Chapter 1098: Entering Alone

As soon as Han Li's feet touched the square, his brows furrowed involuntarily. A scorching heat immediately came from beneath his feet. Although his boots provided some insulation, it still felt as if he were stepping barefoot on burning coals.

However, after taking a few steps, he found no other abnormalities and quickly adapted.

The square, several hundred zhang wide, soon came to an end.

Han Li stepped onto the stone steps before the fiery red hall and looked up.

Above the tall doorway hung a plaque inscribed with three ancient seal-script characters: "Fire Yuan Palace." Above the plaque hung a copper medallion depicting a flame, engraved with a strange flame rune.

As Han Li glanced at it, his expression suddenly changed. He quickly shifted his body, as if trying to dodge something.

Immediately after, the rune on the copper medallion flashed brightly, and a thumb-thick crimson fire line shot down, heading straight for Han Li's glabella.

Although Han Li had sensed it, he still couldn't completely evade, and the fire line struck his glabella.

A violent burning pain immediately came from his glabella. Despite the toughness of Han Li's bones and skin, the skin on his glabella instantly split open, revealing stark white bone.

"Ah..."

Han Li felt his forehead burning as if it were about to crack, as if his skull were melting from the heat.

At the critical moment, a silver light suddenly appeared at his glabella. A ball of silver flame emerged from it, clashing with the crimson fire line.

As soon as the Essence Fire Bird appeared, the sharp pain in Han Li's forehead subsided, and his flesh began to heal rapidly.

His gaze sharpened, and his mind, which had been unsettled by the burning, finally stabilized.

The Essence Fire Bird let out a sharp cry. The silver flames surged upward, closing in like blooming lotus petals, and devoured the fire line in reverse. It pounced onto the hall's lintel and engulfed the copper medallion.

In just a few breaths, the copper medallion gradually melted under the silver flames. The fire power within it was completely absorbed by the Essence Fire Bird, while the residue turned into a pool of copper liquid, flowing down the plaque.

Then, the Essence Fire Bird flew back, circling Han Li as if seeking credit.

Han Li smiled and waved his hand, putting it away.

He raised his hand and rubbed his glabella. The flesh and skin there had healed completely, but a thumb-sized date-red mark remained, not yet fully faded.

He swept his gaze over the hall door again, then raised his hand and pushed. The two heavy crimson doors slowly opened inward.

Han Li stepped over the threshold and entered the hall, his eyes scanning around.

The hall's furnishings were very simple. Against the walls on both sides stood two rows of wooden shelves, each holding lotus-shaped lamp holders with bean-sized flames burning inside.

In the center of the hall was a circular altar, similar in style to the one in the golden hall, but entirely crimson, as if built from some kind of red crystal. On it were also two items placed as suppressors.

At the top of the altar, on the left, floated a white orb the size of a dragon's eye. It bore no rune marks but was enveloped in a nearly transparent white flame, emanating an extremely dense aura of fire-attribute law power.

Beside it, as usual, floated a ball of golden flame.

Han Li's heart stirred slightly as he scanned the scene. He activated the Great Five Elements Illusion World Art within him, raised his hand, and released his Time Domain, enveloping the surroundings.

Waves of time law power emanated from him. He raised his hand and beckoned from afar toward the golden flame on the altar.

The golden flame seemed to sense the call of the same-attribute law power and trembled slightly, but that was all. It soon returned to its original state, no longer moving.

Seeing this, Han Li smiled wryly.

"It seems without breaking the altar's formation, I can't get anything," he muttered to himself, retracting his domain and techniques.

With that, he circled the altar and examined it carefully.

After a moment, Han Li stopped, frowning deeply. He touched his chin with one hand and fell into thought.

Soon, however, he seemed to reach a conclusion. He flipped his hand and took out a number of formation flags and plates, arranging them around the altar.

Before long, an octagonal formation appeared around the altar.

Frowning deeply, Han Li carefully inspected the formation once more. Feeling there were no omissions, he formed a hand seal and began to activate the formation before him.

With a buzzing sound, all the formation flags and plates on the ground lit up, and the octagonal formation projected a patch of brilliant golden light, connecting to form a golden light curtain between them, like an octagonal golden wall built around the altar, completely enclosing it.

As soon as the formation began to operate, the altar shook violently. The white fire bead suspended above it flashed, and its nearly transparent flame surged upward, seeping out in strands and flowing into the altar below.

Countless flame runes lit up on the altar, and with a roar, a mass of crimson flame surged out from within, rushing toward Han Li.

