Chapter 410: Snow Lion

Above the ice field, the sky was dim.

Due to the extremely low visibility around, although his spiritual sense could not detect any obvious fluctuations of spiritual power, who knew whether some crisis that defied common sense might be lurking nearby.

Gradually, the snowflakes falling from the sky grew denser and denser, and looking around, everything was almost a grayish-blue expanse.

At this moment, under Han Li's control, the spirit boat was not flying fast. From the four wings on its sides, a layer of azure light bloomed, enveloping the entire boat along with Han Li and the other person.

The dense snowflakes around fell onto this azure light barrier, silently shattering without much impact on the boat's progress.

"The wind and snow here are somewhat strange. My spiritual eye technique is greatly limited. Can your幻瞳鬼目 see farther?" Han Li asked with a slight frown.

"I tried just now, but I can't see very far either. Not only that, my spiritual sense is also disturbed; I can only detect movements within a few li, and even then, it's somewhat blurry," Lu Yuqing shook her head and said.

Han Li understood. As the strange snowflakes grew denser, his spiritual sense could only detect movements within a hundred li; beyond that range, it became intermittent.

"There seems to be something over there."

After flying another hundred li or so, Han Li's eyes suddenly flickered, and he pointed downward.

"Looks like some kind of palace?" Lu Yuqing looked over and murmured.

Deep within the snow curtain, faintly visible were some high eaves of buildings and the tops of towers and pavilions.

"Let's go down and take a look."

As Han Li spoke, he urged a spell with his hand, guiding the spirit boat into a dive, straight down through the wind and snow, arriving before that cluster of buildings.

After putting away the spirit boat and landing, the two realized that the snow here was not as deep as they had imagined; it barely covered their ankles, and beneath their feet was hard stone.

After a brief look around, they walked one after the other, stepping deep and shallow in the snow-covered open square, heading deeper into the building complex.

Standing at the forefront was a red brick-and-wood archway several zhang high, with two pillars and a single bay, and only one tier of eaves on top—its scale was not high. The eaves and ridges were covered with snow, and the inscription on the archway's plaque was blurred, making it impossible to read what was originally written.

When they approached, Han Li and the other noticed that the archway's pillars and beams were densely carved with runes, but the spiritual energy originally contained within them had already dissipated, rendering them ineffective.

The two did not linger here. Passing through the archway, they walked another hundred steps inward and arrived before a main hall with a歇山顶 roof.

The exterior of the hall was mostly intact, but half of the hall door was missing. The stone steps in front, sheltered under the eaves, were not covered by snow, but a very deep black crack split them, clearly cut in two by someone with a single blade.

"Brother Liu, it's one thing for the archway pillars to have runes, but why do these stone steps also have runes?" Lu Yuqing bent down to look at the broken stone steps and asked with some confusion.

"If I'm not mistaken, this area was previously concealed by a formation. That archway, these stone steps, and some bricks in the square were all formation nodes, but they have already been destroyed," Han Li said thoughtfully.

"Do you mean... someone got here before us?" Lu Yuqing looked around nervously and asked in a low voice.

"The spiritual energy of the formation here has completely dissipated. The time of its destruction should be far in the past. Probably during a previous manifestation of the immortal mansion, someone came here, broke the restrictions, and took the treasures stored here," Han Li said after thinking for a moment.

Upon hearing that the treasures had already been taken, Lu Yuqing breathed a slight sigh of relief but couldn't help feeling disappointed. She said, "In that case, let's not waste time here. Should we continue? Time is limited."

"No hurry. There should be many such treasure sites in the immortal mansion, and some may use the same formation restrictions as this one. Let's first examine the formation layout here. If we encounter a similar one later, we can save time breaking it," Han Li said unhurriedly.

"Right, why didn't I think of that! Brother Liu, you are experienced and thoughtful," Lu Yuqing said, suddenly enlightened.

Han Li smiled, stepped up the stairs, pushed open the half-closed door, and entered the hall.

Lu Yuqing also tiptoed behind Han Li and stepped into the hall.

The hall was empty, with only a few broken spots in the roof where snowflakes drifted in, but before they touched the ground, they dissipated on their own...

Exiting from the back door of the hall, there were several more halls and a three-story pavilion connected behind, all in basically the same condition—no obvious damage, but also empty inside.

"Let's go..."

Standing at the foot of the pavilion, Han Li raised his hand and summoned the spirit boat once again. He called out to Lu Yuqing, and the two of them mounted the boat, which shot up into the sky and sped onward.

