The light appeared ordinary at first, but in a brief flash it had appeared behind Old Devil Qian’s cloud of black Qi.
Under the radiance of a thousand rays of light, Old Devil Qian roared in anguish. The devilish Qi dissolved to reveal the crimson Nascent Soul and the Ghost Sifting Banner beneath.
A short moment later, countless threads of azure mist tightly bound his soul. No matter how much resistance he raised with violent flashes of green light and roaring crimson flames, he wasn’t able to escape them.
Rapidly, Han Li arrived next to Old Devil Qian’s Nascent Soul in a flash of silver. He smiled and raised his hand.
Spatial fluctuations appeared above the both of them, followed by the appearance of the Heavenvoid Cauldron.
After it dropped into his grasp, he looked at the captured Nascent Soul.
Old Devil Qian’s Nascent Soul writhed with terror and his heart dropped when he saw Han Li look at him with hostile intentions, but soon, a vicious resolve was born in his heart and he bit to the tip of his tongue with a grimace.
Han Li’s gaze turned cold.
With two pops, talismans were stuck onto the soul’s body, one gold and one silver, freezing his magic power and dissolving the suicidal attack he was about to launch.
Right after, the yellow-robed middle-aged cultivator appeared behind Old Devil Qian in a flash of light, it was the late-Nascent Soul puppet. It had silently arrived there at an unknown time. Han Li wore a mysterious smile following its appearance.
At the start of the ambush, Han Li had the puppet conceal itself in the direction of the palace gates If the old devil was truly as cunning as he believed, he would flee without a thought. And since the puppet wasn’t alive, its aura was concealed with extreme ease. Apart from seeing it with one’s own eyes, one would be incapable of detecting it.
As a result, Old Devil Qian ended up ambushed by the arrow of Golden Lightning Bamboo while he made his escape, and was forcibly pushed back deeper in the hall.
But because Han Li needed to capture his Nascent Soul alive, he used Divine Devilbane Lightning to scare him away after he destroyed the Blood Devil Pearl using the dagger refined from the Devil Essence Diamond. Then as he fled in a panic, his puppet sneaked behind him and used its witch eyes refined from the Brilliant Glow Gem to entrap him in a bewitchment technique.
Having experienced the fearsome might of its witch eyes for himself, Han Li was confident it would be able to disable the old devil momentarily, no matter how powerful his spiritual sense may be.
And when the eccentric lost consciousness as he expected, he used the opportunity to deploy the Heavenvoid Cauldron to easily restrain him.
Following those thoughts, Han Li turned his attention to the small cauldron in his hand. Because he had only refined the first layer of its Artifact Imprint Technique, he was only capable of commanding it to release a bit of its light. If he truly wished to open the cauldron, it seemed he would have to first reach late-Nascent Soul stage.
“Fellow Daoist Han, what should I do with these devils?”
As Han Li was basking with joy, heavy footsteps sounded out from behind him. Gui Ling released a cloud of black-white Qi from her hand, containing five pure white skeletons that were reduced to a foot-tall.
Having lost the connection to Old Devil Qian’s Nascent Soul, the cinque devil incarnations had dropped dead onto the ground, allowing Gui Ling to restrain them.
“Those five…”
Han Li was about to continue when the five black skulls biting onto the old devil’s Nascent Soul suddenly released their bite and screamed, turning around and returning to the five skeletons nearby.
Not only were their screams incredibly loud, but it also inspired a blood-chilling fear that pierced the mind.
Then, the trapped skeletons suddenly sensed something and their eyes violently flickered with crimson light , filling the air with the stench of blood.
The skeletons all opened their mouths and simultaneously struck a single point in the black-white mist using a deep-green devil flame.
An explosion sounded out. Caught off guard, Gui Ling’s restriction had been destroyed.
The five shot out in streaks of white Qi towards their jet-black skulls, but when Han Li saw this, he coldly snorted and waved his hand at the small cauldron.
The azure mist poured out from it and instantly formed a wall to block the five streaks.
He then commanded a portion of the azure mist to wrap around them, preventing the foot-tall skeletons from reaching the skulls.
The skeletons were then thrown into a crazed frenzy.
Although the threads held them firm, their limbs struggled with all their might. They relentlessly spat emerald flame wisps at the azure strings that bound them.
