Han Li cast his gaze toward the damaged weapons, and his brows suddenly furrowed slightly as he made a grabbing motion.
A shimmering fragment of a sword blade immediately flew into his hand, and he began to carefully inspect it.
There was a deep claw mark on the surface of the blade fragment, and it was as if it had been intentionally carved into the blade.
Han Li exerted more force with his index finger and thumb to squeeze onto the blade fragment while also releasing a burst of golden light into it through his fingertips.
As a result, a finger indentation that was about as deep as the claw mark also appeared on the fragment.
"Have you discovered something, Fellow Daoist Han?" Xie Lian asked in an intrigued manner.
"Take a look for yourself," Han Li said as he tossed the blade fragment toward her.
Xie Lian raised a hand to catch the object, and after only a brief inspection, she suddenly exclaimed, "High Zenith Platinum! This weapon was refined from High Zenith Platinum!"
"High Zenith Platinum? That's an extremely renowned material across all realms, and there aren't many materials more resolute than it. The owner of this blade must've been quite fortunate to have obtained such a large piece," Lü Shi said in a stunned voice.
"Hmph, I'm not sure they were all that fortunate considering they've been slain by these stemborers. Setting that aside for now, your physical body must be extremely powerful to have left such a deep indentation on such a material. How much of your strength did you use just now, Fellow Daoist Han?" Xie Lian said as she also squeezed the fragment between her fingertips, yet was only able to leave a very light indentation.
As for Lü Shi, he could only shake his head with a wry smile, clearly conceding his inferiority.
"I naturally had to use a significant amount of my strength. Otherwise, there's no way I would've been able to leave such a deep indentation on this material. I wonder what kind of stemborer could've possessed a body powerful enough to shatter this weapon. At the very least, that's definitely not something one of the human-faced stemborers we encountered earlier would've been capable of," Han Li said with a serious expression.
"Those human-faced stemborers were inferior to us in power, so there's definitely no way they could've done this. Could it be that the Stemborer Queen was the one that did this?" Lü Shi's face paled slightly as this thought occurred to him.
"Most likely not. With the Stemborer Queen's incredible powers, there's no way it'd fight a group of guards in person," Xie Lian said with a shake of her head.
"So there must be stemborers even more powerful than those human-faced ones in this underground palace," Han Li mused.
"It looks like it," Xie Lian sighed in a resigned manner.
"There's no need to be overly concerned, fellow daoists. Even if stemborers of that caliber exist, surely there wouldn't be too much. There are over 40 fellow daoist who have entered this earth palace in total; that'll definitely be enough to handle all of these stemborers," Lü Shi said in an optimistic manner.
"Those stemborers must indeed be extremely rare. Otherwise, there's no way that Bao Hua and Yuan Yan would've been unable to collect any information on them; perhaps there are only a handful of them," Xie Lian agreed.
"In that case, there's nothing to fear. Let's examine the damaged restrictions here first, fellow daoists," Han Li said.
After that, he and Daoist Xie led the way deeper into the hall.
Xie Lian and Lü Shi exchanged a glance before also following along.
A short while later, Han Li and the others were situated within a room at the center of the hall, discussing something as they stood around a formation that spanned the entire room.
The giant formation appeared to be extremely complex and profound, but it was clear that a portion of it had been forcibly altered not long ago.
There was also another part that had been completely destroyed, so the entire formation was looking unrecognizable.
"Fellow Daoist Xie Lian, do you think you'll be able to repair this formation?" Lü Shi asked with tightly furrowed brows.
"I have the blueprint for this formation, but I didn't think that it would've been altered significantly. Given enough time, I would be able to return it to its original state, but Bao Hua didn't give us that much time," Xie Lian replied with a wry smile.
"We're in some trouble then. I'm not an expert in formations, so I won't be of any help here," Lü Shi sighed.
"If we have the original blueprint, then I can lend you a hand. Fellow Daoist Bao Hua only asked us to repair the restriction to the best of our abilities; let me take a look at the blueprint and see if we can somehow make the restriction temporarily work without fully repairing it," Han Li said.
"Are you familiar with formations as well, Brother Han? It would be fantastic if we could do that," Xie Lian said in an elated manner.
She flipped a hand over as she spoke, then tossed a translucent jade shard toward Han Li.
Han Li caught the jade shard before injecting his spiritual sense into it, and sure enough, there was an extremely complex formation blueprint within it.
Thus, Han Li and Xie Lian began to devise a repair plan, while Daoist Xie and Lü Shi stood on guard duty outside the hall.
With Han Li's expertise in formations and the blueprint available, it only took him less than half a day to think of a repair plan.
Xie Lian listened to his plan and carefully mulled it over, then nodded with an elated expression upon determining that it was a sound plan.
She immediately pulled some materials out of her storage bracelet and began to repair the giant formation together with Han Li.
Throughout the entire repair process, both of them were extremely careful and cautious.
After all, even the slightest mistake could activate all of the restrictions in the underground palace and even awaken the Stemborer Queen.
In the end, it took the two of them a day and a night to finally repair the formation.
Xie Lian cast an incantation seal toward the formation, upon which a buzzing sound rang out across the entire hall, while layers of gentle white light also emerged. At the same time, a burst of profound energy fluctuations proliferated through the room before vanishing without a trace.
"It's done! Your plan really was feasible, Brother Han," Xie Lian said as she turned to Han Li with a smile.
"Seeing as there are no issues, we'll just have to wait for a message from Bao Hua before we completely activate the restriction. I wonder if our other fellow daoists will be able to complete their missions in time as well," Han Li said with a smile.
"According to Bao Hua's plan, we should be receiving a message from her in half a day at the latest. Let's meditate and recover some energy for now; we could be facing a fierce battle soon."
Han Li nodded as he raised a hand to release a message talisman, informing Daoist Xie and Lü Shi of what was happening, then strode over to a corner of the hall before sitting down to meditate.
Xie Lian also did the same, and moments later, two streaks of light, one azure and one silver, flew into the room before also sitting down to meditate.
Thus, several hours flew by in a flash, and right at this moment, Han Li suddenly opened his eyes, as did everyone else in the room.
The ground suddenly began to tremor without any warning, and a pillar of white light suddenly erupted out of the formation on the ground before vanishing into the ceiling in a flash.
……
At the same time, the entire underground palace began to tremor and quake, and within a certain secluded area of the underground palace, a series of tall stone pillars erupted out of the ground to form a massive stone forest.
Looking down from above, one would be able to tell that the stone forest was arranged to form a rectangular formation.
At the center of the formation were eight copper pillars, and not only were these pillars riddled with rust, there was also indecipherable ancient text inscribed on their surfaces, as well as a ball of light hovering atop each pillar.
Within each of these balls of light was a crimson lamp, and seven of the lamps had already been snuffed out, while the final still contained a faint yellow flame.
At the center of the area surrounded by the eight copper pillars was a crimson sacrificial altar that was over 100 feet tall.
Atop the altar sat an inky-black bowl with black Qi revolving all around it, striking one with an unsettling sensation.
A burst of sinister cackling suddenly rang out from within the bowl.
……
"What's going on? We didn't activate the formation yet; how was it activated on its own?" Xie Lian yelled as her face immediately paled.
Lü Shi and Han Li's expressions had also darkened significantly.
They didn't know what had happened, but it was clear that something had gone wrong.
"Let's get out of here. We can't rely on the original plan anymore; we have to reunite with everyone else as quickly as possible," Han Li decided.
He then waved a hand toward Daoist Xie before flying away as a streak of azure light, and Daoist Xie followed along close behind him as a streak of silver light.
