Chapter 1589: Fire and Wood Clash

Han Li was somewhat surprised, but his eyes flashed. He then flickered, instantly appearing at the top of the small mountain, where he lightly tapped his toe.

Instantly, the black small mountain shimmered with a grayish-white light, its form swelling dramatically to a massive three hundred zhang.

Elder Tu, who had originally been able to barely support the small mountain, suddenly changed his expression. His legs trembled and sank deeply into the ground, burying his calves.

This showed that the elder's immense strength alone was insufficient to hold up the mountain, forcing him to transfer the force into the ground.

Seeing this, Han Li remained expressionless. He raised his foot again and stomped onto the small mountain.

The Primordial Magnetic Divine Mountain was already incredibly heavy, and with Han Li's added force from the stomp, the black mountain shook once more and then crashed downwards with a thunderous roar, completely pressing the elder's body beneath it.

The elder's figure was no longer visible.

Han Li felt a surge of joy. However, he knew it wouldn't be so simple to kill a Body Integration stage cultivator.

Without hesitation, he formed a hand seal with one hand, while his other hand, as white as jade, lightly pressed downwards.

The black mountain shimmered with a gray light, its size continuing to expand rapidly. Simultaneously, a five-colored flame surged from his pure white finger, striking the area beneath the mountain.

Wherever the five-colored flame passed, a layer of five-colored ice spread across the ground below, instantly transforming an area tens of zhang in circumference into a frozen expanse.

The black mountain had now grown to over a thousand zhang tall, no less imposing than a true peak.

Despite this, Han Li showed no intention of stopping. A spiritual light flashed around his body, transforming him into a blue rainbow that shot towards one side.

There, a blue light flickered, and his escape light mysteriously merged into the void and vanished.

Following this, a low hum suddenly echoed from the air around the black mountain. Numerous small blue swords simultaneously appeared in the void, but with a flash of blue light, they instantly transformed into palm-sized blue lotuses.

As these lotuses spun, afterimages flickered around them, and more lotus projections emerged, gradually solidifying from illusion to reality.

In an instant, the sky was filled with shimmering lotuses. Their combined radiance formed a gigantic light screen, completely trapping the elder within.

Han Li had seized this opportune moment to activate the Spring Dawn Sword Formation.

Just then, a furious roar emanated from the base of the mountain, followed by a series of unfamiliar and profound incantations.

Wisps of crimson light suddenly appeared in the nearby void, initially only a dozen or so, but as the incantations accelerated, the crimson light grew more abundant.

After a short while, the air was densely packed with light, as if the entire void had been dyed red.

Concurrently, the temperature in the area became incredibly high. The scorching heat was enough to instantly bake an ordinary person into a desiccated corpse.

But as soon as the incantations ceased, the crimson light flashed and disappeared into the ice layer on the ground.

A thunderous rumbling sound continuously echoed from underground!

Then, after several muffled thuds, crimson light pillars as thick as bowls burst through the ice.

These light pillars only flickered a few times before the ice quickly melted and vanished. The nearby ground also instantly dissolved into crimson liquid within the red light.

In just a few breaths, a large area of ground had transformed into a massive lava pool.

The black mountain slowly sank downwards amidst the rolling lava. In the blink of an eye, more than half of it had submerged into the molten rock.

"Indeed, a little brute force isn't enough to harm you!" Han Li's voice suddenly echoed faintly from all directions.

Immediately, the black mountain in the lava rapidly shrank to about a foot in size, then trembled and shot out as a black streak of light.

However, as it flew several zhang away from the lava, Elder Tu's cold voice suddenly emanated from within the molten pool:

"My cave abode lacks a suitable artifact to guard it. This treasure is quite good; leave it for me."

No sooner had he spoken than a wave of lava, over ten zhang high, immediately rose from the molten pool. With a flash of red light, it transformed into a crimson hand that seized the black mountain.

The large hand pulsed with red light, attempting to drag the treasure back into the lava.

But even though Han Li had withdrawn most of the mountain's power, the extraordinary weight of the Primordial Magnetic Divine Mountain was not something a mere illusory hand could easily shake.

The black mountain merely flickered a few times, not moving an inch within the large hand. However, being constrained, it also couldn't easily fly towards the nearby blue light screen.

Han Li, however, let out a cold snort. Immediately, space around the crimson hand rippled, and countless strands of blue silk mysteriously appeared from the void.

They swiftly wrapped around the lava hand like lightning. With a flash of blue light, the hand of lava was instantly severed into many pieces, its five fingers all falling down in multiple segments.

With the hand gone, the black mountain seized the opportunity, hummed, and shot away. After a few flashes of black light, it disappeared into the light screen.

The blue silk strands that had appeared also blurred and vanished into thin air, as if they had never existed.

"You indeed possess some divine abilities. No wonder you dared to directly confront this old man!" The elder didn't seem angry, but his words were exceptionally grim.

