When the Scarlet Flame Flood Dragon approached him, Han Li smiled. His sleeve trembled and a red light flew out before disappearing without a trace. Afterwards, thunder rang out from behind him, followed by the appearance of a pair of silver-white wings on his back.
In a flare of silver light, Han Li disappeared just as the flood dragon’s scarlet claws were about to strike him. Before he could recover from the missed attack, he heard a soft yet sharp shriek. As silent as it was swift, a translucent red needle arrived next to the flood dragon and was about to pierce through its head. It was the needle that Han Li had refined from crystallized demon core.
Currently, the only thing protecting the flood dragon were the flames surrounding its body.
When the scarlet flood dragon finally saw the needle arrive at his side, he felt engulfed in terror. Given no time to react, he could only twist his head to the side, but he was far too slow. Hiss. He let out a cry of agony let out and covered his face with his claw as blood freely flowed from it. The flying needle had left behind a hole in his face.
While the needle was incredibly sharp, it didn’t have the power to severly injure the flood dragon. So in the instant the needle pierced through, he mentally commanded it to immediately expand several times in size, multiplying the damage of the wound.
Before the flood dragon could rampage, he could hear a clap of thunder behind him, followed by the appearance of Han Li. He had waved his arm and released a three-meter-long golden streak directly towards him.
The scarlet flood dragon’s mood sank and he ignored the pain on his face. His tail flickered with light and grew several times in size before fiercely sweeping it at Han Li with reckless abandon, hoping to crush him first.
Han Li then frowned. As expected of a worldly spiritual beast, he was extremely quick to react, unlike ordinary human cultivators who were helpless in the face of his lightning movement ambushes. With a mental command, the golden swordstreak shifted direction to cleave through the flood dragon’s tail.
It had split through the red light surrounding the tail without resistance. The flood dragon felt his heart tremble at the sight and he hastily gathered the entirety of his spiritual power into his tail scales, turning them into shining red crystals.
Bang. Golden and scarlet light intertwined in a blinding display, forcing Han Li to close his eyes. It was only after employing the Brightsight eyes that he was able to glimpse at what was happening.
The golden sword condensed from several of his flying swords wasn’t enough to cleanly sever the flood dragon’s tail. Instead, it had only managed to break through the scales and cut a third of the way through before being firmly stopped by bone.
Han Li narrowed his eyes and held his hands in an incantation gesture, commanding the flying sword to withdraw. However, the flood dragon’s tail exerted immense strength and firmly held the sword in place.
“Let’s see how long you’ll last without your magic treasure!” The flood dragon wildly laughed and opened his mouth, spitting out a fist-size pearl in a flash of red light.
“His demon core!” Han Li narrowed his eyes as soon as he saw it.
The flood dragon knew he was at a disadvantage and steeled his heart, using this as an opportunity to trap the magic treasure and launch a counterattack.
Han Li’s expression contorted in disbelief and he loudly yelled, blurring and splitting into three exact copies of himself, putting the flood dragon at a loss.
Before he could recognize which Han Li was genuine, the three copies all tossed their sleeve with a sneer, each releasing a meter-long golden swordstreak.
In furious alarm, he could only hastily deploy his demon core at the center attack and brandish his glowing claws to meet the two others at either side.
Although he already saw the incisiveness of Han Li’s flying swords, he had no way of recognizing which of the three attacks were real. If his demon core could block the true strike, his life would be guaranteed. But if he missed, he could temporarily block it with his claws, as they were even harder than his tail, and use his demon core in the meantime to destroy him.
Just as these thoughts appeared in his mind, a deafening impact sounded out. The demon core had clashed against the golden swordstreak in a flash of red light and was pushed ten meters back.
‘So it was the middle sword,’ the flood dragon happily thought. However, the two other sword-streaks brilliantly flashed beside him and he felt an unbearable pain afflict his claws as they cleanly cut through and continue towards his body.
The flood dragon let out a fierce scream and his body flared with light as he attempted to dodge. However, purple flame quickly surged from beneath him in the shape of a lotus, enveloping him in a layer of frost.
