Chapter 1137: Cyan Plume

Han Li floated in the distance with no intention of returning immediately. After a moment's hesitation, he slowly closed his eyes, and a powerful divine sense surged out in an instant, enveloping an area of a hundred li around him. WM网

There was no unusual phenomenon in the sky; that extraordinarily enormous giant bird had indeed vanished without a trace.

Han Li no longer hesitated. A wisp of divine sense plunged straight down to the seabed, probing downward.

After half a moment's time, Han Li suddenly opened his eyes, a trace of surprise and doubt appearing on his face.

After pondering for a moment, he suddenly slapped the storage pouch at his waist with one hand. As silver light flickered, a faint cyan figure appeared before him—it was the humanoid puppet.

"Go."

Han Li's sleeve swept toward the distance as he spoke coldly.

The humanoid puppet moved, instantly transforming into a great silver rainbow that shot straight toward the distant sea surface. Its escape speed was so fast that after a few flashes it had already traveled several li away.

After a short while, the silver rainbow reached the spot where the ghost mist had originally appeared and plunged downward without the slightest hesitation. In a flash of escape light, it vanished beneath the sea surface, heading straight for the depths of the seabed.

At this moment, Han Li sat cross-legged in midair, linking his divine sense with a portion of the humanoid puppet's mind, personally commanding the puppet as if it were a clone.

The nearby seabed was far deeper than ordinary areas. The humanoid puppet descended in one breath to a depth of forty or fifty thousand zhang before reaching the very bottom.

But this place was utterly empty, with no sign whatsoever of any demon beast passing through. Yet the surroundings were suspiciously clean—not only were there no corals or seaweed of any kind, but a single glance revealed an abnormally flat terrain, without so much as a single rise or fall.

After the humanoid puppet circled the surrounding area once, it suddenly rose in a flash of escape light and flew off in a certain direction.

After a short while, it discovered a cyan light cluster drifting forward several li away.

As this light cluster moved, it rose and fell, as if possessed of abundant spiritual intelligence.

The humanoid puppet's wooden eyes erupted with a strange purple gleam. Its escape light instantly doubled in speed, and after a few flashes it had caught up behind the light cluster, only some ten-plus zhang away from it.

Now it could be seen clearly. Within the light cluster was a zhang-long plume feather that flickered between bright and dim, shimmering with faint spiritual light as if it were a living thing.

Silver light flashed once more around the humanoid puppet, and it instantly appeared above the plume feather. Without the slightest hesitation, it grabbed downward, attempting to seize the object in its hand.

But something entirely unexpected happened!

The instant the puppet's silver-glowing fingertips touched the cyan light, the cyan plume suddenly blazed with brilliant light and vanished on the spot in a blur, as if it had escaped into the void.

The puppet's grab caught only empty air!

The humanoid puppet's figure stiffened for a moment, seemingly somewhat startled as well.

But the next instant, over thirty zhang away, cyan light flashed and that spiritual object leisurely reappeared, as if it had not been the one performing the teleportation just now.

This time, the puppet coldly stared at the cyan plume and did not act rashly, while the spiritual object once again drifted away.

However, the puppet's observation did not last long. When the cyan cluster had drifted over a hundred zhang away, it acted again.

As silver light blazed forth, the puppet transformed into a silver rainbow and appeared above the plume feather. This time it did not reach down directly with its palm, but instead waved a single hand downward into the void.

A silvery, gleaming giant hand materialized and grabbed downward.

The same scene played out. With a tremor of cyan light, the plume feather teleported away once more.

But this time, just as it reappeared somewhere nearby, a thunderous rumble erupted overhead, and a golden net of lightning descended head-on, catching the spiritual object within it with the speed of lightning.

The plume feather's spiritual light flashed wildly several times as it teleported repeatedly, but each time it vanished and reappeared, it would crash headlong into the golden net, then be unceremoniously repelled back by the golden light—its teleportation divine ability thoroughly countered.

At this moment, above the golden lightning net, a figure appeared in a flash of uncanny light—it was Han Li himself, who had likewise rushed to the seabed.

Han Li stared at the cyan plume within the golden net, clicking his tongue in wonder several times.

This object truly appeared extraordinary!

Not only was it an unusual emerald green, shrouded in cyan light, but upon close inspection the patterns on its surface were actually formed from mysterious runes of various shapes, densely packed, appearing and disappearing in turn.

However, at the tip of the plume a small section was scorched, while at the base end there were several streaks of bloodstains, which flickered with threads of golden light.

Seeing the cyan plume's appearance, how could Han Li fail to recognize its rarity? Joy flashed across his face. With a single pat at his waist, several talismans immediately appeared in his palm.

With a flick of his hand, a talisman shot toward the net. But with a flash of cyan light, the plume feather let the talisman pass right through it as if it were an illusion.

Han Li was startled, but then his surprise turned to delight rather than anger.

With such abundant spiritual intelligence, this object only further proved itself to be no trivial thing.

Immediately he formed hand seals with both hands, muttering incantations under his breath.

The golden lightning net shrank rapidly amid the incantations, finally condensing to a diameter of about a zhang, leaving the cyan plume nowhere to hide within the net.

Then he opened his mouth and sprayed a ball of essence blood onto the talismans in his hand. At the same time, he cast a string of hand seals in succession, all of which flashed and vanished into the talismans without a trace.

