As space began to warp around the giant black vortex, the Star Defying Plate finally began to display its might.
With starlight pulsing from its center, countless fist-sized balls of light rushed out, painting golden streaks wherever they passed. The mesmerizing scene was like that of shooting stars spreading throughout the night sky.
The two-headed wolf ignored the attack and pressed the black vortex into a greater frenzy, causing it to consume many more specks of white light from its surroundings and increase its degree of compression.
But in the next moment, the black wolf was amazed by what it witnessed.
Golden star light brushed past the top of the vortex, rather than striking.
‘Was I mistaken? Absurd, how can this happen with the guidance of spiritual sense?’ The wolf felt puzzled but it suddenly sensed something abnormal and one of its heads turned around, frightened by what it saw.
The wolf’s other head quickly uttered a series of incantations and released another wave of rainbow light from the vortex, attempting to isolate the golden starlight from joining together.
But then Ling Long shouted, “It’s too late! I’ve already released him!”
As soon as she said this, a large mass of starlight converged around a hundred meters behind the vortex, followed by the drop of a silhouette. Floating amidst the starlight, he looked around him, bewildered.
Once Han Li saw him, he was completely flabbergasted. “Him!? How did he get here?”
He was Xiang Zhili[1], an old man with a sly appearance who was sealed by the combined soul of Ling Long and Yuan Cha through the use of Phantasmic Air when he entered Kunwu Mountain. Back then, the merged soul was able to use various secret techniques of both the spirit and Elder Devil realm, resulting in a fearsome power comparable to Void Refinement-stage cultivation.
[1] Reoccuring character: first introduced in Yellow Maple Valley in the Trial by Blood and Fire and then later brought back at the Heavenly Talisman Sect (Chapter 960).
This was enough to temporarily seal Xiang Zhili in a space separated from spiritual Qi.
As for Phantasmic Air, it was an ancient technique that was long lost in the mortal realm. It was vastly demanding but could temporarily seal someone inside a spatial tear. The tear shouldn't exist for long and couldn't be entered from the outside. This technique also went by several other names such as the Immortal Seal Curtain or the Nightmare Prison.
Of course, the efficacy of the technique would depend on the cultivation of both the technique’s target and its caster. An attempt of a low-grade cultivator to use it to trap a high-grade cultivator would likely just backfire.
Additionally, one would be able to use incisive magic treasures to forcefully break open the tear, or they could also wait until the technique expired.
Apart from a few peculiar circumstances, the magic technique wasn’t very useful. After all, even if high-grade cultivators used it to seal lower-grade cultivators, the targets of the seal could still easily break out of it. It was also needless to say how little of an effect it would have vice-versa. As a result, it was most often used against cultivators of a similar grade, when the timing was right and they found themselves hard-pressed to use any other techniques. Of course, these techniques were only usable once one was at mid-Deity Transformation, likely the reason why the technique had gone extinct in this world.
Dissolving the technique itself also required an immense amount of magic power and a powerful spiritual sense. By relying on the power of the Star Defying Plate, Ling Long was able to forcefully dissolve it.
Although Xiang Zhili didn’t comprehend the technique, he had heard a few legends related to it, and remained in peaceful meditation ever since he was sealed inside. The slightest movement would likely trap him in a dangerous illusion. Now that he was freed, he was at a complete loss, having just awakened.
He rapidly looked around him with confused and narrow eyes.
Then, a resentful expression momentarily appeared from the faces of the two-headed wolf and it promptly released two beams of black at the Black Wind Flag in front of it. The banner trembled and released countless black threads, wrapping around the vortex from every direction.
The vortex had already condensed to three meters in size. The black threads caused the vortex to stop before quickly shrinking into a foot-wide sphere.
The sphere was a void with edges pulsing in size. With the violent distortion of the space around it, it was almost as if the void was consuming it.
Only a spatial-type Divine Spirit Treasure such as the Black Wind Flag could possibly create something so fearsome and inconceivable.
When Xiang Zhili saw the ball, his expression warped and he shouted, “Not good!”
He quickly spat out a crimson triangular token. It flashed, wrapping itself in a golden inferno and blinding light before taking the form of a beast.
The construct had an armored body, two horns, and golden flames wrapping around it, like a cross between an ox and a tiger. The moment it appeared, the beast leapt up in a streak of gold and shot into the black hole.
Meanwhile, Xiang Zhili’s body lit up with purple radiance, creating a barrier around him and staring at the black hole replica with a tense face.
Before the fire beast drew close to it, Yuan Cha wickedly howled with laughter from within the black void. The sphere suddenly sank through the air and warped several times before it shifted directly above the altar. It pulsed hard as if it were about to rupture.
Han Li saw countless thin and long black cracks appear throughout the air. The cracks shrieked and stretched outward like lightning.
From a distance, it resembled a huge fragmented mirror.
Han Li’s complexion paled. Would have to go through another spatial tear?
Previously, the spatial collapse of the Devil Suppressing Pagoda’s eighth floor activated the floor’s restrictions, so there wasn’t any true danger, but this time was different. The unstable tears appeared without any pattern with threads of black light flickered from them.
Even if he managed to somehow get lucky and be absorbed by a large enough spatial tear, he would only survive if he was somehow lucky enough to be taken to a small spatial pocket.
Han Li caught sight of Daoist Sevenwonders, who had been firmly held in place near the altar by the three-headed devil. Being the closest to the epicenter of this calamity, he had eight foot-wide spatial tears brush past him, completely erasing his existence. As for his Nascent Soul that escaped from his ruined body, it was sucked into one of the larger spatial tears and completely disappeared from this world.
After witnessing that, Han Li inwardly cursed as several tears made their way towards him and surrounded him. He could also heard Gui Ling’s miserable scream from a distance.
Han Li had no time or the mind to look elsewhere. He could only grit his teeth and try to escape alive. He took the initiative to meet an incoming spatial tear that was only several inches thick, using the Heavenvoid Cauldron to welcome it.
With no other choice, Han Li could only hope that the cauldron would be durable enough to withstand the destruction of a spatial tear.
To his joy, the cauldron just lit up with azure light and hummed upon contact with the thin tear, forcibly blocking it.
He quickly blurred, flying around the tear. Then, he turned his head and saw several black tears whip through where he originally was, turning it into a ceaseless mass. Cold sweat lined his back.
The tears trembled and lit up in bright black light. Han Li grimaced when he saw this and his heart grew tense once again, but what happened next shocked him.
As the black light brightly bulged from the tear, it withdrew as soon as it appeared, shrinking back as if time were turning back.
In the blink of an eye, the spatial tears near Han Li had disappeared as if they were just illusions.
Relieved, Han Li suddenly recalled Gui Ling’s earlier scream and quickly searched for her.
He looked where she was originally, but he didn’t catch any sight of her.
Han Li’s heart trembled and his spiritual sense looked into the demon’s lifesoul tile, but the tile was gone.
He sighed in lament and quickly turned his attention back to the matter at hand.
Lin Yinping and Corpse Xiong hadn’t made it as far as him, but they were unharmed.
Corpse Xiong was enveloped in a blinding crimson light and his expression was calm, a complete contrast to Lin Yinping’s deathly pale complexion. Just recently, several tears had brushed past her, so she was lucky to be alive.
Perhaps the vast abilities of the Endless Sky Patron God had secretly protected her.
