After the giant skeleton was damaged from the condensed Greatnorth Essence Light, white radiance lightly circulated throughout its body and mended the holes almost as fast.
Han Li frowned. It appeared he would have to deal with Old Devil Qian first.
While the huge skeleton appeared to be moving slowly, each step travelled a huge distance forward and it quickly arrived in front of Gui Ling.
With crimson light brimming in its hollow eyes, it held its hands towards its body and summoned two of its rib bones into them, creating three-meter-long sabers.
Then with a flip of the hands, an inky devil flame lit on each of them.
When Gui Ling saw this, she coldly snorted and stepped forward to strike the devil down with her axe.
Silver light flashed and filled the air with thunderous booms. The bone sabers immediately surged several times in size as they moved to block the axe in a cross, stopping it from cleaving down on its skull.
Gui Ling wasn’t very surprised by this, rather, a vicious intent soon lit up in her eyes, “Tiger, devour!”
Light flared from her weapon once more, and a giant beast’s head suddenly emerged from it, appearing to be that of a single-horned white tiger.
The beast gaped its mouth open and quickly lunged forward, biting down on the skeleton’s skull. It clearly devoured the head and the tiger immediately withdrew.
The silver axe not only had a fearsome blade, but an artifact spirit as well.
Gui Ling pressed the attack and spun the ax like a wheel of death as she slowly ground down the skeleton with cold light.
Torn apart from the immense force, bone fragments rained freely around them.
Soon into her assault, she stilled her axe and breathed out yellow flames onto the ground, intending on dealing the finishing blow to the cinque devils.
Contrary to the situation, however, Old Devil Qian’s alarm had disappeared when he saw that the horned woman planned on using demon flame to destroy his devils, he simply muttered an incantation and activated a devilish technique.
An icy wind immediately brushed past the raging yellow flames and restrained them.
Then, five crystalline black strings emerged from the yellow demon flames and shot out from them, leaving an explosion over thirty meters wide in its wake.
Several clouds of grey Qi burst forth from the ashes, soon fading away to reveal five flawless skeletons standing in place.
Gui Ling shouted out in alarm, “Intangible Devilform! Who would’ve thought that your incarnations have cultivated such an ability? Do you not have any fear of future backlash?”
“How could I worry over such a trivial thing? As if I’d give them the opportunity,” the old devil indifferently replied. Then with merely a thought, a devilish art was quickly activated.
The skeletons leapt forward and fused into their massive form once more. Following that, it immediately summoned the two bone sabers as it fiercely charged towards Gui Ling.
This time, she didn’t command the axe’s artifact spirit to attack, instead choosing to meet the blades head on.
An axe glowing with icy light and two slender bone sabers wrapped in white mist began to fiercely clash without end, each strike creating a deafening boom around them. The trembles seemed to be affecting the hall itself as if it would soon collapse around them.
Han Li looked at the scene with narrowed eyes. Although Gui Ling managed to restore her magic power and turn into a giant, the remnant Greatnorth Essence Light nearby was unintentionally damaging her. No matter how durable her crimson armor may be, she wouldn’t be able to hold out against the skeleton much longer within the light.
As such, he intended on finishing the battle as soon as he could.
With that in mind, he looked at the crimson silhouette in the distance. Wearing a stern expression, he stealthily commanded the Yang ring above his head.
Several silver ropes condensed from the surrounding light appeared behind the crimson figure, like vipers silently stalking their prey.
When the silver ropes grew near, Old Devil Qian's body immediately blurred as soon as he sensed something.
However, the eight chains of silver rope had completely caught him off guard and penetrated his body.
He was momentarily startled, but when he looked down at the ropes piercing through his body, he wickedly smiled.
Such injuries were of little consequence to him. It would only cost him a thought to repair the damage.
Soon, however, he discovered that there was something amiss and his expression slowly shifted downwards. The silver ropes hadn’t disappeared. Rather, silver light radiated from them as their presence continued.
“Restrain!” Han Li shouted.
