These eerie white skulls screamed before launching green flame wisps from their mouths towards Han Li. Of course, when the flame wisps traveled too far, golden threads suddenly appeared and flashed towards them.

But something different happened this time. The golden threads sliced the skulls apart, but in a flash of green light, they restored themselves as if they hadn’t suffered any damage. Additionally, they weren’t impeded by the sword threads at all and continued their approach.

Han Li was stunned when he saw this, but he soon realized that the ghost skulls had no physical body; they were refined Yin Ghosts. Although his sword threads may be fierce, they couldn't cut through something intangible. 

However, Han Li was hardly flustered. As the ghost skulls approached him, he willed a net of golden lightning to appear in the air and intercept them. Since they were ghosts, he decided to activate the Divine Devilbane Lightning.

To Han Li’s surprise, the ghost skulls revealed fear upon seeing the golden net and came to a stop, but after the horned ghost skull shrieked, all of the skulls opened their mouths and shot green flame wisps towards the golden net.

In a roar of thunder, the lightning net flashed and exterminate the flame wisps, but the net’s advance was stopped, restrained by their unending barrage. 

Han Li frowned and revealed an expression of surprise. If they were common flame wisps they would’ve immediately turned to smoke after touching the Divine Devilbane Lightning, but these flame wisps were able to forcefully restrain the lightning, much to his alarm. The Ghost Sifting Banner’s title as the Yin Sifting Sect’s protective treasure was well deserved.

When the black-robed youth saw that the ghost skulls were able to block the Divine Devilbane Lightning, he couldn’t help but smile in relief. While he appeared confident, he was actually filled with dread.

If the flag wasn’t damaged, he wouldn’t be worried about the devil skulls being able to resist the Divine Devilbane Lightning. But without the opportunity to repair it after it was damaged, he had been worried about it being able to resist the Divine Devilbane Lightning. 

Since his worries had been addressed, the youth wickedly grinned and continuously sent spell seals into the banner. The meter-wide gap in the banner quickly swelled to the size of three meters, resulting in even more ghost skulls emerging. With ghost mist spreading through the air, loud ghost shrieks and wails accompanied the skulls. 

With the previous skulls resisting the golden net, the latter wave of skulls flew past the sword formation and charged straight towards Han Li.

When Han Li saw this, he calmly slapped his storage pouch and summoned a streak of black light thatt circled once in the air before falling to the ground. The light disappeared to reveal a small jet-black ape, the Weeping Soul Beast.

The ape appeared as if it had just woken up and its eyes were half closed. When it sniffed at the air, it suddenly opened its eyes and looked at the ghost skulls not far away, howling with excitement.

When the approaching ghost skulls saw the Weeping Soul Beast, they were shaken and immediately began to spiral in place, unwilling to continue their charge forward. At that moment, the howls they had been releasing were abruptly cut off  as if in a display of fear.

When the black-robed youth saw this, his heart thumped as the sword formation was drawing ever closer to him.

In his desperation, he shot grey light from his mouth towards his palm and lightly spun around his hand before severing his fingers in a bloody display. As the fingers fell from his hand, they exploded into clouds of blood mist and quickly drifted towards the horned ghost skull.

A sinister light twinkled from the ghost skull’s eyes and it opened its mouth to inhale the blood mist. The flames surrounding the skull suddenly rampaged around it, coercing the other skulls to launch a wave of green flame wisps towards the Weeping Soul Beast. 

When the Weeping Soul Beast saw this, it hammered its chest as black light wrapped around its body. In the blink of an eye, it grew ten meters tall. It then snorted, releasing a yellow mist of light from its nose that swept away the ghostly flame wisps and directly approached the group of ghost skulls.

As the yellow mist of light swept past them, the group of ghost skulls were sucked in without any resistance. When the remaining ghost skulls saw this, they scattered in terror and even the horned ghost skull’s rage wasn’t able to stop them.

At that moment, the yellow mist of light spread around the fleeing ghost skulls and trapped them. When the horned ghost skull saw this, it condensed a brilliant mass of green light around its skull and grew a body the size of two meters, turning into a full-fledged devil ghost with hair draped around its face and curved horns. As soon as the ghost appeared, it immediately spread out its hands and launched a barrage of black fireballs towards the yellow light mist in a wave of explosive booms.