When Old Devil Qian’s Nascent Soul saw this, a trace of fear plagued his face and he suddenly yelled, “No! You… quickly release them!”
When Han Li swept his gaze over across them, he felt somewhat baffled, but he wasn’t about to listen to him. The result that followed astonished him.
The skulls suddenly let out a sharp hiss and returned back towards Old Devil Qian’s Nascent Soul.
Right after, the skulls didn’t simply gnaw on the Nascent Soul, but their mouths began to bear down with strength, clearly intending on devouring him.
“Devil backlash!” Han Li’s heart jumped when he realized what was happening.
Because Old Devil Qian’s magic power had greatly decreased, he had momentarily lost control and the obedient cinque devils suddenly turned savage towards their master.
However, Han Li had no intention of allowing him to perish. He waved his hand at the small cauldron without another thought.
A series of clear rings rang out from within and countless azure threads shot out from the light covering its surface, firmly binding the skulls and forcibly dragged them away from the Nascent Soul. Even so, the skulls still bit at the air with wild strength born from insanity.
He didn’t pay the skulls any further head and instead focused on the old devil’s Nascent Soul.
Although it had only taken a moment, the soul’s body was reduced to less than half its original size and was on the verge of death. But in his gaze, it made no difference so long as it was still present.
Then with a deep breath, Han Li grabbed the Ghost Sifting Banner at the old devil’s side and quickly examined it before placing it in his storage pouch. Soon after, he swept his gaze to a place in the distance.
The human puppet stirred and flickered from sight before returning to Han Li with a black storage pouch in hand.
It had dropped to the ground when Old Devil Qian’s Blood Devil Pearl was destroyed.
He paid no further attention to the items in the storage pouch and turned his head to Gui Ling, “Fellow Daoist Gui, deal with the cinque devils for the time being. I will be handling this Nascent Soul.”
He didn’t wish for any others to watch while he was in the process of soul extraction.
“Please go ahead. I’ll deal with the cinque devils,” Gui Ling calmly replied. Then she opened her mouth and enveloped the skeletons and skulls in black-and-white mist, taking over Han Li’s restrictions of them.
He nodded and reached out to the azure mist, creating a large azure hand that grabbed the Nascent Soul.
A streak of azure light then flew away and disappeared into the Greatnorth Essence Light nearby.
As for the human puppet, it remained motionless.
When Gui Ling saw him disappear, she began to examine the puppet for a long time. Then, a trace of shock appeared on her face. If she hadn’t personally seen Han Li summon it out from a storage pouch, she would’ve hardly believed that the cultivator before her was actually a puppet.
Time slowly moved by and a quarter hour passed. The Greatnorth Essence Light stirred and parted way for Han Li to emerge. He revealed no emotion and Old Devil Qian’s Nascent Soul was nowhere to be seen.
When he approached Gui Ling, she pointed to the five cinque devils and asked, “How should we deal with them? To the best of my knowledge, there is no other way to vanish them from this world apart from slow refinement from great Yang flames.”
“Refine?” Han Li paused for a moment, “There is no need for that. I have another use for them. I’ll just seal them away for the time being.”
“Then so be it.” Despite her surprise, she readily agreed.
Han Li waved his sleeve, summoning a dense swarm of talismans from within and instantly covered the skeletons and skulls with various colored balls of light.
He then clapped his hands together and flicked a finger, arcing lightning from his hand and weaving it together with golden strings layer upon layer around them.
As light flashed, over ten balls of golden light appeared before them.
With an incantation gesture, Han Li released spell seals at the balls, quickly shrinking them to the size of a fist.
When Han Li looked at them, he frowned when something came to mind. He opened his mouth and spat out a bubble that glowed with Buddhist light.
It was the vajra barrier that he had been nurturing his body with.
He pointed to the item in his hand and a seven-colored radiance swept them all up, absorbing them into the golden orb.
With Divine Devilbane Lightning and the Buddhist treasure suppressing it, no matter how vicious what lay ahead, they shouldn’t have any way of escaping.
He finally felt at ease and placed the vajra barrier into a jade box before carefully putting it away.
“Let’s go! Fellow Daoist Gui should have some hidden locations on this mountain. We’ll hide there for a few days and wait for the opening in the seal to recover once more.
“A hidden location?” With roused spirits, Gui Ling instantly answered, “I did unintentionally discover a place like that, and there shouldn’t be anyone else that knows of it.”
