Chapter 92: Ninth Chain

Han Li's expression darkened slightly at the sight of this abrupt turn of events, but he then quickly composed himself again.

Given how strange those black chains were, it was only to be expected that they wouldn't be removed so easily.

After taking a moment to catch his breath, he launched a renewed assault, and an even denser expanse of threads of silver light surged incessantly into his dantian before hurtling toward the black chains.

A string of loud cracks and pops rang out, and the silver threads of light were still instantly shattered upon making contact with the black chains, but the chains themselves were also being constantly weakened.

Meanwhile, the blades formed by Han Li's spiritual sense continued to come crashing down.

In the face of these waves of attacks, the black runes around the chains became dimmer and dimmer.

However, Han Li wasn't all that elated to see this.

The black runes were being whittled away, but at this point, his magic power was also close to running out.

Even though he had made extensive preparations, storing the maximum amount of magic power that he could in his dantian and all of his organs, it seemed that this was still far from enough.

Han Li let loose a low roar as he drew upon all of his remaining magic power, causing all of the silver threads of light in his dantian to transform into eight glowing palms of silver light in a flash. The silver palms passed through the remaining black runes, then grabbed onto the eight black chains before tugging violently.

The black chains were instantly stretched taut, and a burst of sharp pain speared in Han Li's nascent soul.

Han Li gritted his teeth tightly, but a hint of excitement welled up in his heart.

Ever since his nascent soul was sealed by these black chains, he had been unable to feel it at all, but he had finally re-established some form of connection with it.

He immediately activated his Spirit Refinement Technique to maximal capacity, and all of his spiritual sense surged into his dantian before splitting into two, forming a pair of translucent giant axes amid a flash of light.

Several bolts of silver lightning then erupted out of the silver palms before wrapping themselves around the hilts of the giant axes, then raised them before bringing them down with tremendous force to strike the taut black chains.

A resounding boom rang out as the black chain shuddered violently, and a series of cracks appeared on the spot where it had been struck by the ax.

Han Li was ecstatic to see this, and he sent the giant ax crashing down once again.

Right at this moment, spatial fluctuations erupted around him, and a black chain appeared out of thin air, then vanished into his body in a flash before he was able to do anything.

The surrounding starlight array had been completely unable to impede the black chain.

After entering Han Li's body, the black chain wrapped itself around his nascent soul in a flash, connecting together with the other eight chains.

Countless black runes then emerged on the surface of the nine black chains, and they released bursts of dazzling black light that instantly pierced through the silver hands gripping onto the chains, causing them to disintegrate into nothingness.

The pair of giant axes also instantly shattered upon contact with the chains, crumbling away into countless specks of translucent light.

……

Meanwhile, in a hall deep in a certain desert in the Immortal Realm.

The zombie-like man had a single hand outstretched in front of him, and his entire body was enveloped in dazzling black light, within which countless black runes were flashing incessantly.

𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

The chains around him were dancing wildly like countless tentacles, crashing into the ground and the walls to cause a thunderous commotion.

The zombie-like man then set down his raised arm, and the black light glowing from his body quickly subsided, while the chains around him also settled down and fell onto the ground.

"Seeing as you're a disciple of mine, I'll help you one last time," the zombie-like man murmured to himself, then closed his eyes.

……

Inside the courtyard, Han Li instantly rose to his feet before inspecting his surroundings with blue light flashing in his eyes and a furious look on his face.

At the same time, he released his spiritual sense without any hesitation, instantly encompassing an area of the surrounding with a radius of thousands of kilometers around Dark Veil Island, but he was unable to discover anything in the end.

A short while later, he slowly sat back down with a grim expression.

The black chain that had just suddenly appeared had to have been sent from afar by an extremely powerful individual.

It seemed that the one who had placed this seal upon his nascent soul was far more formidable than he imagined.

All of a sudden, a thought occurred to Han Li, and he hurriedly injected his enormous spiritual sense into his dantian once again, forming a layer of translucent light that enveloped his nascent soul.

Perhaps this was nothing more than a futile effort, but he was hoping that doing this would cut off some connection between his nascent soul and the outside world.

After doing all of that, Han Li sat down once again with his legs crossed, then flipped a hand over to produce a Cloud Crane Herb that was in the thousands of years old before devouring it.

Even though his final attempt had ultimately failed, what was quite encouraging to him was that this method really did present a possibility for him to rid himself of these black chains.

The black chain that had appeared out of nowhere at the end had thwarted his plans, but as long as he had sufficient magic power to support his efforts, even with the addition of this new chain, he was confident that he would be able to break through this restriction.

……

A month later, in a peaceful courtyard on Dark Veil Island.

Seven massive pillars of white light were trailing down from the heavens, encompassing the entire courtyard.

Han Li was seated with his legs crossed and his eyes shut in the courtyard, and countless specks of white light were slowly dancing around him like fireflies, occasionally coming into contact with his skin, only to quickly spring back up into the air again.

