Chapter 661: The Corpse of the Big-Headed Child

"Truly troublesome..."

Han Li frowned deeply as he looked at the corpse fiend that had reappeared after the lightning dissipated.

Although this creature before him had no intelligence, its physical strength was truly not inferior to a genuine Taiyi Jade Immortal. The Thunderbolt Art he had just used could batter it all over, but it was not enough to kill it.

And his current situation did not allow him to drag things out for long.

Just as Han Li was pondering whether to use the most nurtured Green Bamboo蜂 Cloud Sword from the Profound Heaven Gourd, or summon the Essence Flame Firebird to burn it to ashes, the voice of Mo Guang suddenly rang out in his heart lake:

"Fellow Daoist Han, although this thing is a yin-sha ghostly creature, its cultivation level is not low. It has a certain resistance to lightning and fire techniques. It will take some effort for you to deal with it. How about leaving it to me?"

"Do you have a way to kill this beast?" Han Li asked.

"This object is formed when a yin soul enters a corpse and cannot dissolve, condensing from absorbing sha qi. I happen to know its fatal weakness and have a good method to deal with it. As long as Fellow Daoist Han nods, I can kill it in no time," Mo Guang replied.

Han Li pondered for a moment, then a flower pattern emerged from his right index and middle fingers with a bright glow.

Beside him, a silver light gate about ten feet high opened in the void.

At the same time, Han Li waved his left hand, and the True Word Wheel spun rapidly, shrinking sharply before flying into his sleeve and disappearing.

Without the restraint of time law power, the Taiyi corpse fiend immediately regained movement, but it still maintained its original diving posture, heading straight for Han Li's brow.

With a soft "whoosh,"

a black figure flashed out from the silver light gate and, in a blur, appeared before the Taiyi corpse fiend. Its hand, formed from condensed sha qi, reached out, covered in dark red light patterns, and pierced straight through the spot where the corpse fiend's chest and abdomen intersected.

The black figure was none other than Mo Guang, who had merged with the Gray Immortal's corpse.

At this moment, in his hand that had pierced the corpse fiend's body, he was holding a fist-sized black piece of flesh.

The piece of flesh was shaped like a heart but had seven orifices, from which an extremely dense sha qi surged. It contracted and expanded as if it were beating and breathing.

"The true fatal point of a corpse fiend is not in the dantian, not in the head, not in the heart, but in this thing called the 'Sha Fetus.' It relies on this to gather sha qi and transform into a fiend. However, because of this, this vital point can resist swords and spears but cannot withstand sha qi attacks," Mo Guang explained to Han Li as he slowly withdrew his hand.

As soon as he finished speaking, the corpse fiend's remains crumbled like quicksand into countless purple-black particles that scattered on the ground, then turned into a cloud of black dust and dissipated.

"Fellow Daoist Han, this Sha Fetus..." Mo Guang looked at Han Li with a hint of inquiry.

"Since Fellow Daoist Mo Guang personally killed the corpse fiend, this Sha Fetus naturally belongs to you," Han Li nodded and said.

"Then many thanks." After expressing his thanks, Mo Guang reached out and crushed the Sha Fetus into powder.

A purple light swirled inside, revealing a dragon-eye-sized spherical crystal. Before Han Li could see it clearly, Mo Guang casually tossed it into his mouth.

"Fellow Daoist Han, if there is nothing else, I will go back for now and continue my secluded cultivation," Mo Guang said.

"Thank you for your trouble," Han Li nodded.

Hearing this, Mo Guang turned and stepped into the silver light gate, returning to the meditation cushion in the main building, where he sat down cross-legged.

Han Li slightly bent his two fingers, and the silver light gate gradually closed before disappearing.

Watching Mo Guang's figure vanish, Han Li's gaze slowly turned serious. He took out a pill and swallowed it, then stopped to regulate his breathing for a moment before continuing deeper into the palace.

Arriving at the stairs leading to the third floor of the palace, Han Li did not rush upstairs. Instead, he released his divine sense and scanned the entrance.

The burly man carrying the door-plate broadsword had entered the second passage earlier, presumably entering this palace as well. Yet Han Li had not encountered him along the way, nor had he found any traces left by him. This was indeed strange.

Could it be that he did not enter here?

After examining for a while without finding anything unusual, Han Li slowly ascended the stairs step by step.

As soon as he entered from the third-floor entrance, Han Li saw an old screen placed not far ahead, with landscape paintings on it that had faded severely, leaving only rough outlines.

The tattered canvas was covered with crisscrossing tears, and even the frame had deep and shallow sword marks and cracks. It was a miracle that it still stood upright.

