A Record of a Mortal’s Journey to Immortality (Chapter 601-Chapter 800)

The black-robed youth hastily spread out his spiritual sense to find the swordlights, but he wasn’t able to locate a single one of them. This caused his heart to drop. Without any further hesitation, he snorted and released the black hatchet. In a flash of black light, it grew to twenty meters in the blink of an eye, and its edge gleamed from its sharpness.

In a blur, the huge hatchet fiercely chopped at the air, only for a golden light to suddenly blossom. An unremarkable golden thread suddenly appeared from underneath the huge hatchet and flashed before instantly fading away.

With a bang, the huge hatchet was split down the middle and fell to the floor.

“This is...” The black-robed youth’s disdain suddenly disappeared and his expression turned grave. He quickly raised his hand and summoned an emerald saber, which shot through the air before a similar scene occurred. The green streak flew about thirty meters before being shredded by several streaks of golden threads. Then in a burst of green light, it fell to the ground in seven pieces.

“Xi! A sword formation!” The black-robed youth recognized what this was due to his vast experience as his blood ran cold. This kind of sword formation required several tens, no, several hundreds of cultivators in order to employ it. However, Han Li alone was able to lay down such a fearsome sword formation, much to the black-robed youth’s shock.

Han Li saw he had recognized that this was a sword formation, but had no intention of giving the black robed youth the opportunity to consider how to break it. Han Li promptly put his hands in an incantation gesture and contacted all of his swordlights with his spiritual sense, activating the entire Aureate Sword Formation.

A strange scene suddenly developed near the black-robed youth as countless golden threads suddenly flickered around the youth, intermittently coming in and out of existence. These flickers appeared without a pattern and slowly closed in on him.

When he saw this, the youth’s expression turned pale and he suddenly patted his storage pouch and took out ten white pearls filled with veins of crimson. He then began to spin and tossed the pearls all around him.





Chapter 789: Ghost Sifting Banner


Han Li’s heart stirred at the sight of these pearls. They appeared to be the same as his own lightning beads. As the thought appeared in his head, he willed the Aureate Sword Formation to continue onward.

The sword threads were one of the abilities of the Aureate Formation, similar to the sword threads used by sword cultivators, but the formation was capable of summoning over a hundred astonishing threads of sword Qi. With the sword formation’s might coupled with the Auric Essence infused swords, these sword threads were far more formidable than those from common sword cultivators. Ordinary treasures were similarly incapable of blocking the swords’ incisive strikes.

As for items like the Lightning Bead, Han Li had no fear of them. So long as the true thirty-six swords were unharmed, the sword formation would easily reform itself even if the sword threads were scattered. The Aureate Sword Formation couldn’t be set back by any attacks.

Just as Han Li thought this, golden light flashed as the pearls contacted the sword formation, splitting the pearls into several pieces.

Surprisingly, the pearls weren’t explosives. Instead, they released a dense black-red mist of blood. The blood mist immediately dispersed and leaked through the air, spreading a pungent, sickly sweet scent.

The bead was known as a Blood Mine and it was said that they were refined from the most putrid materials found in the world. So long as one didn’t have particular Devil Dao treasures, the treasure’s spiritual nature and power would greatly decrease upon entering the blood mist. Even if a powerful magic treasure with a highly spiritual nature were to enter it, they would take days of purification with Nascent flames in order to recover from the damage.

Of course, these Blood Mines were incredibly rare. Not only were the materials used to refine them seldom seen, but the odds of a successful refinement were minuscule. These tensome beads were something the black-robed youth had spent over a hundred years accumulating.

This youth was an elder from one of the Ten Great Devil Sects of the Jin Empire. With his vast experience, he immediately thought to use the Blood Mines to corrupt the swords comprising Han Li’s sword formation.

A sword formation needed great coordination in order to display its might. If a few of the swords fell out of balance, the sword formation would collapse. Using Blood Mines was one of the most common methods used by Jin Empire devil cultivators to combat sword formations. And since the Blood Mines were incredibly rare items, the youth normally wouldn’t use them in solo battles. He would only deploy them in large-scale conflicts as sword formations usually couldn’t be activated by lone cultivators.

Although Han Li didn’t know what this blood mist was, he immediately sensed something strange about it. Just as he pondered about it, faint rolls of thunder could be heard coming from within it as flashes of golden light appeared from the blood mist, followed by arcs of golden lightning. When the golden lightning struck the blood mist, the mist scattered in an explosion. In the blink of an eye, the Divine Devilbane Lightning and the tensome pockets of blood mist had erupted in mutual destruction.

Han Li was astonished by the sight, as this was the first time he had ever seen the Divine Devilbane Lightning take action on its own. It had shot out of his flying swords without any orders! It appeared that the wicked nature of the blood mist had counteracted the Divine Devilbane Lightning, a truly astonishing discover indeed.

Han Li didn't know that the Blood Mines were specialized in dealing with the treasures of the Righteous Dao. When met by the Divine Devilbane Lightning, which specialized in subduing Devil Dao techniques, the two just so happened to counteract one another. However, the quantity of the lightning contained in the thirty-six swords was vastly greater than the amount of blood mist. As a result, the blood mist was cleanly eliminated in the blink of an eye.

The black-robed man’s complexion paled and he shouted with fright, “Divine Devilbane Lightning! The flying swords were treasures crafted from Golden Lightning Bamboo. Impossible! How did you acquire so much of it?”

“I’ll answer that after I send you to the underworld!” Han Li took a deep breath and ordered the sword formation to continue since the blood mist had temporarily stopped the golden threads. The swords threads then continued to closed in on the black-robed youth without a sound.

Although the Aureate Sword Formation was immensely powerful, it was difficult for Han Li to sustain with his current cultivation. It was a massive drain on his magic power and he wasn’t able to increase the speed at which the sword formation moved after activation. Otherwise, he would’ve had the sword threads close in on the black-robed youth in the blink of an eye and put an immediate end to him, preventing him from figuring out a way to resist.

Han Li reckoned that the optimal time to cultivate the Aureate Sword Formation would be during mid-Nascent Soul stage. If he wasn’t only using half of his flying swords, he simply wouldn’t be able to activate the sword formation due to his level of cultivation, despite how his magic power exceeded that of ordinary early Nascent Soul cultivators.

The black-robed youth surrounded himself in a layer of black Qi and snorted. With an imposing tone, he said, “You truly believe a trifling sword formation can truly trap me? Your sword formation may be incisive, but can it cut my sect’s protective treasure?” He glanced at the golden threads that were less than thirty meters away and silently raised his hand before striking at his chest.

Black blood sprayed out of his mouth, as a green, inch-long banner appeared from within the blood.