Chapter 2278: Fish Monsters

Only then did Han Li take a glance at the colony of bats, and he extended a palm out of his sleeve before thrusting it nonchalantly through the air.

A dull thump rang out as all of the world’s origin Qi within a radius of hundreds of kilometers shuddered violently.

Countless rays of five-colored light began to appear, then converged in a frenzy to form a mountainous five-colored palm that came crashing down toward the bat colony with devastating force.

In the face of the giant palm’s enormous power, all of the crimson bats had begun exploding into clouds of blood mist even before the palm had fallen directly upon them.

As for their collective soundwaves, it had been instantly reduced to nothingness by this tremendous force.

The giant bat let loose an alarmed roar as the golden patterns on its body lit up, then erupted out of its body to form a golden light barrier that shielded it from all directions.

In the face of the enormous pressure, the golden light barrier tremored violently, while the giant bat was pressed flat onto the ground and completely immobilized.

"That’s quite an interesting innate protective ability. Unfortunately, it’s still too weak. Otherwise, I could’ve considered taking it as a spirit beast," Han Li murmured to himself with a slightly wistful expression.

He then pointed a finger toward the giant five-colored palm, and it instantly swelled drastically in size, crushing the golden light barrier and the giant bat before it even had a chance to cry out.

Han Li swept a sleeve through the air, and the giant five-colored palm instantly vanished, but there were still some golden runes lingering where the giant bat had just been before.

Han Li’s eyes narrowed slightly as he waved a hand toward the runes, releasing a burst of suction force that drew all of the runes into his grasp.

Han Li glanced at the golden runes before rubbing them between his hands, and golden light flashed erratically as the sound of metal grating on metal rang out.

As Han Li brought his hands apart again, a golden beasthide was revealed.

Those golden runes were none other than those golden patterns that had been on the giant bat’s body.

"This thing can be refined into a decent protective treasure, so it looks like this wasn’t a complete waste of time," Han Li murmured to himself before flipping a hand over to stow the beasthide away.

Immediately thereafter, his expression changed slightly as if he had sensed something, and blue light flashed within his eyes, upon which he caught sight of a massive flock of unidentifiable birds flying toward him from several hundred kilometers away.

These were a series of giant eagle-like birds each with two pairs of wings and a single horn on their heads, and all of them wore bloodthirsty expressions.

Han Li’s brows furrowed slightly as he withdrew his gaze, and after taking a final glance at the vast expanse of blood mist that was still lingering beneath the mountain, he shook his head before flying away as a streak of azure light.

That flock of birds posed no threat to him, but he had no intention of dealing with all of the beasts that were attracted to this place by the blood of those crimson bats.

After all, his main objective was to track down Asura Spiders.

......

Two days flew by in the blink of an eye, and during this time, Han Li didn’t reap any rewards aside from killing several powerful-looking beasts and discovering some rare materials.

Aside from two poisonous herbs that he didn’t know the name of, the other items were all quite valuable, but they weren’t of much use to him at his current cultivation base, so he would just have to give them to his disciples.

However, on the third day, Han Li finally discovered some things related to Asura Spiders in a black valley.

He was currently standing inside an obscure beast lair in the valley, within which were several bear-human hybrid beasts, all of which were lying on a straw-matted ground in a completely still manner. Their fur was completely snowy white, and their flesh had completely withered away, but there weren’t any wounds on their bodies; it was as if all of them had died naturally from old age.

Han Li observed these carcasses for a short while, then swept a sleeve through the air to release several fiery snakes that instantly incinerated the bodies into ashes.

Even though the carcasses had been incinerated, there were still some translucent threads left on the ground.

Han Li made a grabbing motion to draw the translucent threads into his grasp, then enveloped them in balls of azure light.

He then swept his spiritual sense toward them, and his expression immediately changed slightly.

He extended a hand into the azure stroke, then stroked one of the translucent threads with a finger.

All of a sudden, the translucent thread transformed into a layer of blue light that quickly spread up his entire arm.

