Chapter 695

Compared to when Shi Chuankong had been collecting treasures earlier, the three immortal artifacts no longer had the seamless feeling of being shrouded by an invisible fluctuation; all that remained between them was a faint, extremely weak peculiar aura.

Han Li's gaze sharpened, and he reached out with one hand to grab the golden compass closest to him.

This time, no strange phenomena occurred, and Han Li effortlessly took the True Word Sect's supreme treasure into his hand.

A flash of golden light passed, and the golden compass disappeared, stored by Han Li into his storage bracelet.

As soon as this object vanished, the stagnant time in the hall began to flow again.

The previously slowly expanding spatial rifts almost simultaneously surged, each expanding several times over.

Two soft "puff" sounds rang out; a large spray of blood burst from Feng Lin's neck, scattering like a rain of blood everywhere, while Gui Tian's body also emitted a "hissing" sound, with streams of gray smoke spurting out.

The two involved had no time to understand what had happened before their figures were swallowed by the expanding spatial rifts.

The others were all greatly alarmed and moved their bodies to dodge.

The Reheating Immortal Venerable moved far away from the nearby spatial rift, his heart palpitating as he recalled the brief memory; if not for Han Li's help, his condition would likely be no better than those two.

Han Li immediately felt his whole body relax, and when he looked at the True Word Wheel, the three Time Crystal Threads had already burned out.

He flashed forward again, raising his palm to grab the Maitreya Sutra Pillar.

"Boom!"

But just as his hand was about to touch the pillar, a violent spatial fluctuation came.

A black rift far more terrifying than the previous spatial rifts stretched out horizontally after the Maitreya Sutra Pillar and the Luozha Pipa, directly swallowing half the hall.

The Maitreya Sutra Pillar and the Luozha Pipa also fell into it one after another, plunging into the deep darkness.

Han Li looked at the spatial rift, as huge as an abyssal cliff, and sighed inwardly. Though reluctant, he was unwilling to risk his life. He withdrew the True Word Wheel into his body and, under frantic reversal, prepared to flee.

But out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that Shi Chuankong had somehow donned a strange silver-black armor, his body's light blurring as he vanished from the spot.

Han Li sensed something and turned to look into the abyssal rift, where a blurry figure appeared beside the Luozha Pipa—it was none other than Shi Chuankong.

With a wave of his hand, he grabbed the silver pipa, and his figure blurred again.

"Madman..."

Han Li cursed under his breath, then ignored him, turning to fly out of the hall.

Ahead of him, the Reheating Immortal Venerable and Su Liu and others had already fled toward the exit, only a white-boned skeleton in a gray robe moving against the current, passing Han Li and heading straight for Shi Chuankong.

The skeleton, called "Mr. Bone" by the other Gray Immortals, had his bone staff glow brightly with gray light, suddenly expanding into a dozen-zhang-long white bone scythe, which carved a huge scythe shadow through the void, cutting toward Shi Chuankong.

Shi Chuankong had barely escaped the abyssal rift, his face pale, and the silver-black armor on his body seemed drained of spiritual energy, its light dim. He couldn't even dodge, let alone block this attack.

A look of determination appeared on his face; a piece of white bone protruded from his palm, and a large amount of silvery red blood flowed out. He smeared it on the Luozha Pipa, then plucked the strings heavily.

"Twang..."

An indescribably sharp sound rang out.

Han Li was about to leap out of the hall when he suddenly felt as if struck by an invisible sound wave; a strange force pulled him, and he remained in place.

Then, he felt an extremely intense spatial fluctuation behind him.

When he turned to look, he couldn't see Shi Chuankong or Mr. Bone at all; he could only see the already chaotic void becoming even more fragmented, with huge, pitch-black or gray-mist-shrouded vortices emerging everywhere, completely tearing the hall apart.

Han Li's heart was bitter; he wanted to burn Time Crystal Threads but it was too late. One of the vortices, a hundred zhang in size, expanded rapidly, like a giant mouth swallowing the sky, and engulfed him.

He felt as if he had fallen into a rapidly spinning vortex, the world spinning and darkening, his whole body seeming to fall apart, and even his consciousness gradually scattered.

After an unknown amount of time, Han Li felt a sharp pain in his mind and woke from a daze.

He propped himself up with his hands, barely sitting up, but his palms felt dry and rough, covered in fine dust.

Enduring the soreness all over, Han Li raised his hand to look at his palm, but his vision was blurry and couldn't focus.

He shook his head heavily and silently circulated the Soul Refining Art; after a while, his consciousness gradually cleared.

When his vision returned to normal, he saw his hand covered in a layer of gray-white dust. He rubbed his fingers together, and the dust slightly clumped.

