"We'll be sure to give everything we have in this battle. I can't say that I'm willing to die for the city, but as long as there's any sliver of opportunity for victory, we won't give up," the black-robed demonic cultivator said.
All of the other elders also nodded in agreement with grim expressions.
The white-robed elderly man gave a pleased nod upon seeing this, then turned to Han Li and transmitted his voice to him.
Han Li listened to what he had to say and considered it for a moment before nodding in response.
The white-robed elderly man immediately clapped his hands together with glee, and a golden-armored guard quickly descended from the top of the stone pagoda before extending a respectful bow toward the elders.
"Lead the way for Fellow Daoist Han and do as we originally planned. Failure is not an option!" the white-robed elderly man ordered in an authoritative voice.
"Yes! Senior Han, please come with me," the guard said as he turned toward Han Li in a respectful manner.
Han Li nodded in response before flying down from the platform as a streak of azure light, and the golden-armored guard hurriedly followed along behind him.
Moments later, Han Li arrived at a heavily-guarded pavilion that wasn't situated very far away from the city wall down below.
In the hall on the first floor of the pavilion, there were 36 male cultivators seated with their legs crossed around a giant formation that had been carved into the ground.
These men were all wearing uniform azure tight-fitting robes, and all of them seemed to be between 30 to 40 years of age. There were wisps of green light emanating from their bodies, and this was a clear sign that they were all using an identical cultivation art.
However, all of these male cultivators were only at the Deity Transformation Stage, and Han Li's brows furrowed slightly upon realizing this.
Furthermore, their auras were very unstable, and it was quite clear that they had forcibly attained their current cultivation bases through some special methods rather than through cultivation.
All of these cultivators immediately rose to their feet at the sight of Han Li and the Spatial Tempering Stage golden-armored guard. "We pay our respects to our seniors!"
"This is Senior Han; he's the one that you'll have to assist during this battle. Make sure to do everything in your power to cooperate with Senior Han!" the golden-armored guard said in a serious voice.
"The 36 Azure Cloud Guards pay our respects to Senior Han!"
These azure-robed men seemed to have already been notified of this arrangement in advance, so they weren't surprised at all.
"No need for formalities. I heard that all of you can combine to set up a formation that can trap even a devilish lord for some time; is that true?" Han Li asked.
"That's right, Senior. Ever since we began cultivating, we've been striving toward the same Azure Glazed Light Formation. The Azure Glazed Light Formation is an ancient secret formation, and we've honed our mastery of this formation to perfection. The formation doesn't possess much offensive power, but it's extremely effective for trapping enemies and will definitely have no issues containing the average devilish lord," the leader of the azure-robed cultivators replied.
"Good. Once we begin, just follow my orders," Han Li said with a pleased nod.
The 36 cultivators naturally gave an affirmative response.
After that, Han Li sat down right at the center of the giant formation and began to wait for something in silence.
As for the golden-armored guard, his job was done, and he left the pavilion.
Even though the entire pavilion was concealed within a layer of restrictions, the tsunami wave of beastly roars outside could still be heard within it.
Immediately thereafter, resounding booms rang out, and countless fluctuations erupted all over Deep Heaven City. The pavilion began to tremor slightly as a result, and it was quite clear that the army of devilish beasts had begun to attack the city.
The battle had commenced!
The 36 azure-robed men all sat in a completely still manner with their eyes closed, completely ignoring what was happening around them.
Meanwhile, Han Li released his enormous spiritual sense out of the restrictions around the pavilion to inspect the situation that was unfolding outside.
With his current immensely powerful spiritual sense, he could easily detect everything within a radius of close to 10,000 kilometers under normal circumstances. However, all types of restrictions and formations had been activated in the city, and chaotic energy fluctuations were surging all over the battlefield, thereby severely limiting the scope of his spiritual sense to a radius of only several hundred kilometers.
Even so, this was a large enough area for him to gather a rough idea of what was happening.
Through his spiritual sense, Han Li discovered that not only was the army of devilish beasts surging toward the city wall like a torrential flood, those metamorphosis stage high-grade devilish beasts were also on the front lines.
Even the weakest of these high-grade devilish beasts were at the Spatial Tempering Stage, and there were even a few early-Body Integration Stage devilish beings among them. Under their leadership, the casualties suffered by the devilish army decreased significantly.