In that moment of delay, the two golden swordstreaks burned with brilliant light before circling around the flood dragon’s head. Swoosh The flood dragon’s head fell from his body; the dense scales on his neck hadn’t offered the slightest resistance. With this, the other two clones had disappeared in a flicker of azure light.
Before the final strike, Han Li had formed an incantation gesture inside of his sleeve, channeling most of his body’s spiritual power into the two flying swords. As a result, the fearsome might of the infused Auric Essence had been fully displayed, and the swords carried forward with unyielding force.
Just as the flood dragon’s head tumbled off, Han Li pointed once more at the two swordstreaks. With a crack of thunder, two dense bolts of lightning shot out from the swords, layering the flood dragon’s corpse in a net.
A red light suddenly appeared from the stump of its neck, revealing a miniature flood dragon that flew out in a panic, but it was caught by the net of lightning. Just as it thought to change the direction of its escape, the net quickly closed in and captured it.
The flood dragon’s soul was struck with terror and it spat out strands of scarlet flame at the net with all its might in an attempt to break free.
Han Li coldly snorted when he saw this. The net soon shrunk to an area of three meters. Unlike with Nascent Souls, he didn’t plan on destroying the soul.
He summoned a small jade bottle into his hand and beckoned to the lightning net. Countless strands began to unravel towards the center of the net, and despite its greatest attempts, the flood dragons soul had nowhere to run. Soon, a fist-sized golden ball was weaved around it, completely restraining it.
He then pointed the bottle in his hand to the golden ball, and a mist of white light flew out before drawing the golden ball inside.
Han Li’s expression finally relaxed.
“Although I only have some skill in the Spirit Apparition Technique, it seems quite effective in a fight. It is no wonder Gold Mist Mountain carries it as their legacy technique,” Han Li muttered. He reached out to the still-blazing flood dragon corpse and recalled the golden sword stuck in its tail. Afterwards, he kept the head and the rest in the corpse in a storage pouch he specially prepared.
As for the masterless grade-eight demon core, Han Li had carefully put it away in a jade box before turning his attention to the sea of flame and demon cloud surrounding him. Without the flood dragon’s magic power to sustain it, it was gradually scattering away.
He took advantage of this opportunity to look at how the other battles were going and he unconsciously frowned.
The Core Formation cultivators were doing well enough since they had a numbers advantage against the grade-seven flood dragons. However, their Nascent Soul-stage leader was at a great disadvantage and appeared to be on the verge of defeat.
An icy glint flashed from his eyes and he muttered, “Grade-eight demon beasts are rarely encountered. I may as well take the second one.” Han Li’s body began to spark with azure light, intending to interfere with the battle.
Monarch Soul Divergence hurriedly sent a voice transmission, “Youngster Han, don’t get carried away by greed. I’ve already sensed others on their way. If you delay, you won’t be able to escape. The South Sea Sect had spent an enormous amount of resources to slay these flood dragons. They won’t easily let you go with the grade-eight flood dragon in your possession.”
In his surprise, Han Li quickly verified this with his spiritual sense and sullenly said, “The South Sea Sect have already arrived? They act quickly. What a pity, let’s go then.” Before the final traces of the demon cloud faded away, Han Li could no longer be seen.
When the blue grade-eight flood dragon sensed the fall of the Scarlet Flame Flood Dragon, it had thrown itself into the battle with reckless abandon, putting the already-pressured party leader into an immediate crisis. The large man inwardly cursed and was about to flee.
But then, two flashes of light lit up from the horizon, followed by two squads of cultivators. They were flying in their direction with their utmost speed.
When the blue flood dragon saw this, it knew that matters had turned for the worse and immediately suppressed the fury in its heart. It let out a fierce scream before delving into the sea below.
When the other flood dragons heard this, they also attempted to escape. However, the cultivators weren’t about to allow them to easily escape and they tangled with them further, preventing their retreat.
For a time, the battle became even more fierce and violent.
Han Li had no interest in what happened and simply flew deep into the ocean.
He wanted to find an uninhabited spirit island so that he could begin to refine Monarch Soul Divergence’s puppet.