He frowned, brushed the dust off his palm, and looked around. As far as his eyes could see, the ground was covered in gray-white dust, stretching endlessly.

Where is this place?

The scene of being sucked into the spatial vortex surged into his mind, and Han Li couldn't help but feel stunned.

The sky, meeting the horizon, looked gloomy, as if covered by a thick layer of lead-gray clouds pressing down extremely low, creating an illusion that the space between heaven and earth was only a hundred zhang.

Deep within the clouds, three dim yellow lights could be faintly seen hanging high, as if there were three suns.

The extremely low sky, the gray-white tones around, and an indescribable smell in the air all made him feel very uncomfortable, and a sense of oppression arose in his heart.

After sitting quietly for a moment, Han Li checked his condition and found no injuries, but then his expression suddenly turned grim.

He discovered that the feeling of harmony with heaven and earth that he had maintained within his body had disappeared; he could no longer absorb spiritual energy from the world.

Could his spiritual apertures be sealed? Han Li was startled and quickly closed his eyes to examine carefully.

After a moment, he slowly opened his eyes, feeling slightly relieved, but his gaze turned serious. His spiritual apertures were fine; the problem was the environment he was in.

In the world around him, there was no spiritual energy at all; instead, traces of baleful qi were mixed in the air. When he first woke, he thought it was the baleful qi in his own body acting up, but now he understood it was this world causing it.

Han Li withdrew his gaze, took out a yellow pill and swallowed it, then slowly stood up.

"Regardless, I need to figure out where this is..." he mused, his eyes brightening as his divine sense suddenly expanded, probing in all directions.

"Eh..." After a moment, he let out a soft exclamation and looked in one direction.

Due to the low sky, he could only see a gray-white scene. After thinking for a moment, his body lit up with escape light, and he soared into the air, flying toward that direction.

After flying about a dozen li, Han Li hovered in the high sky, and at the edge of his sight, a blurry figure appeared, seemingly trapped in a strange gray-brown area.

He frowned and flew closer. As he approached, the figure became clearer—it was a handsome man in a purple robe with curly snow-white hair, none other than Shi Chuankong.

At the moment, he seemed to be unconscious, his aura extremely weak, with no fluctuation of divine sense. His body was stuck in a swamp bubbling with dark brown bubbles.

Han Li swept his gaze and realized that the baleful qi in the swamp was several times denser than in the air. While pulling Shi Chuankong's body deeper, it was also frantically invading his body.

If not for a purple jade spirit pendant hanging at his waist, which, even without being activated, protected its owner with its own spirituality, his physical body would have been destroyed by the baleful qi.

However, the purple jade spirit pendant was a dead object; without mana to sustain it, it couldn't last long. The spiritual light on its surface was already very faint, and it would be exhausted in less than half an hour, after which it could no longer protect Shi Chuankong.

Before that, his body would sink completely into the swamp, disappearing from this world.

Han Li's impression of Shi Chuankong was average, and he even wanted to keep his distance. On one hand, he didn't want the other to discover his true identity; on the other, he felt this person's identity was secretive and not worth befriending deeply.

But as for any hostile feelings toward him, that was out of the question.

So after hesitating for a moment, Han Li still rolled his sleeve, sending out a burst of green light to wrap around Shi Chuankong's body, trying to pull him out of the swamp.

However, as he pulled, he immediately felt a powerful force tugging Shi Chuankong's body like a tug-of-war, dragging him downward.

Startled, Han Li's eyes flashed with purple light as he concentrated his gaze on the area beneath Shi Chuankong.

When he had probed with his divine sense earlier, he only detected faint spiritual power fluctuations and relatively dense baleful qi, but no hidden demon beast.

Under the gaze of the Netherworld Demon Eye, Han Li's eyes flickered, and he shot like lightning straight into the high sky.

Just as he flew into the air, the ground beneath him trembled violently. The gray-brown swamp undulated fiercely, with huge bubbles constantly emerging and rising upward.

Then, Han Li saw the ground split apart into nearly a hundred areas, each dozens of zhang in size, like black lotus petals, layering and closing inward toward the center.

If Han Li hadn't detected the anomaly in advance and fled, he would have been swallowed by now.

However, although he avoided it, Shi Chuankong was trapped, about to be completely submerged by the swamp.

"What the hell is this..." Han Li cursed under his breath, and a sword light appeared in his hand.

He swung his arm, and a sharp green sword qi, entwined with threads of golden lightning, slashed vertically toward the strange swamp below.

"Crackle..."

After a burst of golden light, a "gurgling" sound came from the dark brown swamp, followed by a "boom" as it exploded.