Almost simultaneously, the lava in the pool parted, and the elder slowly emerged, glowing with red light, stopping only when he was over ten zhang above the surface.

He wore a hint of wariness, his gaze scanning the surroundings ominously.

"A sword formation!" The elder's expression shifted; he recognized some of its workings at a glance.

However, just as the elder materialized, the blue lotus lights around him intensified, and countless lotus petals suddenly shot out.

They flashed mid-flight, instantly transforming into streaks of hazy blue wind blades that surged towards the elder in an overwhelming torrent.

The elder's face darkened. Without him appearing to activate any spell, the red light on his body suddenly flared, forming a crimson light screen that protected him.

With loud "thump-thump" sounds, the wind blades plunged into the red light like moths to a flame. But the next moment, they crackled and burst into blinding fireballs, instantly turning into nothingness.

This high-ranking Horned Chi cultivator, it was unknown what kind of fire-attribute cultivation technique he practiced, but it was incredibly domineering.

Even illusory elemental attacks could be directly ignited and dissolved.

However, since the elder was trapped within the sword formation, Han Li's offensive methods would naturally not be limited to just that.

The instant the wind blades proved ineffective, a brilliant blue light erupted high in the sky. Segments of massive blue timber, as thick as water vats, appeared out of nowhere and then crashed down vertically.

Upon closer inspection, it could be seen that each segment of the timber was dark green, appearing incredibly heavy.

The elder, however, sneered. The red light on his body suddenly surged upwards as he waved his sleeve, coiling into the air.

Wherever the red light passed, the blue timbers, before falling even ten zhang, vanished into plumes of blue smoke.

"Youngster, don't waste your efforts. If this sword formation had other attributes, it might cause me some trouble, but a purely wood-attribute formation is utterly useless. For me to break this array is but a flip of my hand," the elder suddenly bellowed.

Following this, he abruptly formed a hand seal with both hands. The red light on his body trembled, and then crimson pillars of light suddenly shot out in all directions.

In a flash, they all struck the blue light screen.

A scorching aura instantly permeated the entire space within the light screen.

The elder wore a hint of smugness.

He believed that with the domineering nature of his fire-attribute cultivation technique, he could easily break through a wood-attribute restriction and thus dismantle this sword formation. After that, he could rely on his formidable cultivation to swiftly eliminate this unexpectedly troublesome opponent.

Consecutive "rumbling" sounds echoed. Initially, the surrounding light screen was indeed easily pierced by the light pillars, creating large holes just as the elder had anticipated, and the blue lotuses seemed on the verge of collapsing and dissipating.

But at that moment, the elder suddenly felt the surrounding scenery blur slightly. The blue lotus light screen vanished without a trace in an instant, and he found himself in an unfamiliar place, surrounded by towering trees several tens of zhang tall.

"An illusion!" Even for an elder with vast knowledge, this was truly a great shock.

Illusions were not uncommon for other magic formations and restrictions, but they were rarely heard of in sword formations, which typically focused solely on offensive power.

At the very least, this was the first time the elder had encountered a sword formation that included an illusion.

However, Elder Tu quickly regained his composure. He formed a hand seal with one hand, and the red light on his body pulsed continuously. A pillar of crimson flames, surging upwards, "whooshed" into the sky.

The elder opened his mouth and spat out a hazy white talisman.

The talisman flickered, dissipated, and transformed into a hazy white hurricane that merged into the pillar of fire.

In an instant, as wind and fire intertwined, the pillar of fire, originally only about a zhang thick, rapidly expanded with a roar to over ten zhang in diameter, becoming incredibly imposing.

The elder, at the center of the fire pillar, actually sat down cross-legged. Simultaneously, a red light flashed above his head, revealing a colossal illusionary figure with a green face and tusks, yet adorned with crimson scales.

The instant this illusory figure appeared, the elemental energy of heaven and earth in the surrounding area suddenly surged and was mobilized.

Five-colored light spheres, the size of beans, began appearing around the peaks, dense forests, and vegetation within a radius of dozens of li.

They seemed to be summoned, rushing madly towards the location of the sword formation.

Countless light specks, dense and numerous, descended from the sky. But as they approached the sword formation, they were immediately blocked by streaks of blue sword light.

These various colored light bands, as the sword light danced and flickered, burst apart and transformed into clouds of five-colored mist.

However, the number of light specks was simply too vast to count!

In a short while, the mist formed from the explosions became thick like liquid, causing the dancing blue sword light to gradually slow down and become sluggish.

Almost simultaneously, Elder Tu urged the gigantic fire pillar, which also began to rampage unrestrainedly within the sword formation's illusion!

The countless massive trees created by the illusion were swept away by the fire pillar, turning to ash and offering no resistance whatsoever.

Even though these trees were mere illusions, the spiritual power used to conjure them was the pure wood spiritual energy contained within the flying swords.

Regardless of whether these trees were real or not, under such powerful fire energy attacks, they naturally burned and disintegrated.

Immediately, the scenery around the elder blurred, and the original real location reappeared.