At this moment, there was a thin veil of white light draped over the courtyard, but it was giving off bursts of gentle yet extremely rich starpower fluctuations.

Right at this moment, the seven specks of blue light on Han Li's chest and abdomen gradually faded, and the white light around him also slowly dissipated, while the seven pillars of light descending from the night sky quickly disappeared.

He slowly opened his eyes to look up at the starry night sky, and a wry smile appeared on his face as he murmured to himself, "As expected, it didn't work..."

During this past month, he had explored several methods to try and increase the amount of magic power in his body, but none of them had yielded any results.

During the past few days, he had begun to continue cultivating his Big Dipper Origin Arts, trying to find a way to further advance his Organ Refinement Origin Arts.

However, even though he could still draw starpower down from the heavens, the seven profound apertures in his body were already completely filled and unable to absorb any more starpower.

Han Li sighed as he continued to look up at the Big Dipper Origin Arts in the night sky, and his vision gradually began to blur, making it appear to him as if several of the stars in the Big Dipper were about to overlap and fuse together.

Right at this moment, a thought suddenly occurred to him: if he couldn't increase the amount of magic power in his body, then why didn't he just cultivate an avatar?

Han Li stroked his chin as he began to carefully ponder this notion.

Using an avatar to cultivate and accumulate magic power would allow him to bypass the problems presented by his sealed nascent soul. As long as his avatar could provide him with sufficient magic power, then he would be able to remove those troublesome black chains.

However, where was he going to get an avatar from?

Han Li had previously cultivated the Profound Nascent Formation Arts [1] and had once successfully cultivated a Wood Spirit Nascent, but this cultivation art required the refinement of a second nascent soul, which was a process that not only required the fulfillment of a very rigorous set of prerequisites, it also required the expenditure of a huge amount of time and energy, both of which were exactly the things that he couldn't afford to waste right now.

Out of all of the other avatar techniques that he knew of, all of them required a great deal of time investment as well, so they were also unfeasible to him.

Right as he was feeling stumped by this predicament, the thought of that head in the restricted zone on Dark Veil Island suddenly sprang into his mind, and his eyes immediately lit up.

Hold on, an Earthly Deity Avatar is also an avatar!

With that in mind, Han Li immediately stood up from the ground, then swept a hand through the air to release a streak of light out of his sleeve, which sped away toward a certain part of the island.

……

A few minutes later, two figures appeared in the restricted underwater zone situated in the northwestern part of Dark Veil Island.

One of them was Han Li, and he was accompanied by Luo Feng, who had a perplexed look on his face.

He had been cultivating in his cave abode just now when he suddenly received a voice transmission talisman, and he instantly traveled to the underwater cavern as instructed, but he had no idea why he had been summoned here.

"Is there something I can do for you, Senior Liu?" he asked.

"I have something that I want to ask you later," Han Li replied in a concise manner without offering any further explanation.

After that, he strode over to the stone platform before reaching out and lifting up the blue statue head.

After inspecting the head for a moment, blue light flashed within his eyes, and he extended a finger toward the head's glabella.

Luo Feng was quite alarmed to see this, and he was struck by an instinctive urge to stop Han Li, but in the end, he didn't do anything, merely remaining on the spot with his mouth gaped open slightly and his body inclined forward.

In the instant that Han Li's fingertip came into contact with the statue's glabella, a burst of light that was invisible to the naked eye had appeared on the head of the statue before surging through the air like rippling water.

The burst of light wasn't very bright, nor did it carry any destructive force, but in the instant that it came into contact with Han Li's body, he immediately shuddered as an incredulous look appeared on his face.

To his surprise, the chains within his nascent soul's body were faintly resonating with this burst of light, swaying slightly as the light continued to ripple through the air.

After a brief moment of contemplation, a burst of azure light suddenly lit up from Han Li's hand, and a wisp of pure magic power shot out of his fingertip before entering the statue head.

A storm seemed to have suddenly been stirred up within the statue head, and boundless power of faith surged and churned violently, releasing several bursts of light blue magic power that clashed directly with the azure magic power that Han Li had just released.

The azure magic power was very pure, but there was only a tiny wisp of it, and it was instantly dispelled on contact.

Han Li was ecstatic to see those bursts of blue magic power, and he withdrew his fingertip from the statue's head before turning to Luo Feng as he asked, "Regarding the Earthly Deity Avatar of your Dark Veil Island's Ancestral God, did it possess any other abilities aside from its ability to use the power of laws?"

At this point, the statue head had returned to normal, as had everything else in the underwater cavern.

Luo Feng was quite relieved to see that the statue head was unharmed, and he replied, "Ancestral God Luo Meng's Earthly Deity Avatar possessed no nascent soul, but it was able to use other abilities by converting the power of faith into magic power."

1. For more information on the Profound Nascent Formation Arts, please refer to RMJI Chapter 657: Profound Nascent Formation Arts. ☜