However, Han Li didn't want any unforeseen elements affecting his plans, so a hint of killing intent welled up in his heart as he injected his spiritual sense into his spirit beast bracelet.
Following a loud ape cry, a streak of black light surged through the air, heading for one side of the entrance while revealed himself and pounced toward the other side.
"Hmm?"
"Who goes there?"
Two cries of surprise erupted from either side of the palace's entrance.
Gusts of Yin winds were swept up from one end, following which a massive two-headed skeleton appeared.
On the other side, the pungent odor of blood and gore wafted through the air as a white-furred zombie with a pair of crimson eyes emerged. The zombie had a pair of green wings on its back that were extremely rank and putrid.
Black light flashed, and a giant ape appeared. It then immediately let loose a cold harrumph, blasting a burst of yellow light out of its nostrils toward the two-headed skeleton.
A burst of eerie cackling rang out from the skeleton's mouths as its arms blurred through the air, creating countless claw projections.
This high-grade ghostly being was clearly very confident in its body and wanted to tear the soul-devouring light apart with its bare hands, rather than fleeing the scene like the white-robed ghostly woman had.
As soon as the two made contact with one another, the claw projections were immediately vanquished by the yellow light, which then surged onward to sweep up the skeleton's bony claws.
Yellow light flashed, and the two-headed skeleton let loose a howl of anguish as its bone claws disintegrated into clouds of black mist.
The skeleton was shocked by this turn of events, and it hurriedly attempted to hurtle back in retreat, but it was too late.
The yellow light continued onward, sweeping up the skeleton's entire body, transforming it into a dense cloud of black mist that was then sucked into the Weeping Soul Beast's mouth.
The beast then let loose a cry of elation before turning to appraise Han Li, just in time to see Han Li hovering above the white-furred zombie while pointing a finger toward the Divine Essencefused Mountain. The mountain had expanded to over 100 feet in size, and it had trapped the ghostly being down below.
Meanwhile, two golden-armored projections had appeared, and both of them were in the process of withdrawing their weapons from the zombie's body. One of them was wielding a spear with arcs of golden lightning surging along its entire length, and the spear had punctured the zombie's heart, creating a charred wound. As for the dual sabers, they had been withdrawn from the zombie's back, following which a layer of white light flashed, and the zombie's repugnant wings were sealed in translucent glacial ice.
Han Li didn't spur on the two projections to kill this ghostly being. Instead, he indicated for the Weeping Soul Beast to do the honors.
The Weeping Soul Beast faltered slightly before immediately springing through the air with an elated expression, quickly landing beside Han Li.
It unleashed its soul-devouring light from its nostrils again, reducing this zombie into Yin Qi as well before devouring it, then thumping its chest with glee.
These two were both powerful ghostly beings that had been cultivating within the infernal river for countless years, so they were most definitely rare delicacies for the Weeping Soul Beast. Han Li smiled at the sight of the ecstatic Weeping Soul Beast, and a plan suddenly began to hatch in his mind. He carefully appraised the Weeping Soul Beast before issuing some instructions.
The Weeping Soul Beast listened with wide eyes before nodding emphatically. Black light flashed from its entire body, and it transformed into a demon beast with a single horn on its head and arcs of lightning revolving around its limbs.
It was a spitting image of the Infernal Lightning Beast that had almost hunted down Han Li earlier, except it was slightly smaller in size. Han Li nodded with a pleased smile upon seeing this before waving a hand toward the Infernal Lightning Beast", and it shrank down to only several inches in size before disappearing up his sleeve.
He then brought out his High Zenith Invisibility Talisman again to conceal himself, then entered through the palace gates.
The palace consisted of a main hall with a smaller hall on the side, and Han Li went directly into the larger main hall.
The interior of the hall was very clean, and it was completely empty aside from a dozen or so thick stone pillars.
However, Han Li paid no heed to all of this as his attention had been completely drawn to a small hole that was shimmering with white light at the center of the hall. He slowly made his way over to this hole, then peered into it to discover that it was a smooth round tunnel that led downward on a slanted angle, and there were no stairs or rungs to be seen. Furthermore, Han Li could only see a vast expanse of faint white light within the tunnel, thereby preventing him from seeing what laid at the bottom.
After a brief moment of contemplation, Han Li slowly drifted down this tunnel. Along the way, he discovered that this tunnel was extremely deep; even after descending for over 10,000 feet, there was still no end in sight. However, there were gusts of cold winds blowing toward him from down below, so there was clearly some kind of ventilated place at the conclusion of the tunnel.
After descending for several thousand more feet, Han Li's expression changed slightly as he could hear the indistinct sounds of thunderclaps and beasty roars, as well as the occasional earth-shattering boom that made the stone walls of the tunnel around him tremor and quake.
Han Li began to slow down in his descent while releasing his spiritual sense to survey the situation up ahead.
Moments later, a film of piercing white light appeared down below, and he had reached the exit.
After sweeping through the area with his spiritual sense, he found that there was nothing lurking down there.
He was reassured by this discovery and landed soundlessly onto the ground below, then quickly passed through the white film of light. On the other side, he found himself in another massive hall that was several times larger than the one above it, and also vastly more lavish in its construction as well.
Not only was the floor paved with flawless white jade, there were gems the size of large bowls embedded onto the walls and ceiling of the hall. These gems shimmered with a gentle white light that illuminated the entire hall. The spiritual Qi in this area was also a lot more abundant than that of area up above, and there were spirit herbs and spirit flowers of all types of different colors growing in two miniature flower gardens on either side of the hall. All of the plants were extremely vibrant and shimmering with faint spiritual light, clearly having been nurtured here for countless years.
