Chapter 305: Exhausting All Means

Han Li clenched his fists and strained to lift them, but it felt as if two enormous cauldrons weighing ten thousand jin each were tied to his arms, utterly impossible to raise.

In the blink of an eye, the blood-colored blade light arrived like the wind, a stench of blood assailing his nostrils, and it seemed about to cleave his head.

But at that moment, a strange scene unfolded.

When the blood-colored blade light reached several zhang in front of Han Li, it suddenly seemed to slash into layers of highly resilient golden threads, its speed becoming extremely slow, moving downward bit by bit like a crawling snail.

At the same time, a mass of golden light shone behind Han Li's head, and a golden wheel of light hung there, rotating slowly, with over forty clusters of dao patterns blazing brightly, from which ripples of golden light emanated.

Several dozen zhang away, Chong Luan sensed the fluctuations from the True Word Wheel and immediately discovered that no matter how much he increased his force to press the blood-colored blade light down, its falling speed never quickened.

"Could this be... the power of time law? Hurry, burn him to death!" Chong Luan suddenly thought of something, his expression changed, and he immediately shouted an order.

Upon discovering that Han Li could use the power of time law, he decisively abandoned the idea of avoiding damage to Han Li's soul as much as possible. At this moment, he had only one thought: to eliminate this troublesome opponent as quickly as possible.

Because he increasingly felt that the other party was not as easy to manipulate as he had previously anticipated.

As soon as he finished speaking, a sharp screech sounded from the sky above.

The black crane's massive shadow passed over Han Li's head. It flapped its wings fiercely, and two clusters of black flame beneath its wings, driven by two gusts of wind, turned into a surging sea of fire that descended upon Han Li.

But the moment those black flames entered the golden ripples, their falling speed also became extremely slow, and they could not approach Han Li for a time.

At that moment, a silver light flashed on Han Li's shoulder, and a small silver flame figure with delicate features appeared. It looked up at the black sea of fire above, patted its belly, and seemed eager to try.

"Go," Han Li said, his lips moving slightly in a command.

The small silver flame figure immediately leaped up, its body shining with brilliant silver light, transforming into a huge silver flame bird. Spreading its wings, it charged into the black sea of fire.

The silver flames around it blazed intensely, also turning into a sea of fire that merged with the black flames.

Meanwhile, its true form rushed upward, pouncing on the giant black crane.

In midair, one silver and one black giant bird flapped their wings, flames spewing continuously from beneath their feathers as they chased and fought each other, flying farther and farther away.

Chong Luan's expression had become very grim. With one hand still pressing the blade down, he formed a hand seal with the other and reached down into the pool of blood beneath him.

He saw his hand plunged into the blood plasma, and with his palm as the center, circles of runes suddenly emerged out of thin air, expanding outward in all directions.

The blood plasma on the sea surface immediately began to surge, rolling up towering waves that rushed toward Han Li, but without exception, they all slowed down upon entering the range of the golden ripples released by the True Word Wheel.

Around Han Li, layers of blood plasma waves piled up like towering crimson walls, completely surrounding him.

Though he seemed to handle it with ease, he was actually struggling greatly.

The earlier depletion of immortal spiritual power had been too severe; although he had replenished some with immortal essence stones, it was still far too insufficient to sustain the True Word Wheel for long.

Han Li formed a sword seal with one hand and softly chanted a few incantations. Immediately, a large expanse of green light surged from the blood plasma beneath him.

Seventy-two Green Bamboo Swarm Cloud Swords could be seen shuttling with difficulty through the blood plasma beneath him. Countless green sword lights crisscrossed and emerged on the sword bodies, then gathered beneath him to form a massive, hazy green light orb.

"Go!"

Han Li let out a loud shout, and immediately afterward, an even more resounding dragon roar echoed, shaking the heavens.

The massive light orb beneath him shattered with a bang, and a jade-green azure coiled dragon burst out, claws bared, charging straight into the nine heavens.

Han Li's figure stood atop the dragon's head, and by leveraging the momentum of the Green Coiled Sword Formation, he directly broke free from the blood plasma's restraint and flew into the high sky.

No sooner had he stabilized himself than the True Word Wheel floating behind him could no longer be maintained, rapidly shrinking into a small ball of golden light and flying back into his body.

Han Li's expression remained unchanged. His gaze fixed on Chongluan below, he turned his wrist and took out a green pill to consume. With one hand holding an immortal essence stone to absorb immortal spiritual power, he gently reached out with the other hand before him.

The azure coiled dragon immediately scattered its light, transforming back into seventy-two green flying swords. They traced an arc through the air, merging into a single green long sword that flew into Han Li's hand.

Chongluan also realized that Han Li's True Word Wheel could no longer be used. He clapped his hands against the blood plasma beneath him, and his entire body shot straight into the sky, propelled by a towering wave of blood.

He opened his mouth and spat out a blood-colored crystalline thread, which shot into his palm.

A flash of blood light appeared on his palm, and it instantly became a bloody mess, slowly writhing and fusing with the long blade in his hand.

A trace of pain flickered across Chongluan's face, and he couldn't help but let out a low growl.

