"What is it, Brother Li? Are we being attacked?" Shi Chuankong asked, while Daoist Xie also turned to him with an inquisitive look.

Han Li remained silent as he cast his gaze toward a small mountain several kilometers away.

Shi Chuankong also turned his attention to the same mountain, but wasn't able to see anything special about it.

Before Shi Chuankong had a chance to ask any further questions, Han Li suddenly patted the shell of the Space Walking Turtle, and it resumed its flight at his behest, with its feet gliding through the air like oars.

Its speed was inferior to that of the Hover Flight Bird, but not by much.

Around a thousand feet away from the small mountain, Han Li leaped up into the air, then crashed heavily to the ground under the immense spatial pressure.

However, he didn't even take a moment to steady himself before rushing up the small mountain as quickly as he could, and Shi Chuankong and Daoist Xie exchanged a perplexed glance with each other before also jumping down from the turtle's back in pursuit of Han Li.

The mountain was no more than a thousand feet tall, and Han Li had rushed all the way to the entrance of an obscure cave that was around half the height of a grown man halfway up the mountain.

Shi Chuankong caught up to him before Daoist Xie, but before he had a chance to say anything, Han Li had already squeezed his way into the hole.

Shi Chuankong's brows furrowed slightly upon seeing this, and he hurriedly also followed along.

After squeezing into the hole and passing through a tight passageway, he emerged into a spacious area around twice the size of the average room.

The ceiling was also extremely tall, and there were several large holes in it, allowing the natural light from outside to filter through and illuminate the entire cave.

Shi Chuankong looked around to discover four strange-looking bodies on the ground in the cave, and Han Li was crouched down beside one of the bodies, seemingly examining something.

Shi Chuankong also began to inspect the bodies himself, and upon closer inspection, he discovered that two of the "bodies" weren't actually bodies. Instead, they were a pair of humanoid puppets, except their heads had been smashed, and large holes had also been punched into their chests.

As for the other two true bodies, their upper bodies were bared to reveal a layer of gray scales, and they appeared rather withered and dried out, perhaps because they had been dead for quite some time, or perhaps it had something to do with their cause of death.

Before long, Daoist Xie had also entered the cave, and he asked in a puzzled manner, "What are these things?"

"They're most likely fugitives that were exiled into this place," Shi Chuankong replied.

"Brother Shi, can you see anything from these bodies?" Han Li asked as he rose to his feet with tightly clenched fists.

"Two of these are bodies, while the other two are puppets, and judging from their injuries, they seemed to have killed each other, indicating that they're most likely from two opposing forces," Shi Chuankong deduced.

"I'm thinking the exact same thing. I think they were fighting over someone here," Han Li said with a grim expression.

A look of realization appeared on Shi Chuankong's face upon hearing this.

"You don't mean..."

"That's right, I've found something of Violet Spirit's here," Han Li confirmed as he spread a hand open to reveal a black veil usually worn over a woman's face.

"Are you sure this belongs to Fellow Daoist Violet Spirit?" Shi Chuankong asked.

"Her blood is on this veil, and there's no way I'll misidentify her aura. The battle that took place here was most likely over her, so she's probably been abducted by whichever side that came out on top," Han Li said.

"The state of these bodies indicates that they're already long dead. I wonder when Fellow Daoist Violet Spirit was here," Shi Chuankong mused.

"That's impossible to tell for now. On the way here, I didn't discover any trace of her, nor did I detect her aura, so there's a very good chance that she didn't enter the Scalptia Spatial Domain from the entrance in the Black Water Region. Perhaps there are other entrances to this domain in the Devil Realm," Han Li sighed.

"That's definitely a real possibility. I'm sure Lady Ju wasn't willing to tell Pokong exactly where Fellow Daoist Violet Spirit entered the Scalptia Spatial Domain from. If we had known that this was a possibility, we should've asked Xu Fu before we came in here," Shi Chuankong mused with a concerned expression.

𝑓𝑟𝑒𝘦𝓌𝑒𝑏𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝘭.𝒸𝘰𝑚

"I did consider it, but there wouldn't have been any point. If Violet Spirit really was sent into the Scalptia Spatial Domain through an entrance overseen by him, would he have dared to admit it if he became aware of our objective? He would've either only lied to cover for himself, or even fed us false information," Han Li said.