But as soon as the flame rose, it was blocked by the golden 'wall.' The rolling scorching waves could not break through, so they surged violently upward, like a huge pillar of fire reaching the top of the hall, and with a 'boom,' they flipped it open.

Han Li looked at the huge gap above his head, his eyes flickering slightly, but his heart was greatly at ease.

As long as the formation he had set up prevented the altar's power from spilling out, after it expended itself into the void for a while, its power would naturally weaken considerably. Then he could enter the formation to retrieve the treasure without worry.

But just then, a sudden change occurred!

The walls on both sides of the hall seemed to turn red under the roasting of the flames, and circles of strange flame runes appeared on them, emanating waves of strange energy fluctuations.

"Damn, the restrictions here are not only on the altar..." Han Li exclaimed, raising an eyebrow in alarm.

As soon as his words fell, a red light flashed within those circles of runes, and from each emerged a ferocious head—with deer-like antlers and an ox-like face, but trailing a long body like a python.

As these two monsters charged out, they happened to fly past the two rows of wooden racks, and the flames from the lotus lamps on the racks shot up and attached themselves to their bodies.

With a strange 'boom' sound,

the two ox-headed pythons burst into blazing flames, as if transformed into two clawless fire dragons, opening their bloody mouths and charging toward Han Li.

Han Li quickly shifted his body, dodging left and right, just managing to pass between the two ox-headed fire pythons.

The two fire pythons, having missed their strike, circled around from both sides, forming a circle with their bodies, trapping Han Li in the center.

Han Li gave a bitter smile. Just as he had built a high wall around the altar, these two flame pythons had done the same, building a high wall around him.

The two fire pythons raised their heads high, their flame-condensed eyes fixed on Han Li below. In eyes that should have held no expression, there was a hint of coldness.

"Roar..."

As if a roar came from both pythons' mouths simultaneously, rolling flames surged from their wide-open bloody mouths.

As the rolling crimson flame sprayed toward him, Han Li was instantly engulfed. The extremely hard ground beneath his feet could not withstand the ultra-high temperature and cracked into countless spiderweb-like fissures.

Then, with a 'bang,' it shattered directly.

The ground suddenly sank, and the rock beneath his feet instantly turned into red-hot magma, undulating up and down, splashing like waves. Han Li stood unsteadily on it, his whole body shrouded in a golden light curtain, struggling to keep himself from sinking in.

Flames were everywhere around him, as if he had been thrown into a furnace for refining, and he almost felt suffocated.

Han Li focused his mind, enduring the roasting of the flames, silently circulating the Heavenly Fiend Prison Suppression Art within his body. He changed his fists into probing palms, suddenly spun around, and struck out with his palms toward his surroundings.

His body spun continuously, and his hands struck out palm after palm. Wherever the palm wind reached, a burst of star power exploded, pushing back the surrounding flames by three parts.

As his spinning grew faster, his palm strikes became as continuous as surging waves. Often, before one palm strike had ended, another came, and with each strike叠加, the power grew stronger.

The range of his palm strikes was very limited, only a few zhang from his body, not expanding much. The power of the strikes did not spread out either, but was instead suppressed by the surrounding flames toward the center, gradually condensing into a circular vacuum wall that enveloped Han Li.

At this moment, Han Li secretly reversed the True Word Wheel of Time within him, and his form instantly became blurry. The palm prints he struck out layered upon each other, becoming denser and denser.

Finally, the curtain wall surrounding Han Li, when compressed to the extreme, exploded outward.

With a thunderous 'boom'!

The vacuum wall suddenly burst apart, and tens of thousands of densely packed palm prints, carrying star power, surged in all directions.

It was as if a tornado had suddenly risen from the ground. All the magma was first swept up, turning into a torrent that swirled faster and faster. The scorching hot gas above it was also drawn into the tornado, tearing at the surrounding flame pythons.

First, the crimson flames spewing from their mouths were instantly torn apart, then their bodies were drawn in, and under the pounding of the palm prints, they broke inch by inch, turning into a huge flame vortex.

Han Li's figure flew out from within, throwing a punch with each hand left and right.

With another 'boom,' two huge holes were blasted straight through the walls on both sides of the hall. The flame runes on them were completely destroyed, and even the two rows of wooden racks holding the lotus lamps were all ruined.

As soon as he escaped, he steadied his mind a little. He saw that although the flame on the altar was still rising, it had weakened by three parts compared to the beginning, clearly the effect of the formation he had set up.