Chapter 1294: Taking Back Treasure
The Six-winged Frost Centipede was slightly smaller than the scorpion king, but it was colossal compared to ordinary demon beasts.
When it stretched its ugly head out from the black cloud, it opened its mouth and launched a dense beam of ice.
As the icy light brushed past the air, the sound of tearing space sounded. When the attack struck the huge scorpion, it left a hole three-meters-wide.
The huge scorpion was the result of countless winged scorpions condensed together. Even as powerful as the strike may be, it didn’t truly hurt it. The huge scorpion simply let out a piercing shriek and raised its tail to strike at the frost centipede.
A green light shot out and the scorpion tail seemed to stretch a hundred meters forward as if it were an illusion. It arrived above the centipede’s head and swung down.
Meanwhile, the huge hole in the scorpion abdomen stirred and it quickly mended.
The Six-winged Frost Centipede didn’t appear to mind the attack from the huge tail. The centipede’s wings grew transparent for a moment before the entire centipede disappeared.
The scorpion tale shrieked but it only landed past the air.
In a short moment, the air above the huge scorpion warped to reveal giant winged centipede.
Its wings shook once more and its entire body blurred, charging into the huge scorpion and sinking its fangs deep inside.
A ball of icy light blossomed from the huge scorpion, quickly expanding until it covered most of the scorpion’s body, turning it crystalline.
But then, the light stopped and the huge scorpion’s body crumbled. Countless scorpions rained down from the sky.
The remnants of the giant scorpion no longer condensed back together. Rather, they scattered in every direction.
In the blink of an eye, the rainbow poison cloud completely dissipated.
When the Six-winged Frost Centipede saw this, it didn’t bother to pursue them. It simply opened its mouth and spat out an icy wind. It swept up all the frozen scorpions nearby and brought them to its mouth.
Han Li watched this from a distance, feeling calmer.
He finally realized why the Six-winged Frost Centipede had evolved so quickly. During the time he was away, they devoured countless winged insects. As for those winged scorpions, they seemed to have a history with the centipedes and weren’t ordinary demon insects by any means. They must’ve served as a catalyst after being consumed.
That must’ve been why he hadn’t seen any other insects after he entered the desert. It appeared that they had cleanly devoured by either the scorpions or the centipedes.
Just as Han Li’s thoughts continued, the huge centipede finally finished cleaning off the scorpions and looked down in Han Li’s direction with a cold glint shining from its eye.
When Han Li met its gaze, his heart thumped and he faintly felt the thing he worried the most was about to happen.
Suddenly, the Six-winged Frost Centipede let out a hiss and flapped its wings, arriving in front of Han Li above the blink of an eye.
It coldly looked down at Han Li with a hostile gaze.
Its fangs were clearly gnawing against each other.
Han Li wore an odd expression and stared at the insect without blinking. However, he shook his sleeve behind his back and summoned two Immortal Vanquishing Beads into his palm.
The white centipede simply let out a hiss and turned around, suddenly flying off in the distance and disappearing.
The insect treated Han Li as a mere passerby and went off of its own accord.
Han Li sighed in relief and his stiff face finally loosened. He soon let out a bitter laugh.
The insect’s shocking growth and evolution from four wings to six greatly went against Han Li’s expectations.
Although ancient exotic insects weren’t able to take human form like demon beasts, they were able to develop a level of intelligence.
With such harsh magic power, it naturally thought to sever its spiritual sense connection.
If he still had magic power, he could easily suppress the insect with the restrictions he originally placed on it. But now that he lacked the slightest magic power, all his secret techniques were unusable.
Under these circumstances, it wouldn’t be rare for the centipede to turn on him.
As such, Han Li prepared for the worse and fetched his Immortal Vanquishing Beads with cold sweat lining his palms.
To tell the truth, it was fortunate that Han Li had meticulously nurtured the dozen centipedes since they were larva.
The mental connection between the two had become remarkably stable over the past hundreds of years and now that the dozen centipedes fused together, the connection was a dozen times stronger as well. They were unable to easily shake it off.
Just then, the centipedes struggled to break free for a time before eventually deciding to abandon any hostile intent towards Han Li and go on its own way.
