Published: August 25, 2025
Chapter 272: One Year
The person Han Li was thinking about was naturally Qi Yunxiao, with whom he had a multi-year agreement.
Since Qi Yunxiao’s friend, the formation master, was skilled in the Inverted Five Elements Formation, he must be proficient in other formations as well. The Ancient Transmission Formation was also a type of formation, so perhaps his friend could repair this formation?
Han Li thought this over and felt greatly tempted. Calculating the time, the day they had agreed to meet again was drawing near. However, since missions were constantly assigned within his sect, he couldn’t rush off to meet him now. It seemed he would have to find another way later on.
After some thought, Han Li felt a bit downhearted and lost interest in flipping through the formation manuals. He left the Tianzhi Pavilion and returned to his secluded mansion.
Back inside, Han Li noticed that the spider eggs had grown larger. It seemed the Spirit Eye Spring truly accelerated their hatching.
Seeing this, Han Li immediately drew a simple Spirit Control Magic Formation, a basic method cultivators use to control demonic beast eggs. Then, he dripped a few drops of his essence blood into the formation and placed the spider eggs inside. Once the formation activated, the two white eggs absorbed all the essence blood. He then returned the eggs to the Spirit Eye Spring.
Just after completing this, Han Li received a flying talisman transmission, summoning him to gather quickly at the council hall.
A chill ran through him—he knew the mission had finally arrived.
…
At the main battlefield between the Seven Sects and the Six Demon Sects, in a patch of broken stones on the Jin Gu Plain at the border of Yue Country and Cheqi Country, Han Li commanded two streaks of black light formed by the Black Dragon Graspers and several Golden Blades to relentlessly attack a Ghost Spirit Sect disciple in the early foundation establishment stage.
Though the opponent was enveloped in rolling black energy, terrifying to behold, and faintly audible were the eerie sounds of several skulls whistling, under the storm of attacks from Han Li’s two magical artifacts, he quickly found a flaw and swiftly sliced the enemy into several pieces.
Han Li expertly grabbed the storage pouch from the opponent’s body before disappearing into the vast wilderness.
This was a successful haul, and night was falling. By custom, core formation stage cultivators from the demonic path and the Seven Sects should soon come out to battle.
If the fighting involved him, dying would be an unjust fate!
Just thinking about the fierce battles between core formation stage cultivators that he had witnessed before made him shudder.
Within several miles, the clash between the Blade Refining Wharf and the Imperial Spirit Sect cultivators had caused chaos, nearly dragging him in despite hiding seven or eight miles away.
Since then, whenever dusk approached, he would return early, even if he gained nothing.
A year ago, he had been ordered to escort a batch of spirit stones here and was then left behind, becoming a high-level cannon fodder for the Seven Sects. He participated in several large-scale battles with thousands of participants, and frequent skirmishes like the one just now, deep in Jin Gu Plain, against scattered enemies were common.
Strangely, ever since the second wave of battles between the demonic path and the Seven Sects ended in a draw, both sides faced each other across Jin Gu Plain, gradually settling into a pattern of one major fight per month with daily minor skirmishes.
The so-called major battles involved both sides sending out teams of over a thousand cultivators to fight each other, while the minor battles involved smaller groups or lone cultivators hunting each other in the central Jin Gu Plain.
The major battles were lively but caused very few casualties. Unless one truly risked their life, once the protective barriers were activated, neither side could inflict serious harm easily.
In the minor fights, because core formation stage cultivators were much stronger than foundation establishment cultivators, it was tacitly agreed that from dawn to dusk, foundation establishment stage cultivators would fight each other. At night, core formation masters would engage in full-scale battles.