Chapter 56: The Heavenly Ghost Emerges

"State your terms." A strange light flashed in Duan Renli's eyes as he spoke calmly.

"A hundred catties of refined Yinchen Stone." Han Li smiled faintly, replying without hesitation.

As soon as these words were spoken, the entire valley fell into an eerily silent atmosphere.

"Yinchen Stone? A hundred catties?"

"You destroyed several of our sect's great formations and left our forbidden grounds in shambles, yet you still dare to make such excessive demands so blatantly!"

"Delusions of grandeur!"

After a brief silence, before Duan Renli could speak, the voices of the purple-bearded man and the other three came from behind him, filled with anger.

"Fellow Daoist truly has a lion's mouth. A single Yinchen Stone vein can barely produce one catty a year. Don't you think asking for a hundred catties at once is a bit too much?" Duan Renli's expression remained unchanged, but his tone grew colder.

"Han does not believe that the vast Heavenly Ghost Sect, after so many years of accumulation, cannot produce even this much Yinchen Stone." Han Li chuckled lightly.

"It seems you are deliberately looking for trouble. Since you refuse to leave, then stay here forever!" Duan Renli's face twisted with ferocity, as if thoroughly provoked by Han Li's attitude.

As soon as he spoke, a vast blood light suddenly emerged from his body, illuminating the surroundings in a bloody red and emitting a terrifying spiritual pressure that nearly froze the nearby void. He opened his mouth and spat out a miniature blood-red ancient banner, several inches tall.

The banner spun around and transformed into a giant banner over ten feet tall, wreathed in baleful aura. A ferocious ghost head with two horns was clearly visible on it, with a cyan face and fanged mouth, its eyes tightly shut.

As he rapidly chanted incantations, the giant banner flowed with blood light, stirring up gusts of bloody wind. The ferocious ghost head opened its gaping maw, and a thick beam of blood-colored light surged fiercely toward Han Li.

Before the light arrived, a nauseating bloody stench filled the entire valley, and the temperature of the surrounding air suddenly dropped.

Seeing this, Han Li's figure merely flickered in midair, then suddenly turned into a blurry shadow, causing the blood-colored light to miss its target.

The next moment, ripples appeared behind Duan Renli, and Han Li's figure materialized out of thin air. A fist covered in pale golden scales moved, striking out with countless afterimages, as if hundreds of fists were launched simultaneously.

In an instant, a roaring sound erupted!

A tremendous force descended through the dense rain of fists, and wherever it passed, the void seemed to shatter inch by inch.

Faced with such a startling attack, Duan Renli merely extended a finger, which seemed slow yet was fast, and pointed at the blood-colored giant banner before him.

The banner instantly reversed with lightning speed, and a large mass of blood-colored mist sprayed out from its surface, rapidly spreading to form a blood cloud dozens of zhang in radius, enveloping his entire figure, which became faintly visible.

Golden fist shadows fell like raindrops onto the blood cloud, yet they seemed to strike a mass of cotton wool; the immense power contained within vanished without a trace like a clay ox entering the sea, extremely strange.

Moreover, each fist shadow that sank in subtly caused the blood cloud to expand a bit.

Han Li frowned slightly, and without a second thought, he withdrew his arm and instantly transformed into a blur as he shot backward.

The surrounding blood cloud immediately rolled like stormy waves, rapidly spreading to both sides, and from within it condensed numerous blood-colored whirlpools. With a slight rotation, rings of air currents swept outward like a hurricane, distorting and deforming the nearby void.

Harsh roaring sounds rose one after another. Han Li felt the air around him tighten, and waves of immense force surged from all directions, slightly slowing his retreat.

At that moment, the eyes of the ferocious giant ghost on the surface of the blood-colored ancient banner suddenly opened wide, and two masses of red light like blazing suns emerged, dazzling and blinding, impossible to look at directly!

Han Li's vision blurred, and then the surrounding scenery became slightly hazy. In an instant, he found himself strangely appearing in a blood-colored space.

Above his head was a blood-misted sky, while below was a boundless, vast blood sea. A thin layer of blood mist drifted over the sea's surface, and the air carried a slightly sweet odor.

"A cave heaven treasure!" Han Li's eyes revealed a trace of surprise.

"You are quite knowledgeable. Indeed, this Scarlet Blood Heavenly Ghost Banner is a cave heaven treasure and also the sect's secret treasure. To be buried here today, you can consider yourself thrice blessed." Duan Renli, clad in a black robe, stood with his hands behind his back in mid-air not far away, his robes fluttering, surrounded by swirling blood mist.

"Oh, is that so?" Han Li said indifferently.

As soon as these words were spoken, ghostly wails suddenly arose from all directions.

These sounds came and went, rising and falling, as if countless ghosts were howling madly, echoing without cease.

Han Li's eyelids suddenly grew heavy, his divine sense momentarily dazed, and a restless, bloodthirsty feeling surged within him, as if only by charging forward and slaughtering those ghosts could he find peace.

But without any hesitation, he formed a hand seal, and instantly a cool force surged from his dantian, flowing through his meridians.

The mad thoughts in his mind vanished without a trace, and the ghostly wails around him disappeared completely.

