Chapter 1971: Underground Glacier
Five-colored light flashed within the black hole, and the heavenly phoenix abruptly vanished.
With the heavenly phoenix's innate spatial abilities and Han Li's past experience with spatial rifts, he naturally wasn't going to see this mere devilish node as much of an obstacle.
After all, even normal devilish lords could pass through this node; there should definitely be no issues for him.
The only thing that he was wary of was that there could be some extremely powerful devilish beings situated on the other side of the node, in which case he would be landing himself in a lot of hot water.
However, the chances of this happening in such a small node was virtually negligible.
After flying through the devilish winds for a while and breaking through a dozen or so barriers formed by spatial power, specks of light began to appear up ahead.
Han Li was ecstatic to see this, and he flapped his wings vigorously. Five-colored light flashed over his body, and he became a barely visible shadow.
The exit on the other side of the node led to a boundless grey desert.
On the ground down below, there were two black buildings that seemed to be a pair of watchtowers, within which were several tens of devilish guards who looked up at the node from time to time.
After the span of just a few breaths, the spatial power faded, and the heavenly phoenix emerged from the node, then immediately vanished into thin air.
Even the most powerful devilish guards situated in the two watchtowers were only at the Nascent Soul Stage, and nothing of note had happened here for many years, so they had become complacent and completely failed to notice Han Li's stealthy entrance.
The heavenly phoenix emerged in the distant sky before reverting back to its human form, and Han Li heaved a faint sigh of relief as he cast his gaze back toward the node with a slightly peculiar look in his eyes.
His infiltration into the Elder Devil Realm had been far smoother than he had anticipated, and he hadn't been made to use any of the measures he had painstakingly prepared.
This naturally made him quite elated.
Han Li began to inspect his surroundings in this realm that the human race proclaimed to be a hellish cesspool of a world.
The sky was of a faint yellow color, and there was no cloud or mist to be seen. There were three crimson suns overhead, and aside from that, everything else seemed to be quite similar to what things were like in the Spirit Realm.
The only other striking difference that could be sensed was that the spiritual Qi here was clearly a lot less abundant than it was in the Spirit Realm, and there was faint devilish Qi drifting all throughout the surrounding air.
However, this devilish Qi was not very pronounced, and it could easily be missed if someone weren't paying attention to it.
This was a rather surprising sight for Han Li.
However, he hadn't ventured into the Elder Devil Realm to conduct geographic research; he had something important that he had to do. As such, he only inspected his surroundings for a short while before chanting something, and his suit of devilish armor reappeared before expelling a large amount of inky-black devilish Qi that completely inundated his body.
Immediately thereafter, he made a hand seal, and his human aura was completely concealed.
He then let loose a low cry, and faint golden scales appeared over his body. However, after coming into contact with the devilish Qi, the scales immediately turned black. At the same time, a third black demonic eye also appeared on his glabella.
Han Li made a brief inspection of his own body with a faint smile on his face. With his current aura and appearance, he was identical to a high-grade devilish being.
If he didn't encounter any devilish beings that were more powerful than himself, no one would be able to see through his disguise.
Following his transformation, Han Li didn't dare to linger in the area any longer and immediately flew away as a gust of black wind.
Around an hour later, he emerged from the desert and appeared above a hill that was riddled with grey shrubs.
As soon as he reached this place, he immediately noticed that the devilish Qi had become denser. The difference was only an extremely minute one, but it confirmed Han Li's suspicions, which was that just like spiritual Qi, the abundance of devilish Qi differed from area to area in the Elder Devil Realm.
Han Li continued onward and flew for a day and a night. He passed through the hilly region, over a giant lake, and through several black mountain ranges.
Perhaps it was because the Elder Devil Realm was very bleak and barren to begin with or he was traveling in the wrong direction, but aside from a few low-grade devilish beasts, he didn't encounter any other devilish beings.
This made Han Li feel slightly more relaxed, but also a bit more wary.
On the fourth day, Han Li finally encountered several mid-grade devilish beings with human bodies and horse heads battling at the foot of a small mountain.
These devilish beings wielded wooden clubs with beasthide garments draped over their bodies. They were extremely ferocious, and seemed to possess a certain level of intelligence.
There was a black devilish beast that resembled a sabertooth tiger lying completely still nearby, and it was quite clear that these devilish beings were fighting over this prized prey.
Han Li was ecstatic to see this, and he descended from above before releasing a few arcs of golden lightning to knock out these devilish beings.
