Chapter 595: A Life-and-Death Struggle

Han Li sighed inwardly at this sight. His carefully orchestrated series of actions had only managed to break through the opponent's outer shell, failing to inflict any real damage on its vital points.

As he pondered, a sudden change occurred!

The Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle abruptly opened its mouth and spat out a crystalline thread of light, like an ordinary spear in size, which shot forth with dazzling five-colored brilliance, straight toward Han Li's heart.

Han Li's pupils contracted. He swiftly waved his hand to summon the Truth Dharma Wheel back to his side, preparing to slow the opponent's attack.

However, the moment the Truth Dharma Wheel returned, he sensed something amiss.

The Dao patterns on the wheel trembled violently, but the golden ripples that should have produced a slowing effect did not appear.

Before he could figure out what was happening, the five-colored crystalline spear had already reached him, leaving no room to dodge.

In that critical moment, a blur of human shadow flashed before Han Li, and a streak of golden light shot past. Jin Tong, unable to reveal her true form in time, blocked in front of him.

With a "噗" sound,

the five-colored crystalline spear pierced directly into Jin Tong's shoulder, carrying her body as it slammed heavily into Han Li, accompanied by the sound of breaking bones and a spray of blood.

Both of them crashed into the stone wall behind them. The tremendous impact caused the cliff to collapse, sending boulders tumbling down.

Amidst the dust, Han Li, with blood at the corner of his mouth, held Jin Tong in his arms. His figure flickered and dashed toward Mo Guang.

Mo Guang's eyes flickered, and he moved to block in front of them.

Han Li retracted the Truth Dharma Wheel into his body while glancing at Jin Tong. Seeing that her aura had greatly diminished but she was not in mortal danger, he breathed a sigh of relief, though his heart still trembled with lingering fear.

Jin Tong had now advanced to the Taiyi stage, and having previously devoured the strange cauldron and the giant rat's remains, her physique was far stronger than before, enabling her to withstand the blow from the five-colored crystalline spear.

Otherwise, even with her sacrificial blocking, Han Li would have inevitably had his heart pierced.

"Are you alright?" Han Li asked, his eyes fixed on the movements of the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle.

"I'm fine! Uncle, this time we must kill him!" Jin Tong gently shook her head, raised her hand to pull out the five-colored crystalline spear, and stuffed it into her mouth. Then she sat up straight, her gaze resolute.

Han Li paid no heed to Jin Tong's words. All his attention was now focused on the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle, which was just over a hundred zhang away.

At that moment, the Devouring Gold Beetle, which had clearly lost its wings, suddenly erupted with five-colored flames from its back, forming two enormous, brilliantly colored wings. With a single flap, its figure vanished from the spot.

Han Li's pupils sharply contracted. With one hand, he flung Jin Tong far away, and with the other, he raised the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword before him, bracing for a block.

In front of him, Mo Guang's figure suddenly shot up several zhang, his body glowing with dense black light. He held the black spear, twirled it, and thrust it straight ahead.

A black line flashed and vanished, and boundless black qi surged forth, rolling forward.

With a loud "clang"!

The massive body of the Devouring Gold Beetle suddenly materialized. Its golden carapace on the chest blocked the black spear, while its two forelimbs, like steel spears, bypassed Mo Guang and stabbed directly at Han Li behind him.

This scene seemed slow but actually happened in an instant.

Han Li had just raised the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword when the two steel spears thrust over.

"Heaven and earth overturned..." Almost simultaneously, a thunderous roar sounded.

In the abyss, baleful qi surged backward, and the world changed color.

The Devouring Gold Beetle felt an indescribably terrifying force sweep through, enveloping the entire abyss.

Its vision blurred. When it looked again, it found the entire abyss had been inverted. It had been hovering above, but now it was falling toward the valley floor.

Was this an illusion?

The Devouring Gold Beetle was startled and suspicious. Its forelimbs, thrust forward, paused momentarily.

"Thunder rising from parched earth!" At that moment, another roar erupted.

As the words fell, the ground at the bottom of the abyss suddenly shattered. A thick golden thunder pillar rose from below, surging wave after wave like a river toward the Devouring Gold Beetle, instantly engulfing it.

The violent lightning struck its body, producing rumbling sounds. Electric arcs shot out in all directions, clearly not an illusion.

"No..."

The Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle's eyes suddenly flickered. It opened its massive mouth and spat out a sheet of five-colored crystalline light, shooting straight toward the bottom of the abyss.

With a thunderous "boom"!

The entire abyss floor exploded, but no earth or stone flew up. Only rolling baleful qi surged violently, dispersing in all directions.

A golden figure, holding a black war blade engraved with thundercloud patterns, flickered and vanished into the torrent of baleful qi.