However, Han Li merely looked away with a disinterested furrow of his brows.
He was immediately able to identify that even though these plants were quite rare, they were mostly renowned for their beauty and aesthetic appeal rather than any practical applications.
However, Han Li was only able to see most of the hall as a small portion of it was currently enshrouded in dense blood mist and arcs of lightning that were flashing violently.
Clumps of blood mist and lightning intertwined with one another at low altitudes over a certain section of the hall, tumbling and exploding incessantly as they fought for dominance. However, it was quite clear that the arcs of lightning were far more powerful than the blood mist. If it weren't for the fact that there were countless green threads and gusts of Yin winds whizzing through the mist to reinforce it, it would've most likely have been vanquished by the arcs of lightning already.
Even so, fist-sized balls of lightning were still being manifested amid rumbling thunderclaps, then exploding to tear through large swaths of blood mist, thereby placing it firmly on the backfoot.
The blood mist completely obstructed Han Li's vision, but it was most likely the case that it had been conjured up by Di Xue in conjunction with the other demon monarchs. Amid the flashes of lightning, Han Li could indistinctly make out the silhouettes of two single-horned beasts, both of which were roaring with fury. There were two Infernal Lightning Beasts unleashing a relentless barrage of fearsome attacks, so it was no wonder that the demon monarchs were severely on the back foot.
Han Li was quite stunned by this observation, and after spectating the battle for a while, he turned his gaze downward, upon which his pupils abruptly contracted.
Directly down below the vast expanse of blood mist was a green pond that was several tens of feet in size. There was white mist as well as rich spiritual Qi swirling around the pond, and there was also an indistinct layer of crimson light over the surface of the water as well.
"Is that the Divine Infernal River Elixir?" Han Li made his way over to the pond, but he didn't pause to examine it for too long. Instead, he continued to survey his surroundings as if he were searching for something.
All of a sudden, his eyes lit up as he caught sight of the motionless Yuan Yao and Yan Li standing in an obscure corner of the palace.
Both of them wore stiff wooden expressions, seemingly completely unmoved by the intense battle taking place nearby.
Han Li had witnessed the restrictions being cast on these two women, so he knew that their consciousness were still intact, but they were unable to control their bodies at all. He was relatively confident in his ability to break restrictions of this nature.
After taking a glance at the intense battle that was raging within the palace, Han Li repressed te elation in his heart before carefully turning his attention to other sections of the hall.
He had not forgotten about the ghostly beings that he'd encountered on his way here, and there were definitely other high-grade ghostly beings that had snuck into this place as well.
He didn't want to save Yuan Yao and Yan Li, only to be ambushed by those troublesome beings. Prior to discovering the locations of those hidden ghostly beings, it would be very unwise to set his plan into motion.
Thus, he released his spiritual sense toward every section of the hall aside from the one where the battle was taking place, but didn't discover anything amiss.
Han Li's brows furrowed slightly, and after a brief moment of contemplation, a hint of faint blue light flashed through his eyes.
This place was fraught with peril so he naturally didn't dare to unleash his spirit eyes to their full extent. He merely drew on as little spiritual power as possible to activate this ability before rapidly sweeping his gaze around the entire hall.
As a result, he was finally able to discover something.
In the corner of the palace furthest away from where the battle was taking place, there was a cloud of faint green Qi hovering in the air. Even looking at it using his spirit eyes, the cloud of green Qi was still extremely faint, as if it were completely transparent.
Was that the ghostly being that had infiltrated this place?
Han Li contemplated his situation momentarily before deciding to take a risk. A sharp burst of blue light erupted from his eyes as he attempted to glean the true appearance of this unknown being.
As a result, he saw a crystal-ball-like object hovering at the center of the cloud of green Qi, and it was slowly rotating on the spot.
In the instant that Han Li caught sight of that object, it immediately stopped rotating, and a wisp of green light appeared over its surface before disappearing in a flash.
Han Li's expression changed slightly upon seeing this, and the blue light in his eyes was instantly snuffed out.
He could sense that the bead seemed to have detected his gaze in the instant that he caught sight of it, but he was confident that he'd reacted quickly enough to avoid exposing his location.
Even if that bead possessed a powerful enough spiritual sense to detect his presence, it wouldn't dare to release its spiritual sense with such reckless abandon to search for him. If it released too little of its spiritual sense, there was no way that it'd be able to bypass the High Zenith Invisibility Talisman's concealment effect, but if too much of its spiritual sense was released, then it would immediately be detected by the demon monarchs and Infernal Lightning Beasts.
Han Li was sure that this ghostly being definitely wouldn't engage in such a reckless endeavor.
Moments later, a burst of relatively feeble spiritual sense swept over the spot where he was standing, but it completely failed to detect his presence as it continued onward.
Han Li heaved an internal sigh of relief in response. However, before he had a chance to consider how he was going to take Yuan Yao and Yan Li away from here without blowing his cover, a thunderous roar suddenly erupted from within the blood mist in the hall, and the battle took a drastic turn.
The blood mist tumbled and surged as brilliant purple light erupted, following which a silhouette began to rapidly expand within the mist. In the blink of an eye, the Purpleblood Puppet emerged from the mist, having already reached over 200 feet tall, and it was still swelling in size with reckless abandon.
One of the crimson-robed figures was also standing atop one of the puppet's shoulders with his hands clasped behind his back.