"Well, the good thing is that we have some leads now. As long as we can track down one of the two forces that were here, we'll be able to find out more information about Fellow Daoist Violet Spirit's whereabouts," Shi Chuankong said.

Han Li offered no response. It was clear that Violet Spirit had suffered some form of injury here, and that left him feeling very concerned.

"Let's go. Seeing as we've confirmed that she's on this continent, it's only a matter of time before we find her," Han Li said, then made his way out of the cave.

……

Half a month later.

Han Li's trio arrived in a mountainous area, and it was near impossible for the Space Walking Turtle to make any progress here as it could only hover a few dozen feet above the ground, so Han Li had no choice but to release it and continue on foot.

One day, at around noon, the trio arrived at a long and thin valley, where an elated look suddenly appeared on Han Li's face.

"Have you found something?" Shi Chuankong immediately asked upon noticing Han Li's expression.

Han Li made a quieting gesture, then began to quickly move to his left while also waving for Shi Chuankong and Daoist Xie to follow along.

Before long, the three of them had traveled close to ten kilometers and arrived on the summit of a small mountain, where they hid behind a large rock, peering out at a col that was several dozen kilometers away.

There was a fierce battle taking place within the col, and they didn't get any closer for fear of being detected by the combatants.

One one side was a giant tiger-like beast that was over three hundred feet in length and around seventy to eighty feet tall. Its entire body was covered in huge dark brown scales that were giving off a metallic sheen, and its legs were incredibly thick and strong, while its paws were tipped with scythe-like claws that presented a fearsome sight to behold.

What was particularly eye-catching were the nine black bone spikes that resembled giant spears growing on the creature's back.

At this moment, the tiger-like beast was locked in battle against seven or eight men with very dark and coarse skin, and they were incredibly muscular and tall, significantly taller than even Han Li.

They were clad in suits of crude, gray bone armor, and the weapons that they were wielding also appeared to have been fashioned from some type of beast bone.

Despite its enormous frame, the tiger-like beast was remarkably agile, attacking with its fangs, claws, and its tail.

A series of craters had been smashed into the ground, and the shockwaves erupting from the battle had sliced numerous deep gashes into the nearby mountain faces.

The armored men had specks of light glowing all over their bodies, and they were able to move so quickly that they transformed into gray blurs, allowing them to evade all of the tiger-like beast's attacks.

Compared with their movements, the giant beast's attacks were made to look very clumsy and maladroit.

The specks of light on the bodies of those men were none other than profound acupoints, and even the one with the least profound acupoints among them had opened up over ten, while their leader had a total of fifty to sixty profound acupoints distributed over his body.

On top of that, the placement of his profound acupoints were highly specialized, with some on his chest and abdomen, while the rest, consisting of close to half, were gathered in his right arm.

"Are these fugitives that were exiled into the Scalptia Spatial Domain? We've finally run into some! Should we go and meet them?" Shi Chuankong asked in an elated manner.

"The fact that they were exiled here indicates that they're not good people, so I think it's best to stay put and observe for now," Han Li replied, and Shi Chuankong nodded in agreement.

The armorclad men were constantly moving around the tiger-like beast, striking its body with their bone weapons whenever the opportunity arose.

The bone weapons appeared to be quite crude, but were extremely sharp, and they were able to slice through even the scales on the giant beast's body to inflict long gashes.

As more and more gashes were inflicted onto the giant beast's body, its scales were quickly stained red, and it was moving far slower than before.

It attempted to escape on several occasions, but was unable to break out of the encirclement, and it had begun panting heavily.

All of a sudden, the giant beast let loose a thunderous roar, and its eyes began to glow crimson like a pair of red lanterns, while the nine bone spikes on its back began trembling and buzzing incessantly.

"Look out, it's about to use its trump card!" one of the armorclad men warned.

The leader of the ground immediately pounced on this opportunity, rushing over to the tiger-like beast before swinging the giant bone sword that he was wielding down upon the giant beast's shoulder.

A gruesome gash that was dozens of feet in length was instantly sliced into the giant beast's shoulder, and blood came gushing out in a frenzy.

The tiger-like beast howled in agony, then turned to the leader of the group before letting loose a thunderous roar, and the nine bone spikes on its back began vibrating rapidly before collectively hurtling toward him as nine black blurs.