Chapter 581: Immortal Gathering

Half an hour ago, just as Han Li was on the verge of breaking through to the fourth layer of the Divine Refining Art.

At a location countless miles away from the abyss where Han Li was, a towering white mountain peak stood here. Starting from halfway up the mountain, thick white spiritual clouds floated around, while the summit jutted out above the sea of clouds.

At the summit of the white mountain peak, there was a cyan stone platform built entirely from grayish-green stone blocks. At the center of the platform was a square stone table, surrounded by four stone chairs of the same style but different colors.

At this moment, three figures sat on three of the stone chairs.

One of them was a young man in a black robe, with dark skin, slender eyebrows and eyes, and two silver-white horns on his forehead, giving him an extremely cold and stern demeanor.

Another was a tall, slender man in a white robe, appearing to be around thirty or forty years old, with extraordinarily handsome features. His flowing white hair danced in the wind, interspersed with a strand of dazzling golden hair, adding to his charm.

The last person was an old man with red hair and a red beard, hunched over, leaning on a crimson staff, looking decrepit and aged.

Above the stone table in front of the three figures, a white water mirror floated in the void. In the mirror, a churning white radiance, like a mad dragon, soared and swam through the air, emitting dazzling crystalline light.

Even through the water mirror, one could sense the astonishing phenomenon.

Beneath the white radiance, a deep canyon could be faintly seen, with wisps of black qi drifting out from it.

“This phenomenon is quite significant; the fluctuations can even reach us here... Such powerful spiritual sense fluctuations—could it be that someone on Old Gushen’s territory has broken through to the Great Luo realm?” the black-robed young man said slowly.

“If someone had broken through to Great Luo, the celestial phenomenon would not be so small. It seems more like someone has achieved great success in cultivating some soul secret technique,” the white-robed man said calmly, shaking his head.

The black-robed young man frowned slightly, glanced at the white-robed man, and snorted.

“Brother Yu, what do you think?” the white-robed man, unfazed, turned to look at the red-haired old man and asked.

“This matter is indeed somewhat strange, but since it is within Fellow Daoist Gu’s sphere of influence, according to our agreement, it would be inappropriate for us to interfere,” the red-haired old man said noncommittally, stroking his red beard.

“Today is our once-in-a-million-years gathering. Fellow Daoist Gu has already missed several consecutive meetings, and now such strange events occur on his territory. I wonder what he means by this,” the white-robed man said with a helpless smile and a shake of his head.

"Brother Gu has always been mysterious and secretive; there's no need to mind him." The red-haired old man chuckled.

"Brother Liu, you are meddling too much by inquiring about Old Gu's matters. A few days ago, you suddenly made a move on a branch of the Dark Star Mountain Range and occupied all the insect territory there. How do you explain that?" The black-robed youth spoke coldly.

"So that's why Brother Zuo is targeting me today. Our descendants number in the thousands, scattered across this vast wilderness of billions of miles. They are left to fend for themselves—it's survival of the fittest. Why bother? If Brother Zuo is still upset about this, just send someone to take it back." The white-robed man smiled, speaking with utter indifference.

"Since that's the case, we've said just about everything in today's meeting. I'll take my leave now." The black-robed youth stood up abruptly, and with a flicker of his form, he vanished into the void, though his voice still echoed in the air.

"Brother Zuo's temper is as fiery as ever. Brother Liu, I'll be going too. See you in a million years." The red-haired old man also stood up and waved his staff in the void.

A white line appeared in the void above the platform, then slowly pulled apart to both sides, revealing a spatial passage.

The red-haired old man stepped into it with a composed expression, and the void rift immediately sealed shut as before.

"This kid has quite the nerve—neither advancing nor retreating, but instead cultivating on the spot. Fine, let's see just how capable this human big brother that Le'er has acknowledged really is." A smile curled at the corner of the white-robed man's mouth, then he raised his hand and waved.

The white water mirror shattered with a bang, scattering into countless sparkling crystalline lights that fell like rain.

Amid the shimmering crystals, the white-robed man's figure also vanished from the mountaintop.

...

Han Li's meditation lasted a full ten-plus days.

With his divine sense already far surpassing that of his Golden Immortal peers, combined with the enhancement from mastering the fourth layer of the Spirit Refining Art, his divine sense naturally met the requirements for cultivating the fifth layer, and his physical body was also fine.

However, the fifth-layer technique was extremely obscure, with many parts appearing somewhat risky, leaving him at a loss on how to proceed for the time being.

But recalling the stimulation of divine sense by the baleful aura environment earlier, Han Li thought of a similar unorthodox method—if he could obtain a more intense soul-sucking yin wind to assist, there might be a chance to further enhance his divine sense.

With this thought, he waved his hand to put away the jade slip, stood up, and with a flicker of his form, continued flying downward.

However, not long after flying, Han Li's brow slightly furrowed, and the deeper he probed, the tighter his brow became.

