Chapter 854: An Alarming Surprise
As the flood dragon’s roar faded away, its image spiralled once in the air before disappearing into Han Li’s back. Crimson light glowed behind him and suddenly the image of a three-inch-long crimson flood dragon began to roam across his body with vivid life.
Then Han Li’s body began to pulse with crimson light and thumb-sized sparkling crimson scales appeared all over. Following a sharp pain from the top of his head, a small scarlet horn appeared, and his hands turned incredibly hardy and his fingers became pointed and incisively sharp.
At first glance, Han Li’s new form appeared similar to the Elder Devil trapped in the sword formation. However, Han Li’s face remained human and the scales were only present on his body. As for the Elder Devil’s head, both of their heads appeared malevolent and his scales were purple. Han Li’s use of the Spirit Subjugation Talisman had also boosted his true essence with the power of the flood dragon’s soul and raised his cultivation to the border of early and mid Nascent Soul stage.
With his body glowing in both azure and red light, he grabbed the Blood Devil Sword with both his hands and poured the entirety of his magic power into it. The sword began to intensely tremble and violently pulse with crimson light before expanding to three meters in length, filling the air with the putrid smell of blood. As for Han Li’s red horn, it glowed a brilliant crimson as a result of using the power of the flood dragon’s soul to its greatest extent.
With the minor Elder Devil trapped inside the sword formation, Han Li had resolved himself to prevent the main Elder Devil from rescuing his counterpart and fusing into one to bring forth an even greater adversary.
But with the main devil’s speed, he would arrive before the sword formation closed in on the minor devil and finished him off. His only choice would be to personally slay the minor devil. Once this was done, he would flee, as there was no way he could withstand the might of the main Elder Devil.
Although there would be dire consequences for using the Blood Devil Sword, including great damage to his true essence, he already decided that he wouldn’t be involved in this battle much longer. With the minor devil slain, he would immediately flee and have the other cultivators deal with the stronger devil. Otherwise, he could experience permanent damage to his cultivation.
Given that he had slain one of the devils by himself, the other cultivators surely wouldn’t have any complaints.
But at that moment, the Blood Devil Sword seemed to be insatiable. In the blink of an eye, it had already consumed a majority of what Han Li’s cultivation could offer. The sword’s crimson light continuously pulsed and now extended to over twenty meters in length and condensed an even more powerful aura, much to Han Li’s shock.
When the minor Elder Devil saw this, he rigidly stared at the light extending from the sword and a trace of fear appeared on his face. He wasn’t able to keep his calm and his ghost head harshly shouted, “Are you seeking your own death? For a human cultivator to use a sacred tool of our Holy Realm without regard? Are you thinking of turning into a devil?”
Han Li coldly smiled. He simply continued to pour spiritual power into the sword and ignored him.
The devil grew furious. Knowing that Han Li intended on taking his life, his expression turned gloomy and his body began to glow with crimson light. With one of his hands acting as a blade, he severed one of his arms. The wound was as sleek as a mirror and didn’t leak even a drop of blood.
In the moment the arm was severed, he grabbed it with another arm and he spat several mouthfuls of blood essence onto it as he muttered an ancient incantation. The severed arm immediately shined with crimson radiance and undergone a series of warping distortions before forming a sword that resembled the Blood Devil Sword.
The sword was made of sleek bone and was covered in pitch-black devilish Qi. With a single wave, threads of devilish Qi surged around it. The Elder Devil then brought the sword in front of him and began to pour the entirety of his body’s devilish Qi into the sword, causing it to surge with black radiance.
When Han Li saw this, he was somewhat surprised, but at the same time, killing intent flooded his mind. Although he didn’t know the might of this grotesquely formed sword, he couldn’t afford to underestimate it in the slightest given its bizarre method of creation.
Having come to this conclusion, he ceased pouring magic power into the Blood Devil Sword. Then with his hands holding onto the trembling Blood Devil Sword, he fiercely cut down towards the Elder Devil within the sword formation.
He couldn’t afford to give the devil the opportunity to make full use of the bone sword and immediately struck. A crimson thirty-meter-long swordlight cleaved downward towards the Aureate Sword Formation.
Before the swordlight even arrived, the Elder Devil was submerged in the scent of blood. The air around the sword formation began to tremble and space even began to distort as an indescribable vibration shook their surroundings.
The Elder Devil was overwhelmed with shock. This was clearly a full display of the sword’s power. If he remembered correctly, tools from the Holy Realm were only able to be used at half strength by humans. ‘Could it be this increase in strength had something to do with his transformed state?’ Although the devil had experienced many ancient battles, he had never experienced something as inconceivable as the Spirit Subjugation Talisman.
But now that his life was at risk, the devil had no choice but to raise the partially charged bone sword to meet the strike, both his heads loudly screaming. A black radiance that was only half the size of the crimson radiance shot out from the bone sword to meeting the oncoming streak of crimson radiance.