It turned out that heaven and earth had not truly inverted. The abyss floor was still the void above, and the "thunder rising from parched earth" was merely a thunderous strike from Crab Daoist's "Slashing Thunder" war blade.

By the time the Devouring Gold Beetle realized this and looked back at Han Li, it saw him with eyes tightly shut, raising a hand to point at it, and softly uttering a single word:

"Still."

The next moment, a faintly visible cage of black chains before him suddenly flashed with light, transforming into several crystalline chains that instantly vanished into the void.

Immediately after, the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle's body trembled violently and froze in midair.

In the golden space deep within its sea of consciousness, a soul resembling a golden beetle hovered, surrounded by a cage of crystalline chains.

On the chain cage were inscribed faint black runes, emitting dazzling crystalline light interspersed with black specks. The interweaving of crystalline and black light gave an indescribable feeling.

The imprisoned beetle soul was clearly enraged, flying up and down within the cage, violently crashing its body against the bars. The golden waves around the sea of consciousness seemed to respond, pounding against the crystalline chain cage like crashing waves.

But no matter how it struggled, the cage remained as immovable as a mountain or a rock.

In the abyss, Han Li let out a soft breath, but his expression was grim, and he dared not relax in the slightest.

Although he had managed to trap the Devouring Gold Beetle with the Divine Thought Cage under the cover of his Word of Law ability and Crab Daoist, the latter was, after all, a Taiyi-stage late-phase Devouring Gold Beetle. Its soul's power far exceeded his expectations.

Given his current strength of divine sense, he probably couldn't hold on much longer.

"Jin Tong, quickly..." Han Li roared.

Jin Tong, already understanding, endured her injuries. Golden light flashed around her, and she transformed into a golden beetle the size of a water vat. Drawing a golden arc through the air, she rushed straight to the wound on the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle's chest and abdomen, and with a "swoosh," burrowed directly inside.

Once inside the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle's body, she opened her mouth wide and began tearing at the flesh and blood within.

"Rip... rip..."

Sounds of muscle tearing, accompanied by chewing noises, were hair-raising.

Jin Tong was now covered in blood, a terrifying sight. With every mouthful of flesh she swallowed, a trace of power grew within her. Even the wound on her shoulder, pierced by the five-colored crystalline spear, healed a bit.

Although the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle's soul was locked, waves of immense pain still swept through, causing its body to tremble violently.

At that moment, the soul in its sea of consciousness was enraged to the extreme, as if disregarding any soul damage, it crashed against the Divine Thought Cage with even greater ferocity.

Han Li felt his own sea of consciousness tremble violently. His face turned pale, and he spat out a mouthful of blood.

But then, he quickly formed hand seals before him, frantically activating the Spirit Refining Art within his body.

Using the Divine Thought Cage was already extremely taxing on divine sense power. With the opponent's struggle, Han Li's consumption of divine sense power to stabilize the cage surged like a river in flood.

Before long, sweat poured from his temples, his clothes were soaked, his brows were tightly knit, and his teeth ground audibly. He had even put away the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword and the emerald gourd, focusing all his energy on maintaining the cage.

As time passed, the flesh and blood within the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle was rapidly consumed by Jin Tong, and her aura grew bit by bit. But the gap between her and the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle remained vast.

About a quarter of an hour passed.

Han Li, suspended in midair, looked as if he had just been pulled out of a pond. His entire body was drenched in sweat, his face deathly pale, and the usual brilliance in his eyes had dimmed considerably.

Finally, at the end of his resources, his divine sense power was exhausted.

In the sea of consciousness of the Taiyi-stage Devouring Gold Beetle, the Divine Thought Cage, constantly battered by golden tides, now seemed rusted, its light dimmed to the extreme.

The golden beetle trapped in the cage launched its final assault against the Divine Thought Cage, and the golden tides in the sea of consciousness surged up, crashing down in thousand-layered waves.

With a loud "crash"!

The Divine Thought Cage finally shattered under the strain, dissolving into specks of starlight and disappearing.

The Devouring Gold Beetle's divine sense returned, and it regained its freedom. It let out a piercing howl, causing the entire abyss floor to tremble violently.

Previously, its soul had been trapped in the cage, blocking most of its senses, and thus also blocking the intense pain from Jin Tong devouring its flesh.

Now that its senses had returned, the bone-gnawing pain surged like a tidal wave, causing it extreme agony, almost unbearable.

"Your time is up!"

The Devouring Gold Beetle's eyes flickered. Golden light trembled chaotically over its body, and its bones emitted a series of cracking sounds. Its internal muscles and bones contracted simultaneously, squeezing toward Jin Tong.

At the same time, streams of immortal spiritual power scattered within its body converged and surged back, all rushing toward Jin Tong.