At that moment, Han Li felt particularly gloomy.  Half of it was due to the two Heavenly Tiger’s cunning. They stuck to him like tar but they didn’t dare to face him on a one on one battle. They merely harassed him at close range. 

Not long after, he deliberately left an opening and managed to bait one of the beasts into attacking him. As a result of fierce retaliation, Han Li cleaved one of the demon beast’s claws in half, but from then on, the two demon beasts switched to continue attacking him from a distance using light orbs, rather than staying close to him. But every time that Han Li attempted to shake them off with his Thunderstorm Wings, the demon beasts immediately chased after him and bothered him without end.

As for the other reason for his gloominess, it was the azure light doppelganger. It seemed to be formed out of pure wood spirit Qi and couldn’t be harmed by the Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords. Regardless of how much sword Qi struck his body, it would scatter and become one with him. 

This was the first time Han Li had encountered such a situation; it proved rather eye-opening.

When Han Li saw this, he used the Celestial Ice Flames to attack, but he didn’t expect that the azure doppelganger would spit out a blue bowl that was capable of absorbing the flames. This had caused a cold tremble down Han Li’s back. 

Fortunately, as he had already refined the Celestial Ice Flames to be one with his body, he was able to will the flames to struggle free from the bowl and return back into his body. Since the amount of ice flames refined in his body wasn’t much, even the loss of a slight sliver was significant.

As a result, Han Li didn’t dare to use the Purple Apex Flames. As for the Thousand Fold Mountain and his other treasures, Han Li used them to little effect before putting them away.

Although the azure doppelganger wasn’t unkillable — as each wound would cause its light to dim and its figure to grow shorter — it wasn’t an enemy that he could deal with in a short amount of time. Fortunately, it didn’t have any particularly vicious attacks and magic treasures; it was only capable of attacking him with threads of azure Qi, something that Han Li could easily deal with. It seemed that this doppelganger only wished to tie him down.

As for the red-clothed woman, Feng Bing, despite being at the peak of mid-Nascent Soul stage, her strength was still vastly lacking as she fought against the late Nascent Soul-stage spell warrior. She used her techniques and abilities to their greatest extent, but she still found herself at a disadvantage. 

The fourth Divine Sage would occasionally glance over at Han Li, causing him to feel greatly uneasy as if there were needles bearing into his back.

At that moment, the Seven Great Truths Cultivators were only barely able to withstand the attacks of the Moulan’s sacred bird. Han Li’s heart sank at the sight. As of current, their only hope of victory would be freeing the cultivators trapped by the blood barrier. Otherwise, they would have no chance of recovering their momentum and they would be forced to retreat in a massive defeat.

After a moment of thought, Han Li resolved himself, unwilling to allow the standstill to continue. He immediately released several swordstreaks in order to repel the Heavenly Tigers for a moment. He then slapped his storage pouch and took out a wooden box with talismans sealed all over it. When the doppelganger saw this, he yelped in surprise and promptly attacked Han Li in a barrage of wood spirit threads. 

Han Li’s figure blurred. With a quick command, his body glowed with swordlight and cut down the attacking threads. Azure light then flashed from the wooden box and the talismans seals were released. A streak of crimson light flew out from the box and revolved once in Han Li’s palm. It was the Spirit Subjugation Talisman. 

Han Li slapped the crimson talisman on his body without the slightest hesitation and it disappeared in a flash of crimson light. 

Azure light glowed from Han Li’s face as he took a deep breath, summoning a huge flood dragon phantom in front of him. It was over thirty meters large and had a body of crimson, appearing exactly the same as the grade eight Venomous Flood Dragon. 

The flood dragon coiled above Han Li before releasing a sky-shaking roar, shaking the hearts of all the cultivators nearby, momentarily putting a stop to the fighting from the shock. When Tian Zhong saw this, he frowned and a solemn expression appeared on his face. As for Feng Bing, her eyes twinkled as if looking forward to its performance. 

With the roar finished, the flood dragon charge towards the sky in a spiral and its figure quickly shrank before burrowing itself into Han Li’s body without a trace. At that moment, Han Li felt a wave of scorching heat in his body as the small image of a flood dragon was burned into his back, glowing with crimson light. 

At that moment, crimson light pulsed from Han Li’s body as fingernail-sized crimson scales began to emerge one by one, glistening with light. Then with a sharp pain from his head, an exquisite, bright flood dragon horn emerged with ten sharp points. 

“This...” When Han Li felt the astonishing spiritual Qi emitting from his body, he found himself in awe.

Although the Spirit Subjugation Talisman had mentioned its effects slightly — that was capable of refining a demon soul’s cultivation and taking it into one’s body to vastly increase their cultivation — it had never mentioned that the user would have their body become semi-demonic.

