A hint of caution flashed through Han Li's eyes, and he lowered his head to look down at his own body, upon which his expression immediately changed slightly.
He discovered that he had become slightly thinner, and even though he was still wearing the same clothes as before, his storage bracelets, spirit bracelets, and treasures had all disappeared.
What was even more peculiar was that as he swept his spiritual sense toward his own face, he discovered that he had reverted back to his 13 year old appearance, except his skin was as pristine white as jade instead of dark and tanned.
"My soul has come out of my body! Looks like the inner demon tribulation is about to begin," Han Li murmured to himself as he laid a hand onto his own face.
Right at this moment, a burst of gender-neutral cackling suddenly rang out within Han Li's mind.
"We meet again, brat; I didn't think you would progress to this point in such a short time. However, I've descended in person on this occasion, so even if you're a true immortal, you definitely won't be able to transcend this inner demon tribulation."
The grey sky parted, and a mountainous ghostly face emerged, cackling in a sinister manner as it licked its remarkably thick lips with a massive tongue that was around 10 feet in length.
The giant ghostly head was none other than the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign that had a vendetta against Han Li, and it had managed to descend into this space through the power of the inner demon tribulation.
"Is that so? I didn't think that you would be stupid enough to appear directly before me," Han Li countered in an expressionless manner.
"How dare you! I'm going to make you regret ever being born!" the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign roared with fury, and the ghostly head began to swell in size amid a surge of black light.
A cold look appeared on Han Li's face upon seeing this, and he suddenly opened his mouth to release three fist-sized balls of golden light.
The balls of golden light blurred before appearing right in front of the ghostly head, revealing themselves to be three golden rhomboid objects; these were three miniature golden spears with bright red runes spread all over their surfaces.
Even though the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign wasn't able to immediately identify what these objects were, a sense of extreme peril welled up in its heart, and it hurriedly retreated as a cloud of black mist to evade the miniature golden spears.
However, right at this moment, Han Li pointed a finger toward the three balls of golden light from afar, then uttered the word "explode" thrice in rapid succession.
The three miniature golden spears immediately exploded, and a flurry of golden flames and lightning erupted forth in a frenzy, instantly inundating the cloud of black mist as a string of explosions rang out.
"No… This is Vajra Devil Vanquishing Divine Lightning… How did you obtain this lightning…" The black mist within the golden light quickly dissipated, and an incredulous howl of anguish rang out from within.
"You can think about that after you're reduced to ashes," Han Li chuckled coldly before opening his mouth to expel four more balls of golden light.
"Insolent brat, do you really think this is enough to kill me?" the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign roared as what remained of the cloud of black mist exploded into countless black threads that shot forth in all directions.
Han Li, Han Li seemed to have already been prepared for this, and his expression darkened slightly as he pointed his finger forward once again.
All of a sudden, the four balls of golden light appeared in four different directions that the black threads were fleeing toward, then exploded in unison, sending golden flames and lightning raining down from above.
Most of the black threads were reduced to ashes within the golden light, and only around a dozen managed to escape before converging to form a ghostly head again over 1,000 feet away.
However, not only was this ghostly head significantly smaller than what it had been, it was also very blurry, clearly indicating that it had been severely harmed.
As soon as this ghostly head emerged, a furious look appeared on its face, and it transformed into a malicious ghostly projection that was several hundred feet tall before pouncing directly toward Han Li.
However, a peculiar smile suddenly appeared on Han Li's face, and he swept a sleeve through the air, releasing seven more balls of golden light that flew toward the oncoming ghostly projection.
The fury on the ghostly projection's face instantly vanished upon seeing this, and it let loose a strangled cry before twisting around and flying away as a ball of black light.
After just a few flashes, the ball of black light completely vanished into the distance, and in the next instant, the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign's furious gender-neutral voice rang out again.
"You've bested me again, human brat, but don't get too full of yourself; I'll be sure to gather all of the devilish sovereigns in the nearby realms to impede you as you transcend your tribulation to True Immortal Realm. When that time comes, you won't be able to ascend even with Vajra Devil Vanquishing Divine Lightning!"
After the enraged parting threat, everything abruptly fell silent, and Han Li heaved a long sigh of relief.
He waved a hand through the air, and the seven balls of light returned to him before revealing themselves to be seven golden beads, around which arcs of lightning were flashing incessantly, but they weren't actually Vajra Devil Vanquishing Divine Lightning.
A faint smile appeared on Han Li's face as he stowed the seven golden beads back up his sleeve.