The flesh on his arm that was enshrouded within the blue light began to rapidly wither away at a rate that was discernible to the naked eye, and an aged aura began to emanate from the affected limb.

Han Li’s expression darkened slightly as he instantly withdrew his finger from the translucent thread, following which a burst of golden light flowed along his arm to eradicate the spreading blue light.

Azure light then flowed over his arm, and it instantly returned to its former supple state, as if the sight of it withering away had been nothing more than an illusion.

"That was the power of time. It can’t be referred to as the true law of time, but it’s still an extremely rare innate ability. Looks like there are Asura Spiders prowling in this area," Han Li murmured to himself as a hint of excitement appeared in his eyes.

Immediately thereafter, the translucent threads in his grasp vanished amid a flash of azure light.

These things didn’t pose a threat to him, but they definitely shouldn’t be left out in the open.

After that, Han Li flew out of the beast lair and began to carefully search through the area around the valley.

However, he returned to the valley several hours later with a dark expression, clearly having just gone on a futile search.

Han Li hovered in the air above the valley for a while with a contemplative expression.

All of a sudden, a thought seemed to have occurred to him, and he made a hand seal before releasing his spiritual sense downward, directing it tens of thousands of feet deep into the ground.

A short while later, a hint of elation appeared on his face, and he immediately flew toward another direction as a streak of azure light.

Shortly thereafter, Han Li appeared above a lake not far away, and he cast his gaze downward before descending from above.

He then plunged into the lake, and moments later, countless arcs of golden lightning erupted within the lake amid a rumbling thunderclap.

Countless fish of different descriptions began to rise up to the surface with their bellies facing the sky, and all of them had been completely charred black.

After that, the lake fell completely silent as if it were a dead lake.

At this point, Han Li was situated in a crude passageway tens of thousands of feet underground that could only fit one person at a time, and there were uneven azure stone blocks all around him.

The passageway was quite lopsided, and it led deeper into the ground.

This was a suspicious place that Han Li had discovered by chance using his spiritual sense.

The entire passageway was lined with these azure stone blocks, and even with Han Li’s enormous spiritual sense, his sensory range was severely restricted, so it was clear that these stone blocks weren’t ordinary materials.

This was what had drawn Han Li’s suspicion in the first place.

However, after discovering another translucent thread as he traveled along the passageway, Han Li knew that he was on the right track and immediately accelerated.

After delving close to 100,000 feet into the ground, scorching heatwaves began to surge toward him from down below.

The temperature here was so high that an ordinary being would most likely instantly be reduced to a dried corpse. However, Han Li completely disregarded the heat, keeping it out with a layer of faint azure light.

After rounding a few corners, a flashing red light became visible up ahead, and the sound of conversation could also be heard.

Han Li’s eyes narrowed slightly, and specks of spiritual light suddenly emerged all over his body, following which he became completely blurry and indistinct.

After passing through a crimson wave of fire, Han Li emerged stealthily from the passageway and arrived above an underground lava lake.

The lake was filled with scorching lava, and thick pillars of flames were occasionally erupting upward from its surface, striking the exit of the passageway, causing the stones there to be extremely smooth and crimson in color.

There was a series of translucent fiery red crystals floating within the lava, and Han Li swept his spiritual sense toward the crystals to discover that these were extremely rare top-grade fire spirit stones.

In fact, the fire spiritual Qi imbued within these stones was even more potent than that of the average top-grade fire spirit stone in the Spirit Realm.

However, none of that attracted Han Li’s attention; he was currently appraising a woman and a group of demonic creatures at the edge of the lava lake.

These demonic creatures had human upper bodies paired with lower bodies of fish, and each of them had four arms. The male creatures had golden bands around their arms, while the women had silver ribbons in their hair, and they were either empty-handed or wielding short crimson halberds.

Not far in front of these creatures stood a woman who appeared to be around 21 to 22 years of age, appraising the creatures before her with a calm expression.