Of course, this kind of demon transformation was quite weaker than a spiritfuse technique. At the very least, he didn’t grow a fang and a flood dragon tail. Rather, it strongly resembled Man Huzi [1]’s Heavenbearing Devil Arts. Han Li sighed and gently stroked his horn without speaking a word.

Of course, Han Li couldn’t have known that the founder of this talisman had created the talisman to make up for the flaws of the Spiritfuse Technique. Not only was the user now able to retain his original consciousness, but they wouldn’t overdraft their vitality and caused harm to their lifespan. The sole flaw was that it was incredibly difficult to refine.

In this world, most cultivators wouldn’t even have the opportunity to spot a grade eight demon beast, let alone acquire grade eight demon souls. Additionally, the manifested demon soul would have to be refined, else it would bring about harm. 

Although low-grade demon souls could also be refined into a Spirit Subjugating Talisman, the demonic Qi of their souls would be too impure. Once it was turned into a talisman it would display the same effects as the Spiritfuse Technique, so it was particularly stressed that only demon souls at grade eight and higher could be used to refine a Spirit Subjugation Talisman.

Although Han Li was somewhat surprised, he felt his cultivation suddenly rise to the peak of early Nascent Soul stage. The talisman’s effects were truly effective. Additionally, the two Heavenly Tigers felt rather uneasy from the flood dragon aura that Han Li’s body emitted. But after the azure doppelganger shouted at them, the two Heavenly Tigers regained their calm.

Han Li coldly smiled and he unfolded the Thunderstorm Wings, reappearing thirty meters away in a ring of thunder. When the two Heavenly Tigers saw this, they hastily chased after him in a flash of azure light. Soon after, they closely chased after Han Li and spat out several balls of light at him in succession.

A cold glint flickered from his eyes and thunder rang from his wings once more. He suddenly disappeared for a moment before reappearing behind the demon beast.

At that moment, the other demon beast spouted out a barrage of balls of light. It intended on forcing Han Li to block the attack and give its companion the opportunity to escape.

But with his increased cultivation, Han Li no longer felt the need to control the swordlight. With crimson-azure light shining from his body, he took the risk to have his body’s spiritual Qi block the attacks. Then in a blur, he extended his arm, swiping it in an azure streak with otherworldly speed and momentum.

In the Heavenly Tiger’s shock, it wasn’t able to use instantaneous movement. It was only able to spit out its azure-yellow demon core in an attempt to block the attack. When the azure doppelganger saw this, he flew forward with alarm and spread out his arms, releasing a dense barrage of azure threads towards Han Li.

In a series of huge rumbles, the balls of light exploded upon impact with Han Li’s body, but it merely caused his body to sway. He didn’t suffer any damage in the slightest. Rather, his full powered sword wing not only cleaved the demon core into two but also the Heavenly Tiger as well. Without instantaneous movement, the beast was no match for Han Li.

In that moment, the azure doppelganger’s attack had wrapped around Han Li, but crimson light flashed from his body, turning the azure threads black and causing them to fade away.

“The flood dragon poison!” Han Li was delighted. He had only blocked the azure threads with his body’s spirit light and was able to easily dissolve them; he hadn’t used any techniques. The azure doppelganger revealed fear at the sight.

A mournful howl roared through the air. When the remaining Heavenly Tiger saw that its companion was slain, it was filled with violent fury. In a flash of azure light, it directly teleported to Han Li’s side and swung its foot-long, light-clad claws as if it had lost itself to rage.

Han Li remained expressionless and raised his scale-covered claw. Crimson light flourished all around it and directly met the Heavenly Tiger’s claw.

Bang! Han Li’s claw was able to easily strike away the Heavenly Tiger’s swipe, and in a blur, he was able to easily pierce into the Heavenly Tiger’s body with his other arm. He took out an azure-yellow demon core in his claw and the Heavenly Tiger’s corpse fell to the ground.

With the increased cultivation from the Spirit Subjugation Talisman, Han Li was able to kill the two beasts in succession in mere seconds. This display of might had caused the azure doppelganger to hesitate and release Han Li from further pursuit. Then in another blur, Han Li faced the azure doppelganger and coldly examined it.

As this occurred, Tian Zhong had clearly seen this, arousing furious alarm in his heart. He commanded his rainbow wheel to furiously attack the beautiful woman before he disappeared, abandoning the fight and flying straight towards Han Li instead. But just as this occurred, a muffled explosion sounded out and a nearby crimson barrier suddenly ruptured, a glacial mist madly rushing out from the opening. A silver streak flew out amidst it and spiraled once around in the air before stopping near Han Li. 

[1] Man Huzi was a renown Devil Dao cultivators in the Scattered Star Seas. Last seen in Heavenvoid Hall.