He then made a grabbing motion to draw one of them into his grasp before pressing a hand firmly onto the top of the devilish being's head.
His eyes narrowed slightly, and black light flashed from his fingertips as he unleashed a soul search technique.
Just as he had expected, the devilish being possessed only a very elementary level of intelligence, and there really wasn't much for him to sift through in its spiritual sense.
Thankfully, he wasn't searching for any complex information, and from through his soul search technique, he discovered a suitable place that wasn't far away.
Golden lightning sprang forth from his hand again to instantly incinerate this devilish being into dust, and he did the same for the other devilish beings, as well as that devilish beast carcass.
After that, he flew toward a different direction compared to his original one.
Several hours later, a boundless canyon appeared up ahead.
The black winds faded, and Han Li appeared in the air above the canyon before casting his gaze downward.
The canyon down below was several thousand feet wide and unfathomably deep. Howlings winds were blowing incessantly through it, and there was a vast expanse of murky yellow mist within it.
Han Li descended into the canyon without any hesitation as grey light flashed over his body, and the fierce winds faded as soon as it came into contact with this grey light.
As he descended further and further, the air temperature plummeted drastically, and a layer of frost could be seen on the faces of the canyon.
These temperatures naturally weren't low enough to be of concern to Han Li, and after descending for over 10,000 feet, he finally reached the bottom of the canyon, where a blue glacier was situated.
Theoretically speaking, the temperatures here should've frozen this river completely solid, but it showed no signs of freezing over at all. However, there were thick layers of blue ice on either side of the river, and fierce winds were howling in the air over 100 feet above the glacier.
Han Li hovered in the air several tens of feet above the glacier, and he swept his gaze downward, upon which a hint of surprise appeared on his face.
"This river is indeed rather peculiar; it's so calm and still on the surface, but it's as violent as a waterfall deeper down; it most likely leads straight to an underground river. On top of that, the glacial power here is also rather peculiar," Han Li murmured to himself.
Right at this moment, a burst of hissing rang out from the fierce winds up above, and two extraordinarily fast streaks of blue light shot forth, reaching Han Li in a flash.
This was a pair of translucent blue flying snakes with triangular heads and black crowns that resembled those of roosters. Just from their appearance alone, it was quite clear that they possessed lethal poison.
Han Li's expression darkened upon seeing this, and his hands shot forth in a blur to catch the two flying snakes before crushing them without any hesitation. The two snakes didn't even have a chance to utter one final sound before they were instantly killed.
Han Li tossed the bodies of the flying snakes into the water down below, they were instantly frozen solid before slowly sinking into the river, vanishing into its depths in the blink of an eye.
Han Li closed his eyes before releasing his spiritual sense to track the progress of the two snake carcasses, following which a content look soon appeared on his face.
"As expected, they were swept away. I don't know where this glacier will lead to, but I'm sure something that's tossed into it will have a very low likelihood of being discovered," Han Li murmured to himself as he flipped his hand over to produce a pristine white wooden box.
He took a rather forlorn glance at the wooden box, but gritted his teeth and tossed it downward in the end.
A layer of blue ice instantly appeared over the surface of the wooden box, and it also sank into the glacier.
Han Li stared down into the depths of the glacier in silence, and after close to an hour had passed, he heaved a faint sigh as the expression on his face eased slightly.
At this point, the wooden box had already disappeared into the underground river. He was quite reluctant to part with the treasure, but it contained two Sacred Ancestors, so it was naturally best to get rid of it as early as possible.
He didn't know whether those two devils would be able to escape from the confinement of the Devil Sealing Lock someday, but from this day forth, they no longer had anything to do with him. The Elder Devil Realm naturally wasn't a place to linger in for an extended period of time, so Han Li didn't hesitate any longer as he flew out of the canyon before embarking on a journey back to the Spirit Realm.
Meanwhile, within the space inside the wooden box that was drifting along the underground river, Che Qigong was meditating in a cave-like secret chamber with black and white light flashing over his body, seemingly cultivating something.
Within a mysterious stone hall elsewhere in the same space, Feng Xie was doing the same thing while seated atop a futon.
Both of them were completely oblivious to what was going on outside the wooden box, and if they were aware, they would most likely be cursing Han Li with all of the derogatory terms in their vocabulary. After all, Han Li had just unintentionally foiled their plan to secure the other half of the Chaotic Yin Yang Qi through his cautious actions.