As soon as the fireballs entered the yellow mist, they completely disappeared and not a sound was produced from the impact. When the devil ghost saw this, it wore an expression of terror and turned around to flee, but it was already too late. The yellow mist closed in on it and instantly absorbed it inside, leaving nothing behind.

The yellow mist then quickly returned into the Weeping Soul Beast’s mouth before it spouted out another mist from its nose, sweeping the air clean of any remaining skulls.

When the black-robed youth saw this, he wore an expression of fright and rage. Although he had heard that Han Li’s ape beast had absorbed the undead Qi from the Copper-armored Corpses and destroyed a majority of them, he hadn’t taken it to heart.

He absolutely didn’t think that the spirit beast would be able to devour the Yin Essence Devil Skulls created from the Yin Sifting Banner. Even the leading devil skull had been absorbed without being able to put up any resistance, leaving him feeling terror and helplessness.

If he knew that Han Li’s spirit beast had the ability to devour devils and ghosts, he definitely wouldn’t have accepted the task of meeting him alone. The other elders of the sect knew of the spirit beast’s abilities and had grown fearful. Its abilities were as much of a threat to them as the Golden Lightning Bamboo.

As these thoughts surged through the youth’s mind, he felt a wave of regret. By then the golden threads were less than ten meters away from him. With his death slowly drawing closer, he couldn’t remain calm and hastily slapped his storage pouch. Eight treasures instantly shot out all around him in balls of various colored light.

When they reached the edge of the sword formation, countless golden threads flashed by and shredded the treasures into scrap.

The youth paled at the sight of this and with panic filling his mind, he waved his hand to the Ghost Sifting Banner. With the flag back in his hand, he gritted his teeth and began to revolve around the banner with both his hands on it. He turned into one with the banner and transformed into a cloud of eerie green mist before shooting towards the sky. 

As of current, he could only hope that the might of his sect protecting treasure would be able to withstand the attacks from the sword formation and allow him to escape. Otherwise, he could only sit and wait to die.

When Han Li saw this, he knew that the youth had exhausted his options and was driven to desperation. As a result, he opened his mouth and shot a ball of golden lightning. As soon as the golden lightning left his mouth, it ruptured, forming a huge golden net several tens of meters wide.

At that moment, the mistform black-robed youth had reached the edge of the sword formation. Over a hundred golden threads waved around him, with each flash shredding away a fraction of the Yin mist protecting him. In the blink of an eye, a majority of the mist had already been dispersed.

The Yin mist scattered in an attempt to escape, but there were too many golden threads blocking him path with no chance of escape. Every gap was immediately blocked with tens of golden threads, pushing the mist back and trapping him inside.

With only a thin layer of the Yin mist remaining, the youth’s voice hoarsely shouted in rage,  “You actually want to kill me! Don’t you want the method to dissolve the Soul Seal Curse?” 

Han Li calmly responded, “Don’t worry. I will just extract the information from your primal soul.”

“You want to use a Soul Search Technique? You don’t... Ah!” The youth shouted in terror, but the last layer of the Yin mist protecting him was shredded away, cutting him off. In a blood-curdling scream, his body was dismembered into a myriad of pieces. Only a ball of green light remained, his Nascent Soul.

It took this chance to try and escape, but a net of Divine Devilbane Lightning had already been set up outside. Han Li pointed to the net and uttered, “Restrain,” immediately closing the net around the youth’s Nascent Soul.

As soon as the Nascent Soul encountered the net, lightning flickered followed by screams of pain. The Nascent Soul suddenly shrieked with resentment, “If you wish to use a Soul Search Technique on me, I will detonate my Nascent Soul. I won’t let you have your way!”

“Detonate your Nascent Soul?” Han Li frowned and immediately stopped the net from closing in. 

The Nascent Soul rejoiced upon seeing this and immediately shrieked, “So long as you let my Nascent Soul go free, I will tell you the method to dissolve the curse and save your Dao companion. Otherwise, you will have no way of finding out.”

Silent, Han Li’s gaze flickered as he considered the conditions. At that moment, a light suddenly appeared around the Nascent Soul as a purple net wrapped around it and immediately tightened. At that moment, Silvermoon silently appeared behind it in a flash of white light. She quickly spat a fragrant pink mist from her mouth and launched streaks of silver from her fingers.