The snowflakes ahead were still dense. The deeper they went into the ice plains, the more clusters of buildings they encountered along the way. The largest among them was more than ten times the size of the first one they had come across, while the smaller ones were just single-story pavilions and towers, which looked like places where servants and menials might have stayed.

However, regardless of the type, almost all of them had already had their restrictions broken and been looted clean during the previous opening of the immortal mansion.

Han Li had expected this and didn't find it surprising, but Lu Yuqing pouted her lips, feeling it was a great pity.

The journey, however, was quite peaceful. They encountered neither people nor demon beasts along the way.

The two of them continued on the spirit boat. The deeper they went, the stronger the wind and snow in the sky became, and the more it suppressed their divine sense. Eventually, even with Han Li's powerful soul, he could only detect a radius of several dozen li.

After flying over a winding mountain range of ice and snow, Han Li vaguely saw another cluster of buildings nestled in a valley ahead, half-hidden in the wind and snow.

He called out to Lu Yuqing, then urged the spirit boat down toward the valley.

As they neared the mouth of the valley, they saw from a distance a stone lion several zhang tall standing to the left of the pass, covered in snow. Opposite it on the right, another stone lion lay toppled on the ground, also buried in ice and snow.

After landing, Han Li walked over and raised his hand to brush the snow off the left stone lion. He found its body engraved with complex runes, slightly different from those he had seen before but generally of the same type.

"It looks like there's no need to go into the valley. The restrictions here have already been destroyed..." Lu Yuqing said, looking somewhat disappointed.

Han Li was about to speak when he suddenly frowned. He grabbed Lu Yuqing by the shoulder and yanked her back, retreating rapidly until his back pressed against the cliff face.

The toppled "stone lion" on the ground to the right of the pass suddenly came to life. Its body shook, and it sprang up, raising a massive claw that slammed down toward the two of them with tremendous force.

A thick layer of snow fell from the lion's body, revealing more ice and snow beneath. It seemed to be a snow beast formed entirely of ice and snow.

Perhaps because of this, Han Li had not sensed it before its sudden attack, taking it for nothing more than a lifeless stone lion.

Han Li's gaze sharpened. He raised a fist, which gathered with azure light, and punched upward.

"Whoosh!"

A greenish fist shadow immediately broke through the wind and snow, colliding with the falling claw of the snow lion.

With a loud "bang!"

The snow lion's giant claw burst apart upon contact with the fist shadow, scattering into a cloud of snow mist.

Before Han Li could withdraw his fist, he frowned, feeling a piercing icy coldness seep in from the snow mist, and a layer of frost formed on the joints of his fist.

Startled, he quickly pulled his fist back.

Looking again at the snow lion's raised front paw, a blue vortex was forming, from which whirlwind-like forces of attraction emerged, drawing in the swirling snowflakes from all around.

As more and more snow poured into the vortex, the snow lion's shattered front paw actually recondensed most of it in an instant.

"Brother Liu, this is not some formation puppet, but a unique cold beast from the immortal mansion's secret realm. Unless you shatter the cold soul within its body, it can continuously absorb the power of wind and snow to repair damage, making it nearly immortal!" Lu Yuqing seemed to recognize the creature and quickly warned.

"Cold Soul? What is that?" Han Li stared fixedly at the recovering cold beast and asked.

"It's a piece of extreme cold crystal bred inside this beast, somewhat similar to a demon beast's inner core, usually located directly behind its eyes." Lu Yuqing thought for a moment and quickly said.

Hearing this, Han Li's gaze focused on the snow lion cold beast's deep blue eyes. With a thought, a green flying sword shot out, and with a flash of cold light, it arrived before the snow lion's left eye.

The beast's intelligence seemed not very high; seeing the sword light approaching, it directly raised its still-unhealed giant claw and swatted at the flying sword.

Though the flying sword came swiftly, its momentum was not particularly strong, but the moment it touched the snow lion's giant claw, a dense array of sword lights burst out like a blooming sword lotus, stabbing in all directions, directly pulverizing its entire arm into powder.

At the same time, the green sword light pierced through, flying straight through its left eye, splitting its entire head in two.

A sharp clang rang out.

Han Li saw the tip of the Green Bamboo Bee Cloud Sword embedded in a human-head-sized light blue crystal, penetrating only an inch or so without piercing through.

On the crystal, wisps of snow-white flowing light swam, and immediately, wind and snow began to gather around the snow lion's head from all directions.