After taking a step forward, Han Li's eyebrow twitched imperceptibly.

He paused briefly, then resumed his normal expression and continued walking inside.

Approaching the screen, he looked through the tears and saw several curio shelves scattered in the hall, displaying various flower-and-bird vases and some bluish-black books. It seemed to be a study.

However, when he walked around the screen, he found that there were nearly a hundred such curio shelves, most of which had been completely smashed. What he had seen through the screen were only the few remaining ones.

Han Li walked slowly through the collapsed shelves, picked up one relatively intact cyan ancient book, and looked closely. He saw the three characters "Jin Shi Lu" written in ancient seal script on the cover.

When he opened it, he found that it was merely a book on the study of metal and stone collections, not a cultivation manual or the like.

He then picked up several more books and found that they were all ordinary miscellaneous books of various categories.

"It seems this place was someone's living quarters, perhaps an interesting person with broad interests," Han Li murmured to himself as he continued inward.

Passing through layers of palace gates, Han Li arrived at the deepest part of the third-floor palace.

As soon as he crossed the gate, Han Li felt as if he had entered a barrier, immediately sensing a strong time law power coming toward him.

He focused his gaze and looked inside. In the center of the hall, the water shimmered. There was a blue pool about twenty to thirty zhang in diameter, with sparkling waves, appearing extremely clear and transparent.

Han Li's heart tightened, and the words "Time Water" instinctively came to mind.

The time law power was so dense?

Could the blue liquid in the small pool be Time Water?

With a thought, Han Li carefully probed the blue pool with his divine sense. After a moment, his brow furrowed. He found that besides the time law fluctuations, there was also an extremely strong aura of life force in the pool.

He walked a few steps closer and looked into the pool. Only then did he see that where his line of sight had been blocked, a corpse was floating inside.

"It's him?" Han Li exclaimed in surprise after seeing the corpse's appearance.

The corpse was no more than five feet long, its body looked as dry as firewood, but its head was extraordinarily large, giving a very unbalanced impression, as if it might topple headfirst into the water at any moment.

However, it showed no sign of instability. Instead, it lay calmly on the water, eyes slightly closed, with a composed expression, as if it were sleeping.

This strange being, resembling a big-headed doll, was identical to the statue Han Li had seen at the entrance of this Water衍 Palace.

But Han Li had not expected to encounter him again in such a situation.

The big-headed child's corpse was well-preserved, with no apparent damage on the surface, but there was no aura fluctuation. It looked as if it had just died not long ago, a world of difference from the rotting corpses and white bones Han Li had seen earlier.

Han Li's gaze flickered slightly, slowly moving from the child's face to the water surface beside him. There, a two-foot-square blue shield floated, engraved with intricate patterns, shining with crystal light.

And three inches away from the shield, a blue crystal flute floated, with a row of smooth holes on it. One end was adorned with a tassel made of seven or eight bamboo leaves, looking quite exquisite.

These two items seemed full of spiritual energy, showing no sign of weakening over time. Both emitted strong time law auras, clearly time law immortal artifacts of no low grade.

Han Li naturally felt some covetousness for these two items, but he did not act rashly. Instead, he turned slightly, with a faint purple light in his eyes, and stealthily glanced toward a round stone pillar in the northwest corner of the hall.

The burly man named Ren Hao, carrying the broadsword on his back, had used some treasure to merge his form with the blue stone pillar, and his aura was almost completely concealed.

Han Li's fifth level of the Soul Refining Art had achieved some success, making his divine sense more sensitive than before. Thus, he had sensed Ren Hao's aura fluctuations as soon as he stepped onto the third floor, though he could not pinpoint the exact location.

At the same time, he knew that the other party had also detected his presence. To avoid alarming him, Han Li had pretended to be completely unaware, searching the entire third-floor palace in a carefree manner.

Just then, Han Li's brow suddenly lifted. His figure blurred and disappeared from the spot.

An instant later, his figure landed on a beam in the upper part of the hall. His aura suddenly retracted, and even his divine sense fluctuations were completely concealed, as if he had vanished from the world.

Not long after he hid himself, a bright red figure appeared at the stairway entrance of the third-floor hall. It was Feng Qingyuan.

His face was slightly pale, and he looked somewhat nervous as he walked slowly in this direction.

As he passed through the collapsed curio shelves, he also examined the scattered books like Han Li. Finding that they were not immortal cultivation manuals, he casually tossed them aside.

Afterward, the tension on his face eased slightly, but his pace became even slower.