Of course, Han Li made no attempt to stop them.
In his current state, he could only watch them while feeling at a loss of whether he should laugh or cry.
Back in the mortal realm, he spared no effort and even used the small mysterious bottle to nurture the insects. Now that they have matured, he could no longer control them.
He felt somewhat depressed over his loss.
However, Han Li took a breath and soon calmed himself.
Although the insect broke free from his control for the time being, when he recovered his magic power, he could make it yield to him once again.
The only problem was in a place as vast as the spirit realm, he might never see it again, or with so many cultivators present, it could’ve been captured by someone else of considerable power.
Han Li stood in place lost in his thoughts before eventually shaking his head. Eventually, he turned his mind to the Gold Devouring Beetles and the Weeping Soul Beast.
His face sank as he quickened his steps to a place a few hundred meters away.
He took a look down and wordlessly made a fist. With light shining from it, he struck the ground.
A large boom shook the air, scattering the sand as if a top-grade magic treasure struck it.
A large cloud of dust rose into the air, leaving a large crater beneath it. It was over ten meters deep and over thirty-meters wide.
At the heart of the crater were a storage pouch and three spirit beast pouches.
When Han Li saw the storage pouch was intact, he felt relief. Then he walked over to the three spirit beast pouches.
He grabbed them and wore a pensive expression.
Although he wasn’t able to examine them with his spiritual sense, they appeared sealed as he left them. After he weighed it in his hand, he knew nothing was missing from them, apart from the empty pouch that contained the Six-winged Frost Centipedes.
The other two pouches were slightly open. Without looking at them, Han Li could sense the presence of the Gold Devouring Beetles and the Weeping Soul Beast. He could even sense that the Weeping Soul Beast was still soundly asleep.
Han Li’s faintly smiled. The last of his worries were gone.
He promptly put away his pouches deep in his robes.
As they all appeared exquisite, they would contrast with Han Li’s unremarkable appearance.
However, the shed shell the Six-winged Frost Centipede left behind would be somewhat troublesome.
He frowned and simply punched down to make an even larger hole. Then he tossed the shell into the hole and buried it.
Han Li circled around the area several more times and found no other signs, much to his satisfaction.
Then, he looked in the direction that the black cloud disappeared and wore a gloomy expression. Eventually, he gathered himself and walked off.
Now that he completed his first objective, he needed to journey far away to an area filled with demon beasts.
His goal was the border between a demon land and the Heavenly Origin Region.
The border area was a harsh place belonging slightly to both the demon beasts and the Heavenly Origin Region. It was extremely wide and lawless, acting as a buffer between the regions.
Furthermore, demon beasts, savage ancient beasts, and even half-demons on occasion freely roamed the area. The closer one was to the central, the more dangerous it would be.
It was said that mysterious spirit clans made of Deity Transformation individuals or giants that were over a hundred meters tall were seen there. Some even heard the cries of true dragons there as well.
With so many strange rumors, the area was shrouded in a layer of mystery. However, most people didn’t take these rumors to heart.
But, it was true that Deity Transformation-level cultivators and demon cultivators did appear here. This inspired fears in the higher echelons of the demon and human clans. If a fight broke out at that level, it could inspire a war between humans and demons. As a result, such fights were prohibited.
These fights could disturb the origin Qi of heaven and earth, causing rivers to flow backward and mountains to collapse.
Even existences on the level of the three human sovereigns and the seven demon kings opposed such a thing from happening.
If something that dangerous were to happen, the area would truly be too dangerous to tread.
As it so happened, the area was never officially developed or claimed by humans or demons. But the border region contained extremely precious spirit veins and medicines. There were even once of a kind spiritual objects that sovereigns and kings would pay a hefty price for.
As a result, large quantities of cultivators and body refiners would gather there.
They wished to test their luck and acquire a few spirit medicines. Some wished to use the slaughter in the area as a means to break through their cultivation bottlenecks. To tell the truth, this served a similar purpose to beast torrents.
However, low-grade cultivators and body refiners didn’t dare to tread here as it would only mean death. Most of the life in these areas were vastly demons after all.
Under such circumstances, Han Li eventually made his way there after several years of hard travel.