Contrary to his expectations, the sinister wind below not only failed to intensify but showed signs of gradually weakening.

Although the baleful aura grew denser, without that soul-seizing sinister wind, the illusions in his mind could no longer appear.

Han Li's face showed disappointment. After a momentary pause, he returned to the place above where the sinister wind was strongest, sat down cross-legged, and attempted to cultivate the fifth layer of the Divine Refining Art using the ordinary method.

Half a year passed in the blink of an eye.

When Han Li opened his eyes again, his expression looked somewhat dejected.

Despite his relentless cultivation without sleep or rest for half a year, progress remained extremely slow—not only incomparable to the rapid advancement achieved earlier by using the baleful aura illusions to cultivate the Divine Refining Art, but also far inferior to the progress made when cultivating the fourth layer of the Divine Refining Art in the past.

Han Li took a deep breath and quickly regained his composure.

This situation of slow progress had also occurred during the cultivation of the first three layers, but eventually, as time passed and through continuous contemplation and exploration, he had still managed to cultivate them bit by bit. However, under the present circumstances, with time pressing, continuing to cultivate was clearly unwise.

After a moment's hesitation, Han Li made a hand seal with one hand, and his body trembled slightly. Immediately, the dense baleful qi around him surged toward him, engulfing his body in an instant.

A loud boom sounded in his ears, as if he heard the miserable screams of countless dying demon beasts. At the same time, streams of cold and fierce qi penetrated into his body from all directions.

Han Li took a deep breath and did not resist with his cultivation.

Streams of dense baleful qi rampaged within his body, causing numbness and stabbing pain in his flesh and meridians wherever they passed, as if countless small knives were churning.

He frowned slightly, but soon relaxed, took out a pill to improve his cultivation, and slowly began to circulate the "Xuan Sha Ming Ling Gong."

A "whoosh" sound arose.

The baleful qi accumulated in Han Li's body was fully activated, and a layer of dense black light like mist appeared on his body, flowing continuously, alarming to behold.

The black light immediately merged with the surrounding baleful qi, causing the nearby baleful qi to surge violently, forming faint whirlpools around his body, and the speed at which it entered his body increased.

At this moment, he was submerged by the black baleful qi, and his body seemed to be clad in a thick coat of black mist, with a strange needle-pricking sensation spreading over his skin.

As the Profound Nether Soul-Commanding Art continued to circulate, the streams of baleful qi within Han Li's body immediately stopped their chaotic movement and converged toward one point, forming a mighty torrent of baleful qi.

He let out a muffled groan, his brows instantly knitting together, and his complexion turned somewhat unpleasant.

Previously, the scattered streams of baleful qi had caused him some pain, but not intensely; now that they converged into one, the pain naturally compounded, multiplying severalfold.

Fortunately, aside from this unbearable pain, there seemed to be no other abnormalities for the time being. After enduring it with effort, he could still use this baleful qi to assault his sixty-second acupoint.

In fact, he was well aware that this baleful qi was not his own accumulated store but ultimately an external substance. His body instinctively resisted it, and compared to his own accumulated baleful qi, this external baleful qi was only fiercer and more reckless.

The many cold and malevolent thoughts contained within would also continuously assail his sea of consciousness, showing no hesitation in completely destroying his acupoints or tearing apart his sea of consciousness.

But time was pressing, and Han Li could no longer afford to worry about all this. He intended to use the violent impact of this external baleful qi to quickly open those immortal acupoints one by one.

"Not enough... still... not... enough..." Han Li said through clenched teeth, his brows tightly furrowed, uttering each word with difficulty.

His hands swiftly formed hand seals, and a bright black light radiated from his entire body. The speed at which baleful qi surged into him instantly doubled, and the pain within his body also doubled.

Han Li's heart sank. Barely enduring the knife-like agony, he frantically absorbed the baleful qi into his body, wave after wave, madly assaulting the immortal acupoints.

Above the abyss, a roaring sound grew loud. The baleful qi churned violently, and the chaotic airflow swept down the bones of demon beasts on the cliffs on both sides, shattering them in midair, scattering into bone dust and will-o'-the-wisps.

As time passed drop by drop, the baleful qi gathered around began to thin, while the baleful qi concentrated around Han Li became dense and substantial.

Time flew by, and more than three months had passed.

One day, a long cry echoed from within the abyss.

Over a thousand li deep, Han Li hovered in midair. Below his shoulder blades on his back, a small vortex appeared, frantically drawing in the heaven and earth energy rushing down from above the abyss, pouring it into that vortex for over ten breaths before slowly stopping.

When the golden light phenomenon disappeared, a golden light spot appeared there—it was the sixty-second immortal acupoint!

With a thought, Han Li probed toward that immortal acupoint. Inside, besides a large amount of condensed immortal spiritual power, the wisp of black baleful qi floating there appeared much more prominent.

After all, it was somewhat different from the immortal acupoints connected to his own baleful qi.