Chapter 574: Nearing the Limits

In the sky above an enormous canyon, long arcs of silver lightning sprang forth amid violent spatial fluctuations, forming a lightning array in mid-air, and Han Li appeared at the center of the array amid a rumbling thunderclap.

He looked around momentarily before summoning his flying carriage, which immediately began racing forward as a green shadow at his behest.

After that, he summoned Daoist Xie and instructed it to pilot the carriage in his stead, then sat down with his legs crossed to continue cultivating the Spirit Refinement Technique.

Countless kilometers away from Han Li, the Gold Devouring Immortal was giving off blinding golden radiance as it flew through the air at an astonishing speed.

Compared with how infuriated it had been in the past, it was now a lot calmer.

Clearly, it had already grown accustomed to its target's strategy of periodically disappearing before reappearing elsewhere, and its strategy in response was just to keep pursuing its target without pause.

Given its cultivation base and the incredible physical constitutions of all Gold Devouring Immortals, it could easily keep this up indefinitely.

......

Close to a month later.

As the Gold Devouring Immortal began approaching once again, Han Li had no choice but to flee again using his lightning teleportation array.

......

Half a year later, the flying carriage was racing through a boundless sea of gray mist.

The mist was churning like turbulent waves, significantly hampering the speed of the flying carriage.

There were around a dozen gray lizard-like primordial beasts pursuing the carriage, every single one of which was at the Golden Immortal Stage, while one of them was around twice the size of the others and giving off a High Zenith Stage aura.

The lizard-like demon beasts were roaring with excitement as pillars of gray light erupted out of their mouths toward the flying carriage up ahead.

Meanwhile, Han Li was piloting the carriage with a grim look on his face, doing his best to avoid the pillars of gray light, while Jin Tong, Xiao Bai, and Daoist Xie were at the back fo the carriage, warding off the pillars of gray light that he wasn't able to evade.

All the while, the Gold Devouring Immortal continued to stalk them from several million kilometers away.

......

Two years later.

On the boundless yellow desert, gusts of ferocious wind were howling incessantly, and the landscape was riddled with enormous tornados that stood like pillars between heaven and earth.

There were bursts of yellow light flashing within the tornados, and they were giving off a tremendous rumbling noise that caused the surrounding space to tremble as waves of spatial fluctuations swept outward in all directions.

Occasionally, two of these giant tornados would crash into one another, and countless spatial rifts would instantly appear as a result.

A ball of green light and a ball of golden light were flying through the desert one after another, and both of them were doing their best to avoid the tornados while forging ahead with great difficulty.

The ball of golden light was clearly much faster than the ball of green light in front of it, and the distance between the two was rapidly shrinking.

All of a sudden, arcs of silver lightning erupted out of the ball of green light, instantly forming a silver lightning array, following which the ball of green light vanished amid a rumbling thunderclap.

......

Over a decade flew by in a flash.

At this moment, a ball of green light was racing through the sky above a boundless swamp.

The ball of light was green in color, but not a uniform green throughout. Instead, it was an amalgamation of all types of different shades of green.

Despite so many shades of green being mixed together, the ball of light was somehow very nondescript, and it was able to camouflage itself against the surrounding space, making it very difficult to spot.

With the ball of light was the flying carriage that Han Li and the others were on.

The color of the flying carriage was far different from what it had been in the past. Previously, the carriage had looked as if it had been carved out of a single chunk of green jade, yet at this moment, it was a hideous patchy green color, as if something had been smeared over it.

While the flying carriage was looking far more unsightly than before, this patchy green light that it was giving off was able to conceal all of its spiritual power fluctuations, as well as the spiritual power fluctuations emanating from the hexagonal array on the carriage.

This green substance was a type of spirit tree sap that Han Li had obtained by chance while passing through a primordial tribe, and it had spared him a lot of trouble.

At this moment, there was a rather grim look on his face as he piloted the flying carriage, while a pale-faced Jin Tong was sitting beside him, nibbling on a spirit treasure.

Xiao Bai was laying on the ground on his other side, and it was clear that it was also taking some time to recover.

"It's less than 100,000 kilometers away now," Jin Tong suddenly reported.

Han Li took a glance behind the carriage, and a hint of blue light flashed through his eyes, following which he turned back around to face forward again before making a string of hand seals.

Arcs of silver lightning erupted out of his body, forming a lightning array around the flying carriage with countless lightning runes dancing within it.

A rumbling thunderclap rang out as the lightning array lit up, following which the flying carriage vanished in a flash.

Mere moments after the flying carriage disappeared, a ball of golden light shot forth from afar, then drew to a halt where the flying carriage had just disappeared.

The golden light faded to reveal the Gold Devouring Immortal, and it inspected its surroundings momentarily, then continued onward with a cold sneer on its face.

