As the flood dragon's roar faded away, its image spiralled once more in the air before disappearing into Han Li's back. Crimson light glowed behind him as the image of a three-inch-long crimson flood dragon began to roam across his body with a vivid lifelike nature.
Han Li's body began to pulse with crimson light and thumb-sized sparkling crimson scales appeared all over him. Following a sharp pain from the top of his head, a small scarlet horn appeared, and his hands turned incredibly hard and his fingers became pointed and incisively sharp.
At first glance, Han Li's new form appeared similar to that of the Elder Devil trapped in the sword formation. However, Han Li's face remained human and the scales were only present on the rest of his body. As for the Elder Devil's head, both of its heads appeared malevolent and had purple scales. Han Li's use of the Spirit Subjugation Talisman had also boosted his true essence with the power of the flood dragon's soul and raised his cultivation to the border between the early and mid Nascent Soul stages.
With his body glowing with both azure and red light, he grabbed the Blood Devil Sword with both his hands and poured the entirety of his magic power into it. The sword began to intensely tremble and violently pulsed with crimson light before expanding to three meters in length, filling the air with the putrid smell of blood. As for Han Li's red horn, it glowed a brilliant crimson as a result of using the power of the flood dragon's soul to its greatest extent.
With the minor Elder Devil trapped inside the sword formation, Han Li had resolved himself to prevent the main Elder Devil from rescuing his counterpart and fusing into one to bring forth an even greater adversary.
But with the main devil's speed, it would arrive before the sword formation had closed on the minor devil and finished it off. Han Li's only choice was be to personally slay the minor devil. Once this was done, he would flee, as there was no way he could withstand the might of the main Elder Devil.
Although there would be dire consequences from using the Blood Devil Sword, including great damage to his true essence, Han Li had already decided that he wouldn't be involved in this battle much longer. With the minor devil slain, he would immediately flee and let the other cultivators deal with the stronger devil. Otherwise, he might experience permanent damage to his cultivation.
Given that he would have slain one of the devils by himself, the other cultivators surely wouldn't have any complaints.
But at that moment, the Blood Devil Sword seemed to be insatiable. In the blink of an eye, it had already consumed a majority of what Han Li's cultivation could offer. The sword's crimson light continuously pulsed and now extended to over twenty meters in length and condensed an even more powerful aura, much to Han Li's shock.
When the minor Elder Devil saw this, he rigidly stared at the light extending from the sword and a trace of fear appeared on his face. He wasn't able to keep his calm and his ghost head harshly shouted, "Are you seeking your own death? For a human cultivator to use a sacred tool of our Holy Realm without regard - are you thinking of turning into a devil?"
Han Li coldly smiled and simply continued to pour spiritual power into the sword while ignoring him.
The devil grew furious as this. Knowing that Han Li intended on taking his life, his expression turned gloomy and his body began to glow with crimson light. With one of his hands acting as a blade, he severed one of his arms. The wound was as sleek as a mirror and didn't leak even a drop of blood.
In the moment the arm was severed, he grabbed it with another arm and spat several mouthfuls of blood essence onto it as he muttered an ancient incantation. The severed arm immediately shined with crimson light and underwent a series of warping distortions before forming a sword that resembled the Blood Devil Sword.
The sword was made of sleek bone and was covered in pitch-black devilish Qi. With a single wave, threads of devilish Qi surged around it. The Elder Devil then brought the sword in front of him and began to pour the entirety of his body's devilish Qi into the sword, causing it to surge with black light.
Han Li was somewhat surprised when he saw this, but killing intent quickly flooded his mind. Although he didn't know the might of this grotesquely formed sword, he couldn't afford to underestimate it in the slightest given its bizarre method of creation. He had to strike before the devil could make full use of the bone sword.
Having come to this conclusion, Han Li ceased pouring magic power into the Blood Devil Sword. Then with his hands holding onto the trembling hilt, he fiercely cut down towards the Elder Devil within the sword formation.
A crimson thirty-meter-long swordlight cleaved downward towards the Aureate Sword Formation.
Before the swordlight even arrived, the Elder Devil was submerged in the scent of blood released by the swordlight. The air around the sword formation began to tremble and space even began to distort as an indescribable vibration shook their surroundings.
The Elder Devil was overwhelmed with shock as this was clearly a display of the sword's full power. If he remembered correctly, tools from the Holy Realm were only able to be used at half strength by humans. 'Could it be that this increase in strength has something to do with his transformed state?' Although the devil had experienced many battles against the ancient cultivators, he had never experienced something as inconceivable as the Spirit Subjugation Talisman.
But now that his life was at risk, the devil had no choice but to raise the partially charged bone sword to meet the incoming strike, both his heads loudly screaming. A black beam that was only half the size of the descending crimson light shot out from the bone sword to meet the oncoming streak of crimson radiance.
