Chapter 1978: Intervention
Han Li turned to glance at the little girl sitting on his shoulders, and a faint smile appeared on his face.
The little girl was none other than the Leopard Kirin Beast that had just awakened.
During his journey back to human territory, the Leopard Kirin Beast had finally awakened, and in the process, it gave him an unexpected surprise.
As soon as it had awakened, it had commenced its Body Integration Stage tribulation transcendence.
It possessed the bloodline of the true spirit Kirin, so the heavenly tribulation that befell was naturally extremely devastating.
An outsider couldn't step in during one's tribulation transcendence, so Han Li could only watch as the Leopard Kirin Beast was almost destroyed during the tribulation.
Thankfully, after devouring the demon core of that Dark Beast Monarch, it had managed to attain several new abilities that allowed it to just barely transcend its tribulation, and it was now able to manifest a human form.
At the time, the Leopard Kirin Beast had been in extremely dire condition, and Han Li had expended countless spirit pills to save its life. Otherwise, it would've already perished.
However, what left Han Li feeling rather speechless was that the human form manifested by the Leopard Kirin Beast was a little girl who appeared to be even younger than Qu'er.
If it were a normal person, it most likely wouldn't even be able to talk much yet.
Thankfully, despite its appearance, the Leopard Kirin Beast was able to directly communicate with him through spiritual sense, so communication wasn't an issue. Due to its unexpected tribulation transcendence, Han Li's trip back to Deep Heaven City was naturally delayed a little.
As such, it had taken him several months to reach this point.
The place that he was currently traveling toward was one of the few hidden teleportation formations designated for the elders of Deep Heaven City.
Due to the fact that this was a small formation that could only teleport a maximum of two people at a time, Deep Heaven City wasn't concerned about devilish beings discovering it and invading the city through it.
After all, even if two Body Integration Stage devilish lords were to teleport into the city at once, they would still be immediately surrounded, overwhelmed, and killed.
The only thing that Han Li was wary of was that a devilish ambush could've been set up near the formation. Of course, with his current level of powers, even if there were an ambush, it wouldn't be much of a problem.
Aside from Sacred Ancestor clones, even the average late-Body Integration Stage being wouldn't be able to defeat him. The probability of being chased by Sacred Ancestor clones again was downright negligible, so he didn't have anything to worry about.
After all, those Sacred Ancestor clones had descended into this realm to command the devilish army; they certainly couldn't just wait somewhere just to ambush someone.
In fact, there was even quite a low probability that devilish lords would appear here.
This was an important point in the devilish army's assault on Deep Heaven City; they weren't going to waste their most powerful beings by making them undertake such trivial duties.
Not long after that, the azure streak of light began to approach the mountain range up ahead.
All of a sudden, Han Li's expression changed slightly, and the azure light around his body faded as he stopped just outside the mountain then, peered deep into it through narrowed eyes.
Blue light flashed through his pupils, and everything up ahead was instantly made clear to him.
As a result, he was greeted by the sight of several tens of streaks of light flying toward him in a panicked manner.
Behind these streaks of light was a dense black devilish cloud that was giving chase in hot pursuit, and within this devilish cloud were ferocious devilish beasts and weapon-wielding devilish armored warriors.
Behind the several tens of streaks of light, there was an elderly man controlling a pair of flying swords, one azure and one yellow, to attack the devilish cloud with all his might.
The flying swords shot forth as sword projections that transformed into a giant sword that was several hundred feet in size to briefly stall the devilish cloud.
The two flying swords were immensely powerful and seemed to be beyond what the elderly man could wield with his Spatial Tempering Stage cultivation base.
With each sword strike that was unleashed, the elderly man's face would pale slightly, and when his face had become completely devoid of color, he opened his mouth to expel two balls of blood essence onto the flying swords.
The sword projections unleashed by the flying swords instantly became more dazzling than before, and the sword projections slew a large number of devilish beasts and devilish warriors before they had a chance to evade.
After several successive sword strikes, several hundred devilish warriors had been reduced to ashes.
This had clearly enraged the high-grade devilish beings hiding deep within the devilish cloud, and a thunderous roar abruptly rang out, following which an inky-black flying trident shot forth out of the devilish cloud.
The trident extended to over 1,000 feet in length in a flash before hurtling directly toward a powerful sword projection, and an earth-shattering boom erupted.
The two clashed violently before the sword projection faded, revealing a flying sword that flew back toward the elderly man.
As for the flying trident, it emitted an anguished wail before also flying back toward the devilish cloud, seemingly having been severely damaged during that clash.