These seven golden beads weren't exactly total counterfeits; they were simply half-complete Vajra Devil Vanquishing Divine Lightning.
Ever since he had reached the late-Body Integration Stage, he had been refining this lightning in secret whenever he had some spare time.
However, this lightning was truly extremely difficult to refine; even though Han Li had sufficient Golden Lightning Bamboo leaves, the other materials were very difficult to source, and the refinement success rate was also appallingly low.
Even with Han Li's late-Body Integration Stage powers, he had only managed to refine seven pieces of this lightning. As for the seven half-complete pieces of lightning, there would be no way for him to completely refine them.
Han Li had already carefully considered how he was going to deal with that Heavenly Devilish Sovereign prior to his breakthrough attempt.
The inner demon tribulation was extremely difficult to transcend to begin with; with the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign's intervention, it would be almost impossible for him to successfully transcend it.
As such, he had devised this plan to wound the devilish sovereign with the real Vajra Devil Vanquishing Divine Lightning, then use the fake lightning to scare it away.
The Vajra Devil Vanquishing Lighting was extremely effective against Heavenly Devilish Sovereigns, so even though the devilish sovereign possessed Grand Ascension Stage powers, there was a very good chance it would be intimidated into retreat by the combination of genuine and counterfeit lightning.
Prior to commencing his breakthrough, he had refined all of his genuine and counterfeit lightning into one with his soul so that he would be able to use it as a surprise attack in this space.
As it turned out, the situation unfolded exactly as he had envisioned.
After being severely wounded by the first seven pieces of lightning, the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign immediately fled in horror at the sight of the seven counterfeit pieces of lightning.
Of course, this was also because the counterfeit pieces of lightning were half-complete Vajra Devil Vanquishing Divine Lightning to begin with. Otherwise, other types of treasures definitely wouldn't have been able to fool the devilish sovereign.
Now that the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign had departed, Han Li was relatively confident that he would be able to transcend the inner demon tribulation with his powerful spiritual sense.
The parting threat delivered by the Heavenly Devilish Sovereign made Han Li's heart sink a little, but the ascendance tribulation was something that he would only have to worry about far in the future, so he didn't pay it much heed.
For Han Li, the most important thing now was to transcend this inner demon tribulation so he could progress to the Grand Ascension Stage.
With that in mind, Han Li quickly focused his thoughts, and blue light flashed within his eyes as he peered into the surrounding area.
At this point, the grey space around him was already beginning to tumble and surge.
Moments later, countless massive grey eyes suddenly appeared in all directions around him, all of which were staring intently at him while shimmering with five-colored light.
As soon as Han Li's gaze came into contact with this light, his consciousness faded slightly, and his surroundings suddenly blurred, following which he found himself in a scenic natural setting.
Han Li's vision slowly focused, and he discovered that he was situated in a little village. He had also transformed into a child who was around six years of age, wearing a rough cloth garment that had been mended so many times that it was almost impossible to see its original color.
He was currently playing involuntarily with a group of other children, and the scene immediately brought long-buried memories to the surface. "Doggy, Dumb Egg…" [1]
However, a series of emotions had only just begun to well up in his heart when a burst of enormous mysterious power acted upon his soul, causing him to instantly forget everything and completely fall into the current moment, where he was enjoying himself with his group of young friends.
Another thin and short figure was stumbling over from not far away, and as soon as he caught sight of the familiar figure, he immediately called out in elation, "Little Sis…"
……
At the center of the basin, Han Li sat still on the ground with a shimmering golden Nascent Soul above his head, which was also seated in mid-air in a completely still manner.
Grey devilish Qi was surging all around him, creating an impenetrable barrier, and occasionally, there would be black and white ghostly figures, skeletons, and other devilish creatures rushing out of the devilish Qi.
However, as soon as these devilish creatures came within 30 feet of Han Li, countless arcs of golden lightning would surge out of his body to eradicate all of them.
The other devilish creatures would immediately spring back into the devilish Qi in alarm upon seeing this, but they would emerge once again as if they couldn't help themselves.
Atop a mountain peak in the distance, Silvermoon and Zhu Guo'er were standing side by side, appraising the scene unfolding within the basin with solemn expressions.
Daoist Xie was situated on another mountain peak, seated on a giant rock with his eyes closed, seemingly no longer interested in Han Li's current situation.
1. Reminder, in Han Li's mortal village a lot of children were given silly nicknames as second names. Han Li's nickname was "Second Fool"
