi exchanged a cautious glance, and only then did they follow along.
Chapter 2229: Human-faced Insect
After straying only several hundred feet off the path, both Xie Lian and Lü Shi immediately detected something.
After flying for no more than 2,000 feet, a massive deep crater that was around 80 feet in size emerged up ahead.
There were seven stone pagodas around the giant crater that were in ruins, and the ground was riddled with countless deep trenches, indicating that a fierce battle had taken place here.
At the center of the giant crater laid the charred black remains of a giant insect, and it seemed that this was only less than half of the insect's entire carcass.
Even though the carcass was incomplete, it was still quite menacing to behold, and both Xie Lian and Lü Shi couldn't help but draw a sharp breath.
This insect was similar in appearance to the average stemborer with a glossy exoskeleton, but on its long and thin neck was an extremely hideous male head, complete with all of its facial features and a head of disheveled green hair that resembled wild grass.
The carcass was lying still on the ground without any blood around it, having clearly perished here a long time ago.
"So this is a true descendant of the Stemborer Queen; it really is very disturbing to look at," Xie Lian said as her face paled slightly.
"It truly is. I didn't think that these insects would be so unsightly; the Stemborer Queen is most likely even more disgusting to look at. What do you think, Fellow Daoist Han?" Lü Shi asked.
"Perhaps so. I won't just come to any conclusions before I see the Stemborer Queen for myself," Han Li said with a faint smile, then suddenly swept a sleeve toward the giant crater.
A loud boom rang out as a burst of invisible power struck the insect carcass, causing it to flip onto its back.
Xie Lian's complexion paled even further at the sight of the insec
t's underside.
The insect had around a dozen shattered limbs attached to its abdomen, some of which were very sharp and lined with hard black fur, just like the limbs of actual insects.
However, the other limbs were fair and delicate, bearing a strong appearance to human hands, but instead of five fingers, each hand was comprised of three fingers, one of which was quite thin, while the other two were thicker.
Lü Shi's eyelids spasmed upon seeing this, and he raised a hand to conjure up a blue fireball, which he immediately sent flying toward the insect carcass.
The fireball didn't seem to be releasing any heat, but the air around it had become quite warped and blurry, clearly indicating that the flames were extremely fearsome.
As soon as the fireball struck the insect carcass, the latter immediately burst into flames.
Moments later, Lü Shi made a hand seal before pointing a finger at the carcass, and a dull thump rang out as the blue flames instantly vanished to reveal the carcass again.
However, aside from the fact that it was slightly more charred black than before, the carcass appeared to have been largely unaffected.
Lü Shi and Xie Lian's expressions darkened even further upon seeing this.
"Interesting! Let me give it a try as well," Han Li chuckled as he raised a hand to flick three of his fingers through the air.
Three streaks of azure sword Qi instantly erupted from his fingertips before striking the carcass in quick succession.
Three dull thumps rang out one after another, and the three streaks of sword Qi achieved completely different outcomes.
The first streak of sword Qi was instantly repelled, the second streak managed to slice through a part of the carcass's exoskeleton, and the third streak was able to slice the carcass cleanly in half.
A hint of surprise appeared in the eyes of both Lü Shi and Xie Lian upon seeing this, while Han Li began to stroke his own chin with a contemplative expression.
Xie Lian asked, "Were those three streaks of sword Qi you unleashed just now of different levels of power, Brother Han?"
A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality c1-2248 Page 1277