"How dare you ruin my treasure? I'm going to make you regret ever being born once I capture you!" A furious roar rang out, presumably from the high-grade devilish being who was the owner of the flying trident.
Immediately thereafter, the devilish cloud surged before rising up to around twice its original height and sweeping directly toward the elderly man.
The elderly man's expression changed drastically upon seeing this, and he hurriedly sheathed his flying swords before flying back as an azure and yellow streak of light.
With the elderly man's valiant efforts in impeding the devilish clouds, all of the disciples had already fled to close to 100 kilometers away.
However, the devilish beings within the devilish cloud naturally weren't going to be willing to give up. Fierce devilish winds were swept up, and they continued to give chase.
The elderly man pulled out several pills as he flew through the air, and he didn't even bother to look at them before stuffing all of them into his own mouth as he appraised the devilish cloud with a grim expression.
He had already been extremely cautious when venturing into the canyon in search of the teleportation formation with his two junior martial brothers, but they still fell into a devilish ambush and were surrounded by seven or eight high-grade devilish beings.
In the end, his two junior martial brothers had detonated their own Nascent Souls souls to severely wound several of the high-grade devilish beings. Otherwise, even he would've most likely also perished at the scene.
Even so, they were currently in a dire situation, and it seemed that he was only delaying the inevitable.
The flying swords that he was wielding were the most prized treasures of the Huo Li Sect, and even though they were powerful enough to stall the devilish cloud, wielding them required a vast amount of energy expenditure, and the elderly man's magic power had almost been completely spent.
This was also why he hadn't continued to remain behind to keep the devilish cloud at bay.
Even though most of the disciples of the sect had managed to escape, it would only be a matter of time before they were chased down by the devilish cloud.
On top of that, this area had been taken over by the devilish army, so unless a miracle were to take place, it would be virtually impossible to truly escape.
The more the elderly pondered the situation, the more his heart began to sink. He knew that they were in a virtually unsalvageable situation, but he could only hope against hope that they could somehow be saved.
Thus, the group of Huo Li Sect cultivators continued to flee, and soon, the edge of the mountain range was in sight.
At this point, around a dozen of the weakest disciples among them had already fallen behind and were about to be engulfed by the devilish cloud.
Low roars rang out from the devilish beasts within the devilish cloud, and menacing looks also appeared on the faces of the armored devilish warriors, while the lagging disciples' faces turned deathly pale.
The sword-bearing elderly man heaved a forlorn internal sigh before turning around and hurtling directly toward the devilish cloud again.
A burst of raucous laughter rang out from within the devilish cloud, following which four burly Spatial Tempering Stage high-grade devilish beings emerged together.
One of them was wielding a black devilish trident; it was none other than the high-grade devilish being that had just repelled the elderly man's flying sword.
The other three devilish beings possessed powers that weren't inferior to this devil in the slightest.
Just as the elderly man was about to reach the devilish cloud, the four devils hurtled their treasures upward in unison.
A giant black trident, two white bone swords, a giant blue sword, and a mountainous yellow brick emerged in mid-air, then trapped the elderly man and forced him to stop.
Immediately thereafter, the five treasures crashed violently toward the elderly man at the behest of the four devilish beings.
A wry smile appeared on the elderly man's face upon seeing this, and he could only inject what little remained of his magic power into his two flying swords.
A loud buzzing sound instantly rang out from the two swords, and they transformed into a pair of giant sword projections again, then conjured up a thick sword barrier that shielded him from above.
These two flying swords were indeed remarkable treasures, but the collective attacks from those four devilish beings were nothing to be scoffed at, either.
Following a heavy blow from all five treasures, the sword barrier completely shattered, and the five treasures continued to descend toward him with devastating might.
The elderly man's face paled even further upon seeing this, and in his desperation, he could only open his mouth to expel a burst of azure light as one final struggle.
However, right at this moment, a cold male voice suddenly sounded nearby.
"Hmph, to think that even a few Spatial Tempering Stage pieces of devilish trash dare to try and kill someone in my presence! Your lives will be the ones coming to an end here!"
As soon as the male voice trailed off, a loud thunderclap rang out, and a humanoid figure appeared no more than 10 feet away from the elderly man, then made a grabbing motion upward in a nonchalant-looking manner.
The five devilish treasures that were descending from above abruptly shuddered before being repelled as if they had been struck by some kind of tremendous force. At the same time, the four high-grade devilish beings instantly lost control over their treasures, and this was naturally quite an alarming turn of events for them.