Seeing that Han Li only swayed slightly before returning to normal, Duan Renli was inwardly surprised.

This bewitching blood mist drifting over the sea of blood, condensed from the resentment of thousands of souls and ghosts, could confuse the mind and stir the deepest desires and murderous thoughts. Even he, if caught off guard and trapped within, would be affected to some extent.

This Li Xiu before him was completely unaffected. Could his divine sense be even stronger than his own?

If so, the killing move he had prepared earlier naturally could not be used.

At that moment, Han Li's eyes flickered with a sharp gleam, and his body blurred as he shot forward, charging straight at the black-robed man ahead.

Duan Renli snorted coldly and formed a hand seal.

Boom!

The sea of blood below suddenly churned violently, and a massive blood wave surged up, sweeping his form away and vanishing without a trace.

Seeing this, Han Li halted midair, closed his eyes, and released his powerful divine sense, but immediately furrowed his brow slightly.

This space seemed boundless, and the sea of blood below was even more eerie. With his divine sense, he could only penetrate a mere dozen or so zhang into the sea, let alone detect the other's hiding place.

After a moment's thought, a blue light flashed in his pupils as he activated the Brightclarity Spirit Eye technique.

Instantly, everything within several dozen zhang below the blood sea became clear, but further down, it remained hazy, impossible to see through completely.

Just as he flipped his hand to take out a Cloud Crane Herb, consumed it, and channeled most of his spiritual power into his pupils to fully unleash the spirit eye technique, a sudden change occurred!

Several hundred zhang ahead, the blood-red sea surface suddenly churned violently, and the viscous blood flowed along a certain direction, forming a massive whirlpool from which faint, low rumbles emanated.

Seeing this, Han Li without hesitation flickered and flew to a height of over a hundred zhang, then looked down at everything below.

At the center of the whirlpool, water splashed, and as the waves rolled, a colossal skeleton rose from within.

This skeleton was a full hundred zhang tall, its bones a crystalline red, as if carved from blood jade, inscribed with countless mysterious runes.

Atop its hill-like head, between two curved horns, a dark-red nascent soul sat cross-legged with eyes closed, its features eighty or ninety percent similar to Duan Renli's.

Witnessing this, Han Li's eyes narrowed slightly.

The nascent soul suddenly opened its eyes, opened its mouth, and spat out seven clots of essence blood in succession, while its ten fingers formed hand seals, and obscure incantations issued from its mouth.

With a few "pops," the essence blood instantly transformed into seven streams of blood mist, which coiled like spirit serpents around its limbs and neck. Then, with a long cry from the nascent soul, the blood mist emitted an eerie blood light, turning it into a blood-colored light orb.

A bizarre scene appeared!

The blood-colored light orb suddenly sank and merged into the skeleton's skull.

In the hollow eyes of the giant skeleton, two blood lights suddenly flickered to life, and all the runes on its bones abruptly brightened.

From the blood whirlpool below, waves surged, and streams of viscous blood light spiraled upward, converging like a giant spiral blood pillar that rose from below to engulf the skeleton.

Through the blood pillar, the tall figure within could be faintly seen gradually expanding.

As the blood pillar receded like a tide, the original giant skeleton vanished, replaced by a hundred-zhang-tall fearsome ghost: cyan-faced, fanged, with a pair of huge curved horns, blood-red eyes, a body covered in blood-red fur, limbs much longer than an ordinary person's, and a pair of purple-black bat wings on its back.

As soon as it appeared, waves of astonishing energy rippled from its entire body, causing even the surrounding air to tremble violently.

"So this is the legendary Crimson Blood Heavenly Ghost from the underworld? Quite interesting!" Han Li gazed at the giant ghost before him and murmured to himself.

With a "rip" sound!

The Crimson Blood Heavenly Ghost raised one arm, and a large patch of blood-colored flames suddenly appeared in its palm, then it grabbed toward Han Li from afar.

The sky above Han Li darkened, and a huge blood-red ghost claw the size of a mu appeared out of thin air, wreathed in blazing blood flames, and grabbed down fiercely.

Before the giant claw arrived, a gust of wind had already pressed down, causing the surrounding blood sea to churn violently.

Han Li raised his hand and punched into the void above.

With a thunderous boom, under the impact of an invisible force, the blood-red ghost claw shattered, exploding into a shower of blood light and residual flames that scattered in all directions.

His body also staggered back a few steps before he steadied himself, a trace of surprise flashing in his eyes.

The power contained in the blood-red giant claw was astonishingly great, somewhat beyond his expectations!

The exploding blood light and residual flames did not disappear. After splattering a short distance, they abruptly stopped, then intertwined and condensed, instantly forming a blood ring several zhang in diameter. It suddenly contracted and tightly bound Han Li.

Before Han Li could react, the blood-colored ghost king waved its hand, and the blood ring binding Han Li flew toward it at an unbelievable speed. It was caught by one of its blood-red ghost claws, leaving only Han Li's head exposed.

"Where do you think you're going!" The Crimson Blood Heavenly Ghost grinned fiercely, and its other ghost claw also gripped over, tightening its hold.

Han Li felt an overwhelming force pressing down, and all his bones creaked. Even with his current physical resilience, he could barely withstand it.