After shooting these talismans out once more, although the cyan plume within the golden net swayed violently, this time the talismans all stuck firmly to its surface.

The cyan light dimmed, and the plume feather instantly became plain and unadorned.

Only then did Han Li confidently retract the Evil-Repelling Divine Thunder. With a single grab, he drew the floating, motionless cyan plume into his hand.

After examining it carefully, his brow suddenly arched, and he extended a single finger to tap it lightly.

An incredible scene unfolded!

Amid the flickering of faint spiritual light, the cyan plume rapidly shrank, and after a moment had become only about a chi in size.

And the talismans stuck to its surface shrank along with it—quite wondrous.

Han Li's expression shifted. Gripping the base of the object with one hand, he gently shook it a few times.

Immediately, layer upon layer of cyan light flashed across the plume feather's surface, and an extraordinarily powerful wind-attribute spiritual energy radiated outward.

The purity of this spiritual energy made it impossible for Han Li to conceal his delight!

Now was not the time to consider the object's uses. Han Li stored the spiritual object into a jade box and then into his storage pouch, and had the humanoid puppet search the surrounding area once more.

But this time there was not the slightest gain.

Nevertheless, Han Li was already thoroughly satisfied. He did not linger any longer in this sea region. With a sweep, he collected the humanoid puppet and transformed into a streak of escape light, flying away from the place.

On the journey toward Biling Island that followed, Han Li began to carefully ponder the matter of the giant bird and the ghost mist.

Clearly, the great battle he had witnessed was far beyond what any Human Realm cultivator could intervene in. That giant bird should have been a fearsome demon beast from the Spirit Realm or another realm, and that ghost mist was actually alive—and appeared to be even more formidable than the giant bird.

This had given Han Li quite a shock at the time!

In the Human Realm, a being capable of such inconceivable divine abilities could only be one of those legendary types of demonic entities.

In years past, when he had been trapped in the Yinming Land, someone had already suspected that the ghost mist, the Yinming Land, and the demonic entity Luo Hou were connected. After all, only such a half-spirit, half-demon thing would possess the inconceivable divine ability to easily tear through space and drift between realms.

That incomprehensibly enormous giant bird apparently possessed a similar heaven-defying divine ability; otherwise it could not have forcibly attacked the Ghost Fog through the barrier of the interface.

With Han Li's current breadth of experience, and the numerous ancient texts he had read before, he had actually guessed the truth of the matter fairly accurately.

But no matter how much he had guessed correctly, a terrifying existence like Luo Hou was naturally something he could not influence in the slightest. He could only treat it as a bizarre experience.

Two months later, on a certain day, Han Li was flying across the sea surface when his expression suddenly shifted; he slightly adjusted his direction and shot toward a certain place.

The result was that he had only flown a few li when bursts of explosive sounds came from ahead.

Not far ahead, spiritual light flickered incessantly; three cultivators were desperately resisting the pursuit of a high-tier demonic beast. Of the three, only one was at early Core Formation, while the other two were at late Foundation Establishment, yet the demonic beast was a sixth-tier demonic beast. Even fighting together, the three could only barely protect themselves.

Han Li's escape light paused without any change in expression, and he carefully examined the battle with his gaze.

The Core Formation cultivator was a middle-aged man wearing a bamboo hat that concealed most of his face; his complexion seemed dark, and he drove a yellowish-brown flying sword with remarkable skill, taking on nearly half of the demonic beast's attacks. The two late Foundation Establishment cultivators were a white-haired old man and a young woman of seventeen or eighteen. They respectively drove a cyan flying fork and a crimson fire wheel, which also possessed considerable power.

As for the opposing sixth-tier demonic beast, white mist swirled around its entire body, infant wailing sounds came from its mouth, and clusters of blue Lei Guang shot out from the mist—it was clearly the first high-tier demonic beast he had ever seen in the Scattered Star Sea, the "Ying Li Beast."

However, compared to the one he had seen back then, this beast was a full size larger, and the four pale, tender arms gripping four treasures were also quite extraordinary.

One blade, one sword, one drum, one banner.

Among these four treasures, the blade, sword, and banner were passable—merely rare top-grade magic artifacts—but the small, hazy-yellow drum was a genuine ancient treasure; when swung, rings of silver ripples sprayed out in all directions, seemingly quite powerful.

Han Li's arrival clearly drew the attention of both sides at once. After clearly seeing Han Li's human face, the hat-wearing man was overjoyed and called out without further thought:

"I am Chen Jing of Lei Kong Island! If Fellow Daoist is willing to act, Chen will certainly reward you handsomely afterward!" Pressed too tightly by the demonic beast, this man did not even have the leisure to scan Han Li's cultivation with his divine sense, and simply took Han Li for some passing Core Formation cultivator.

After all, the intensity of Han Li's escape light was indeed about the same as an ordinary Core Formation cultivator's, and had not revealed any overly dazzling brilliance.

As for the Ying Li Beast, which had already advanced to sixth tier, it had already awakened a portion of its spiritual intelligence.

After it hid in the water mist and scanned Han Li's cultivation with its divine sense, its infant face immediately revealed an expression of extreme terror. Before Han Li had finished smiling and replied to those cultivators, the beast let out a strange cry, and suddenly a hundred thunderbolts erupted from the water mist; over a hundred blue thunderballs shot simultaneously at the three cultivators fighting it, while it itself shot out from the water mist and plunged toward the sea surface below like a falling star.

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