With this sound, the surface of the blood-colored long blade in his hand began to swell with patterns like blood vessels and veins, pulsing and flickering, looking as if it were truly alive.

His body was still fused with the blood plasma, not yet separated. Golden patterns like spider webs lit up all over his body, spreading down to cover the entire sea of blood plasma.

As the green veins on the blood-colored long blade continuously contracted and expanded, large swaths of the plasma sea began to transform into strands of pure blood-fiend qi, flowing upstream along the golden veins and pouring entirely into the blood-colored long blade.

Strands of golden patterns emerged on the blood-colored long blade, and the entire blade doubled in size. Its blood-fiend qi nearly filled the entire sea area, emanating waves of terrifying fluctuations that struck fear into one's heart.

By the time Chongluan flew within a hundred zhang of Han Li, the plasma beneath him had completely surged into the blood-colored long blade. Yet the green veins on the blade still flickered incessantly, as if they had not yet been sated.

The muscles on his body began to slowly atrophy, and his cheeks sank inward. His entire person seemed as if he were about to be drained dry by this blood blade.

"Prepare to die!"

Chongluan let out a thunderous roar. The blood-colored long blade attached to his arm swung in a circle in midair, causing the void to tremble and bringing forth layers of blood-colored blade shadows as it chopped down toward Han Li.

Han Li's gaze was solemn, and he gripped the longsword tightly in his hand, but made no move to block.

"Heaven and Earth Overturned!"

He let out a thunderous roar, uttering a four-character incantation.

In an instant, the wind and clouds changed color, and heaven and earth were instantly reversed!

The once boundless sea now hung overhead, replacing the original sky, while the once thickly clouded sky now appeared beneath their feet.

Above and below, the sea and sky were treacherous and unpredictable.

The instantaneous shift in space startled Chongluan; his mind struggled to determine in an instant what had happened.

He only saw that the strike he had exerted all his strength to deliver was falling toward the sea surface, in a direction completely opposite to Han Li's position.

His heart tightened, and he gritted his teeth as he withdrew his arms, forcibly pulling the blood-colored long blade back. Swinging it in a circle in midair, he slashed at Han Li once more.

Golden light spread over the enormous blade shadow cast by the blood-colored long blade, carrying rolling blood-fiend qi as it directly tore Han Li's figure in two, falling toward the thickly clouded sky below.

The blood-colored blade shadows came in an unending succession, one after another, striking down continuously. After more than three hundred strikes, the fiend qi was finally exhausted, and no more blade shadows emerged.

"Boom, boom, boom!"

After a series of continuous explosions, blood light burst in the void, the sea of clouds churned, and the tremors stirred up in the space lingered for a long time.

"Now see if you don't die!"

Chongluan's form swayed, and leaning on the long blade that had turned black again, he laughed wildly.

As soon as his words fell, a crisp snap of fingers suddenly sounded in midair.

"Snap!"

In an instant, another dizzying reversal occurred, and the surrounding sea area returned to its original state.

The sky above was still thick with clouds, unchanged, but on the sea below, a deep chasm hundreds of li long had split open. Inside, blood-red fiend qi churned violently, pushing against the seawater on both sides, preventing it from closing for a long time.

Seeing this, Chongluan's entire body stiffened. He turned his head with some difficulty, slowly looking upward.

Han Li stood there completely unharmed, looking at him with a face full of mocking amusement.

"How can this be..." Chongluan's heart was filled with bitterness, and he muttered to himself.

"Everything you just saw was merely a somewhat realistic illusion," Han Li said, his smile growing even wider, and he did not forget to rub salt into the wound.

Chongluan's all-out strike just now had nearly exhausted all his immortal spiritual power and blood-fiend qi, leaving him powerless to continue fighting. Meanwhile, Han Li had used this time to recover a considerable amount of immortal spiritual power through pills and immortal essence stones.

With this shift in momentum, the outcome of this battle might already be sealed.

"Don't be too smug!"

A fierce glint flashed in Chongluan's eyes. He abruptly raised his arm, and the blood-colored long blade attached to it, which had returned to its original pitch-black color, detached from his body and shot toward Han Li.

Han Li moved his arm, and the azure longsword in his hand lit up with bright spiritual patterns. Tracing an arc before him, it struck the black blade.

But the moment the sword edge met the blade, a blood-red light suddenly burst forth from some barely perceptible cracks on the blade's body.

Han Li inwardly cried out in alarm, but by the time he thought to stop his sword's momentum, it was already too late.

With a thunderous "Boom!"

A blood-red sun, a thousand zhang in size, rose slowly above the sea surface, releasing an incomparably dazzling blood-red light.

In the next moment, a shockwave that shook heaven and earth burst forth from within, sweeping in all directions. It directly stirred up a ring of water walls a thousand zhang high on the sea below, surging mightily toward the surroundings.

Chongluan, who had not hesitated to detonate his lifebound black blade, spat out a mouthful of blood while crushing a black jade pendant he had long held in his palm.

A mass of black smoke surged out from it, wrapping around his entire body in an instant before the water wall struck, and he vanished from the spot.