Like pythons, the chains tightly coiled around him and exerted great power, splitting the crimson body into eight separate pieces.
In his furious alarm, the old devil had his body disperse into blood mist and flew a distance away before condensing back together.
Despite his desperation, the ropes relentlessly pursued him as soon as he dissolved, and a similar scene occurred, causing his body to resemble that of torn paper.
This happened six more times in succession, but each time he used the blood mist to escape, it was clearly becoming more sparse.
“You’re courting death!” The devil furiously shouted from the blood mist. It was clear that his current situation was far from good.
To make matters even worse, Han Li was able to quickly condense the silver ropes around the blood mist before it reformed as it sped through the Greatnorth Essence Light, preventing any chance of escape.
But soon enough, the blood mist stopped appearing altogether and condensed into a flare of light, producing a fist-sized pearl.
The orb was as scarlet as blood, shined with a strange demonic light, and filled the air with a gory scent.
“The Blood Devil Pearl!” Han Li’s mouth twitched from the shock of seeing it.
“Do you think I’d be scared of you? Hand over your life!” Old Devil Qian’s voice sounded out from the pearl and directly shot towards Han Li in a streak of crimson light as he roiled with furious rage.
He took a deep breath and quickly acted, casting several spell seals at the Yang ring above his head.
Several silver ropes flew out, striking at it in bright flashes. Despite its speed, many of the attacks had landed, but the pearl lit up a barrier with a hum, easily repelling these attacks with flashes of green.
Betraying not a trace of emotion from his face, Han Li flipped his hand and summoned a ball of golden lightning in his palm and tightened his grasp of the Triflame Fan in the other.
The old devil had stored his Nascent Soul into this Blood Devil Pearl long ago. To kill him, one would have to destroy the pearl itself.
The treasure was immensely famous amongst the Devil Dao. It was akin to a second body when attached with a Nascent Soul.
It was said that refining the treasure not only required the blood essence of over a hundred different spirit beasts, but also required the combined cultivation of several peculiar devilish arts. Furthermore, the refinement method was long lost. It appeared to have fallen in the Yin Sifting Sect's hands some time ago and had finally been refined by this monstrous cultivator.
However, this was also an opportunity. Once the pearl approached him, he would blast it with Divine Devilbane Lightning and trap it within, then striking it with the Triflame Fan.
Regardless of the treasure’s abilities, it wasn’t something that could withstand the fan’s fury.
With a plan in mind, he prepared to meet the old devil head on, but the pearl came to a sudden stop along the way. A foot-tall crimson flame suddenly burst forth, causing the pearl to disappear without a trace.
Han Li felt his heart tremble and he quickly released his spiritual sense, fearing that the old devil would attempt to ambush him.
But a moment later, he was stunned.
The flaming Blood Devil Pearl reappeared once more, but it wasn’t by his side; it was at the edge of the area a distance away.
Then, Old Devil Qian let out a roaring laugh.
“Youngster, do you believe me to be senile? Fighting here against two high-grade opponents is beyond foolish. I’ll be sure to entertain you properly on the outside with some reinforcements!”
With that said, the Blood Devil Pearl disappeared into the waves of silver light.
By the time Han Li realized what had happened, it was too late to pursue. But in spite of his surprise, he hadn’t displayed any panic. Instead, he turned his attention on Gui Ling’s battle with the cinque devils.
His expression stirred and thunder rang out from his back as a pair of wings revealed themselves. Then in a flash, he appeared at the edge of the Greatnorth Essence Light.
Han Li coldly leered in the direction that the old devil has escaped from and raised the Triflame Fan, but a trace of hesitation appeared on his face.
He then spat out a fist-sized object wrapped in azure light, the Heavenvoid Cauldron.
Having done that, he suddenly heard a huge bang, followed by Old Devil Qian’s cursing.
Then the light around them began to stir as a crimson streak and a silver light came into appearance.
The crimson streak was the Blood Devil Pearl, but the flames surrounding it had decreased by nearly half. As for the ball of blinding silver light across from it, it vaguely appeared to belong to a slim silhouette.