At the same time, a burst of spatial fluctuations erupted in the air above a lush forest countless kilometers away, and a ball of golden lightning appeared before rapidly spreading outward to form a golden lightning array, at the center of which Han Li and the green flying carriage emerged.

Han Li cast an incantation seal into the flying carriage, and it immediately continued onward while releasing the same patchy green light as before.

Even though he had managed to open up some distance on the Gold Devouring Immortal once again, he didn't relax in the slightest. Instead, he seemed to have only grown more concerned.

He had been fleeing from the Gold Devouring Immortal for over a decade up to this point, and during this time, he had encountered countless crises.

Not only had they been attacked by all types of primordial beasts, they were occasionally even targeted by frighteningly powerful primordial true spirits, and that wasn't even to mention all the types that they had stumbled into different perilous regions.

If it weren't for his immense spiritual sense, time law powers, and the large collection of powerful treasures and allies at his disposal, he would've most likely already perished in the primordial land even before the Gold Devouring Immortal caught up to them.

Of course, out of all of this, the Gold Devouring Immortal still remained the most potent threat.

Up to this point, he had pulled out all the stops, including even the Lightning Restraining Wood teleportation array that could facilitate ultra long-distance teleportation, and he had also attempted to lure the Gold Devouring Immortal into some perilous areas in the hope that it would be slowed down.

However, the Gold Devouring Immortal was extremely formidable, and not only were the primordial beasts that it encountered completely unable to pose a threat to it, it was also able to negotiate all of Han Li's traps with ease.

Whenever the situation became truly dire, Han Li would use his lightning teleportation array to get away just in the nick of time.

He possessed the Lightning Bird bloodline in his body, and he also had the Divine Devilbane Lightning of his Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords and the assistance of Daoist Xie, so as long as he didn't run out of Immortal Origin Stones, he would be able to replenish his lightning power reserves indefinitely, but eventually, his resources were going to be exhausted.

Even though Han Li did everything in his power to speed up his own recovery after unleashing his lightning teleportation array, the process of conversion from immortal spiritual power to lightning power was a very time-consuming one, so it was certainly not sustainable.

In particular, the Gold Devouring Immortal seemed to have recently realized the sticky situation that Han Li was in, and it was exerting even more pressure in its pursuit. As a result, Han Li's lightning power reserves were being quickly whittled down, and he was going to run out before too long.

With that in mind, he heaved a faint sigh as he summoned his Mantra Treasured Axis.

Most of the Time Dao Runes on its surface had already recovered, and that was a very encouraging sight.

With these Time Dao Runes recovered, even if the Gold Devouring Immortal were to catch up to them, he had some confidence in his ability to deal with it.

Right at this moment, Jin Tong suddenly stood up as she declared, "I'm ready to go, Uncle."

Daoist Xie immediately took over piloting the carriage from Han Li upon hearing this, while Han Li made his way over to Jin Tong's side before sitting down with his legs crossed.

He then pressed a hand over her glabella while chanting an incantation, and a layer of translucent light emerged over his glabella.

As the incantation continued, the burst of translucent light grew brighter and brighter, and it flowed out of his body before surging into Jin Tong's head through the palm of his hand.

A series of translucent spirit patterns instantly appeared on her forehead, and they were giving off faint spiritual power fluctuations.

The cloud-like patterns that had appeared on Jin Tong's forehead were very similar to the ones imparted by Soul Armor Talismans.

Certain rare materials were required to craft Soul Armor Talismans, thereby making them very expensive, and even with Han Li's enormous wealth, the expenditure was too much for him to maintain over a long period of time. Hence, he began to study the talisman, and he discovered that it worked by converting one's spiritual sense into a substantial form before transforming it into a protective barrier that was infused into the talisman for others to use.

After figuring out the inner workings of the talisman, he immediately attempted to replicate it.

On top of that, he had been cultivating the fourth level of the Spirit Refinement Technique with every spare moment that he had.

It was unclear whether he was truly really suited to cultivating the Spirit Refinement Technique, or whether his latent potential had been brought to the fore by the constant danger that he was in. In any case, he had been making rapid progress in the fourth level of the Spirit Refinement Technique. At this point, he had almost fully mastered it, and his spiritual sense had been enhanced by around twofold.

With his enhanced spiritual sense, Han Li was better equipped to replicate the Soul Armor Talismans, and even though he wasn't able to craft them due to a lack of materials, he was able to reference them to cast a layer of protection over Jin Tong's soul.

Jin Tong opened her eyes, then flew into Xiao Bai's body as a streak of golden light.

Meanwhile, Han Li took over from Daoist Xie again, then immediately changed directions before flying onward.

Once again, the Gold Devouring Immortal found itself unable to detect Jin Tong's presence, and it gave a cold harrumph, but it wasn't concerned at all.

It could sense that its target was already nearing their limits, and they wouldn't be able to run away for much longer.

With that in mind, the golden light radiating from its body grew even brighter as it raced forward at an even faster speed than before.