Crimson and black light overlapped as waves of Qi surged from the point of contact while a boom shook the nearby air.
Senior Martial Brother Cheng was blown back a dozen steps before being able to stabilize himself. As for Han Li, he drew support from his increased cultivation and merely blurred half a step back before steadying himself. The Elder Devil, however, was unaffected by the wave. He simply looked at the confrontation of sword light up above him with a nervous expression.
A scene that surprised both Han Li and the Devil Soul occurred. After the wave blew across them, a fist-sized jet-black ball strangely appeared in place of the overlapping swordlights. The ball quickly warped in shape and in the blink of an eye, it lengthened to fifteen meters long and a meter wide, stretching over the sword formation.
Before Han Li understood what was happening, a large expanse of rainbow light appeared from the pitch-black object.
Because of the rainbow light's lightning-fast appearance and its close proximity, the minor Elder Devil and Han Li were both enveloped by the rainbow light. Afterwards, a huge attractive force pulled them toward the black object. Senior Martial Brother Cheng fortunately managed to avoid it, having been blown back a dozen steps by the initial force.
'Not good! It's a spatial tear!' Han Li realized what had happened and terror filled his mind as he attempted to break free of the rainbow light.
But when Han Li attempted to utilize his magic power, his expression blanched. All of the magic power in his body had completely disappeared.
Han Li broke out in a cold sweat at this discovery. Soon to be engulfed by the spatial tear, he beckoned to the Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords comprising the Aureate Sword Formation in a panic. The minor Elder Devil also found himself without any power to resist the spatial tear and revealed terror on both of his faces.
As the rainbow light pulled Han Li and the Elder Devil into the spatial tear, they weren't able to offer the slightest resistance. Then a clear ring sounded out from the formation and over a hundred streaks of golden sword light shot off in meter-long gold-red streaks towards the spatial tear.
At that same moment, a violent and sharp explosion erupted from nearby as a ball of black devilish flame flickered and teleported into the vicinity of the spatial tear. Devilish flame surged and was promptly extinguished, revealing a towering figure reminiscent of a divine devil.
When the newly arrived Elder Devil saw that his counterpart was being dragged into the spatial tear, he felt both fury and alarm. As he floated nearby, not daring to enter the range of the spatial tear, he spotted the last of the Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords that were flying towards Han Li and instantly grabbed at the air in their direction. A huge devilish hand appeared above the flying swords and reached out to grab them.
The swords released a clear ring and immediately swerved, avoiding the hand and shooting straight towards the spatial tear. However, two of the swords were too slow and were grabbed by the devilish hand, rendering them immobile.
At that moment, a purple ball of flame shrieked from an unknown place and instantly flew into the spatial tear as well.
The giant Elder Devil was stunned and thought to do something else when the spatial tear blurred several times and quickly shrunk in size before disappearing without a trace.
All that remained nearby was Senior Martial Brother Cheng and the giant Elder Devil.
The Elder Devil glanced in the direction that the spatial tear disappeared from and his expression wavered. Then, he turned to look at Senior Martial Brother Cheng and a savage expression brimming with hostility appeared on his face.
Senior Martial Brother Cheng was alarmed and hastily used his yellow flying sword to protect himself as he slowly withdrew, screaming curses in his heart. He unconsciously glanced around him at that moment only to reveal an expression of delight at what he discovered.
Someone from amongst a group of green-robed cultivators spoke from three hundred meters away, "Yi! Isn't this Fellow Daoist Cheng? What are you doing here? And what is this devilish monster?"
A green-robed old man glanced at the two-headed six-armed giant Elder Devil with shock. This old man was the Controlling Spirit Sect's Grand Elder Dongmen Tu, and the three behind him were the Nascent Soul cultivators formed from Elemental Spirit Nascents.
"That's right, I would like some answers as well!" A gloomy voice sounded out immediately after followed by a dozen black-robed cultivators appearing, the Ghost Spirit Sect Disciples. The speaker was the Ghost Spirit Sect's Elder Zhong.
These two groups of cultivators saw that spatial tear disappear and all of them revealed an expression of shock.
Senior Martial Brother Cheng bitterly smiled and could only muster the strength to say, "It is too hard to explain. Let's first deal with this monster first. Be extremely careful. This devil is immensely powerful. A moment of carelessness will result in death."
Dongmen Tu and Elder Zhong glanced at one another with puzzled expressions. The cultivators following them then immediately surrounded the ten meter tall devil from a distance.
The Elder Devil's two ghost heads slowly turned around to examine the human cultivators that surrounded him.
One of the faces sneered and emitted dense killing intent. As for the other face, it wore a mysterious smile containing a trace of derision.
Without saying a word, he raised his hands to the sky and summoned four huge, black blades of light into his hands. With a faint tremble, the huge blades released deafening shrieks.
When Senior Martial Brother Cheng saw this familiar scene, his expression grew unsightly.