Furthermore, those super devilish beasts were also shielding the low-grade devilish beasts, and they were doing so in a very cunning manner, gathering together in groups of four or five and taking turns to shield their brethren on a rotating basis.
Thus, it was very difficult to inflict substantial damage on this army of devilish beasts.
Atop the massive city wall, streaks of spiritual light were raining down in a torrential downpour, and occasionally, a formation would light up on the city, unleashing large-scale attacks that targeted the densest parts of the army of devilish beasts.
Compared to when the devilish army had only been unleashing harassment attacks, the retaliative measures being taken by Deep Heaven City had clearly become more intense.
However, there were simply too many devilish beasts to deal with, and a large proportion of them had great defensive prowess. Many of them were able to continue charging toward the city wall even after taking multiple hits and sustaining severe wounds.
Mountains of devilish beast carcasses quickly piled up at the foot of the city wall, but the devilish beasts continued to charge onward in a completely fearless manner.
As more and more devilish beasts began to reach the restrictions around the city, the protective barrier encompassing Deep Heaven City finally began to show signs of strain.
However, neither the Xue Guang clone nor the elders of Deep Heaven City displayed much of a reaction to this.
Only after a series of cracks had begun to appear on the light barrier did the white-robed elderly man abruptly order, "Activate the formation! Unleash the Four Celestial River Treasures and spare no expense!"
A high-grade cultivator immediately appeared on each of the white altars, then made several hand seals in unison. All of the altars began to emit a buzzing sound, and these cultivators began to chant something while pointing at the treasures sitting on the altars.
In the next instant, the gourd, screen, longsword, and bowl all began to emit a faint ringing sound. Immediately thereafter, five-colored light flashed within the formation, and a burst of astonishing spiritual Qi erupted forth before surging toward the four treasures in a frenzy.
Spiritual light swirled over the surfaces of the four treasures, and they slowly rose up into the air before beginning to display their powers.
The blue bowl and black gourd rotated in mid-air, then tipped themselves over to expel a burst a swathe of blue crystalline sand and a streak of black water, respectively.
The blue sand dispersed downward before the individual grains rapidly multiplied, forming a blue cloud of sand with no end in sight in the blink of an eye. The cloud then descended from above, and tens of thousands of devilish beasts were instantly inundated by it.
The countless grains of sand within the cloud churned, and the devilish beasts felt as if countless sharp blades were slicing into their bodies. All of them were instantly reduced to mincemeat, and even their souls didn't manage to escape.
As for the black water pouring out of the gourd, it transformed into an enormous waterfall with extremely corrosive properties. As it flowed through the army of devilish beasts, countless devilish beasts instantly had their flesh and bones eroded away, reducing them to nothingness in the blink of an eye.
Meanwhile, the silver longsword transformed into a gargantuan blade that was over 10,000 feet in length, then exploded into thousands of silver sword projections amid a resounding boom.
These sword projections instantly appeared in the air above the devilish beasts, then swept through their ranks with reckless abandon, slicing through their bodies like tofu.
As for the white screen, it was the most understated of the four treasures. It merely swelled to around several acres in size, then silently fell upon the horde of devilish beasts before it. What was very alarming was that when the screen rose up into the air again, all of the devilish beasts beneath it had vanished.
Within mere moments, the screen had erased several thousand devilish beasts from existence, and all of the nearby devilish beasts immediately fled in a panicked manner, not daring to get close to the treasure.
It had only been a short while since the Four Celestial River Treasures had been released, but hundreds of thousands of devilish beasts had already been wiped out. However, the emergence of these treasures was also met by retaliation from the high-grade devilish beings on the battlefield.
Several long cries rang out as a black cloud, a gust of yellow wind, and two streaks of crimson light rose up from behind the army of devilish beasts before hurtling directly toward the four treasures.
Han Li's expression changed slightly upon seeing this, and he withdrew his spiritual sense. There was no need for him to continue expending his spiritual sense to see what happened next. The Four Celestial River Treasures were indeed extremely powerful, but they were definitely going to be repressed by the high-grade devilish beings, and after that, a true clash of power would ensue between the two sides.
The most powerful beings among the two armies definitely weren't going to join the battle right away; only after one of either the army of devilish beasts or the restrictions of Deep Heaven City had been wiped out would the true battle begin.
Prior to that, all he had to do was wait. He had already decided that he was definitely not going to let that Xue Guang clone leave this battlefield alive.