Han Li reversed the true wheel in his body, flashing repeatedly through the exploding swamp fragments. He reached Shi Chuankong's side, grabbed his chest, and retreated rapidly.

After flying over a hundred zhang, Han Li felt a burning pain on his arm. He looked and saw that on Shi Chuankong's back were still attached over a dozen black tentacles as thick as a little finger, splitting into hundreds of black crystal threads as fine as hair, many of which had crawled onto his own arm.

Along with the burning pain, Han Li also felt a baleful qi with strong invasive power frantically surging into his body through those tiny wounds.

He frowned, and with a thought, a silver light appeared on his shoulder, from which a small silver flame figure emerged, sliding down his arm and landing on those black crystal threads.

As soon as it touched the black crystal threads, it opened its mouth and spat out a blazing silver flame from deep in its throat, rolling out and spreading along the threads to the black tentacles on Shi Chuankong's body, burning fiercely.

As a pungent smell spread, the black tentacles immediately detached from Shi Chuankong's body and fell into the swamp below.

"Burn it all," Han Li ordered.

The small silver flame figure immediately leaped into the air, spreading its arms and transforming into a huge silver flame firebird, diving downward and crashing into the ground.

The silver flame immediately spread, engulfing an area of several hundred zhang.

Hovering in the sky, Han Li saw the ground below tremble violently, gradually collapsing until it formed a huge pit several hundred zhang in size.

The silver flame firebird returned, transforming back into the small silver flame figure, landing on Han Li's shoulder. Its small face was slightly wrinkled, without the joy of a triumphant return.

"You don't like this environment?" Han Li turned to look at it and asked tentatively.

The small silver flame figure nodded vigorously.

"I don't like it either. Return to my body first; we'll leave this place." Han Li smiled and said.

The small silver flame figure immediately flashed with light and disappeared from Han Li's shoulder.

Han Li put away the Green Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords and looked down at Shi Chuankong, whom he was holding, only to find the back of his neck pitch black, clearly invaded by baleful qi.

Frowning deeply, he chose a direction and flew away, leaving the area.

With the Netherworld Demon Eye fully activated, Han Li found a relatively safe gray-white rocky beach and descended.

After landing, he turned Shi Chuankong's body over. Upon inspection, he found that the baleful qi had accumulated considerably, and combined with the injuries he seemed to have sustained in the True Word Sect ruins, he couldn't wake up on his own.

If this continued, even without absorbing more baleful qi, his life might not be in danger, but his physical body would surely be damaged, and his path of cultivation would be over.

"Well... I'll save you to the end. Whether you wake up and recover depends on your own fate." Han Li's gaze focused as he murmured.

Saying this, he turned his wrist, and a pill the size of a dragon's eye, black as ink, appeared in his palm, emitting a faint spicy odor—it was the "Baleful Qi Suppressing Pill" he had refined earlier.

This pill was not easy to refine and had a strong effect in removing baleful qi, but for Han Li, it was only a temporary solution. He had used it to control baleful qi backlash, consuming a lot, and now only two remained, including this one.

After a moment's thought, Han Li picked up the pill and put it into Shi Chuankong's mouth, pressing on his throat to guide the pill into his stomach.

"Uh..." Shi Chuankong's brows knitted into a knot, his face full of pain, and a difficult sound came from his throat.

From the wound on his back came a "hissing" sound, and wisps of black baleful qi rose from it.

Han Li watched for a while, then walked aside and sat down cross-legged.

He first checked the injury on his arm, and seeing it was not serious, he took out a Celestial Primordial Stone and held it in his palm, absorbing the immortal spiritual power within.

In this area, unable to recover immortal spiritual power by absorbing natural spiritual energy, he had to replenish it this way.

...

Time passed bit by bit; the sky quickly grew dim, and gray-white mist began to spread around, with the baleful qi within it becoming denser.

Han Li slowly opened his eyes, scanned the surroundings, and took out several array plates and flags to set up around them.

After embedding spirit stones, a pale golden hemispherical light curtain appeared out of thin air, covering both of them.

Han Li glanced at Shi Chuankong, who was still unconscious, showing no signs of waking, though his tightly furrowed brows had relaxed slightly, as if he was not in as much pain as before.

However, from the wound on his back, black smoke still rose, continuously dispersing around.

Han Li withdrew his gaze and, with a sense of something, looked up into the sky. The thick clouds seemed even heavier under the night, like a dome pressing down, the oppressive feeling even stronger than during the day.

Deep within the clouds, a string of hazy lights shone, cold and deep, with little brilliance—there were actually six full moons.