Crimson and black light overlapped.
A boom shook through the nearby air. Waves of Qi surged from the point of contact like a storm. Senior Martial Brother Cheng was blown back a dozen steps before he was able to stabilize himself. As for Han Li, he drew support from his increased cultivation and he merely blurred half a step back before steadying himself. The Elder Devil, however, was unaffected by the wave. He simply looked at the confrontation of sword light up above him with a nervous expression.
A scene that surprised both Han Li and the Devil Soul occurred. After the wave blew across them, a fist-sized jet-black ball strangely appeared in place of the overlapping swordlights. It then quickly warped in shape.
In the blink of an eye, it lengthened to fifteen meters long and reached a meter wide, stretching over the sword formation.
Before Han Li understood what was happening, a large expanse of rainbow light appeared from the pitch-black object.
Because of rainbow light's lightning-fast appearance and its close proximity, the minor Elder Devil and Han Li were enveloped by the rainbow light. Afterwards, a huge attractive force enveloped them into the black object. Senior Martial Brother Cheng fortunately managed to avoid it, having flown back a dozen steps from the initial force.
‘Not good! It’s a spatial tear!’ Han Li realized what had happened and terror filled his mind as he attempted to break free of the rainbow light.
But when Han Li attempted to utilize his magic power, his expression blanched. All of the magic power in his body had completely disappeared.
Han Li broke out in a cold sweat. Inbound to be engulfed by the spatial tear, he beckoned to the Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords comprising of the Aureate Sword Formation in a panic. The minor Elder Devil also found himself without power and he revealed terror on his faces.
As the rainbow light pulled Han Li and the Elder Devil into the spatial tear, they weren’t able to offer the slightest resistance. Then a clear ring sounded out from the formation and over a hundred streaks of golden sword light shot off in meter-long gold-red streaks towards the spatial tear.
At that same moment, a violent and sharp explosion burst nearby. A ball of black devilish flame flickered and teleported in the vicinity of the spatial tear. Devilish flame surged and was promptly extinguished, revealing a towering figure reminiscent of a divine devil.
When the Elder Devil saw that his counterpart was being dragged into the spatial tear, he felt both fury and alarm. As he floated nearby, not daring to enter range of spatial tear, he spotted the last of the Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords that were flying towards Han Li and instantly grabbed at the air in their direction. A huge devilish hand then appeared above the flying swords and reached out to grab them.
The swords released a clear ring and they immediately swerved, avoiding the hand and shooting straight towards the spatial tear. However, two of the swords were too slow and were grabbed by the devilish hand, rendering them immobile.
At that moment, a purple ball of flame shrieked from an unknown place and instantly flew into the spatial tear as well.
The giant Elder Devil was stunned and thought to do something else when the spatial tear blurred several times and quickly shrunk in size before disappearing without a trace.
All that remained nearby was Senior Martial Brother Cheng and the giant Elder Devil.
The Elder Devil glanced in the direction that the spatial tear disappeared and his expression wavered. Then, he turned to look at Senior Martial Brother Cheng and a savage expression brimming with hostility appeared on his face.
Senior Martial Brother Cheng was alarmed and he hastily used his yellow flying sword to protect himself as he slowly withdrew, screaming curses in his heart. He unconsciously glanced around him to reveal an expression of delight.
Someone amongst a group of green-robed cultivators spoke from three hundred meters away, “Yi! Isn’t this Fellow Daoist Cheng? What are you doing here? And what is this devilish monster?”
A green-robed old man glanced at the two-headed six-armed giant Elder Devil with shock. This old man was the Controlling Spirit Sect’s Grand Elder Dongmen Tu. The three behind him were his Nascent Soul cultivators formed from Elemental Spirit Nascents.
“That’s right, I would like some answers as well!” At that same moment, gloomy words sounded out followed by a dozen black-robed cultivators, the Ghost Spirit Sect Disciples. The speaker was the Ghost Spirit Sect’s Elder Zhong.
These two group of cultivators saw that spatial tear disappear and all of them revealed an expression of shock.
Senior Martial Brother Cheng bitterly smiled and could only muster the strength to say, “It is too hard to explain. Let’s first deal with this monster first. Do be extremely careful. This devil is immensely powerful. A moment of carelessness will result in death.”
Dongmen Tu and Elder Zhong both glanced at one another with a puzzled expression. The cultivators following them then immediately surrounded the ten meter tall devil from a distance.
The Elder Devil’s two ghost heads slowly turned around to examine the human cultivators that surrounded him.
One of the faces sneered and emitted dense killing intent. As for the other face, it wore a mysterious smile containing a trace of derision.
Without saying a word, he raised his hands to the sky and summoned four huge black blades of light into his hand. With a faint tremble, the huge blades released a deafening shriek.
When Senior Martial Brother Cheng saw this familiar scene, his expression grew unsightly.