Chapter 574: Strong Enemy

**Volume Four: Winds Rise Overseas**

“Stop!”

A man’s voice gave a command from inside the carriage, and immediately, the beast-drawn carriage and streaks of light halted in mid-air.

Following the dissipation of a red glow, beautiful young women emerged, all dressed in light green palace attire, with their hair coiled on top of their heads. Each had two swords strapped to their backs.

These female cultivators stood neatly on either side of the beast carriage, each with downcast eyes and a solemn expression, surprisingly all possessing Foundation Establishment stage cultivation.

“Strange! Why would someone be performing a heaven-defying spell here, judging by the gathering of Yin energy? It must be either the Soul Transformation Art or the Rejuvenation Secret Technique,” an astonished voice came from within the white-glowing beast carriage. The voice even immediately named the Rejuvenation Secret Technique.

“This celestial phenomenon is so astonishing. Why couldn’t it be a sign of a rare treasure appearing?” a young woman’s voice then resounded. Her words were extremely cold, yet they couldn’t mask her sweet and alluring voice.

“Heh heh! Do you think I wouldn’t be able to distinguish between the appearance of a rare treasure and a heaven-defying spell?” the man said with a light chuckle, appearing very confident.

“Hmph! That’s just your assertion. It might very well be a sign of a treasure appearing. I, for one, can’t discern any difference between the two.” After a moment of silence, the woman’s cold hmph was heard again from the carriage. She spoke without reservation.

“Want to know if it’s true? Let’s go take a look, and we’ll find out! Whether it’s the Soul Transformation Art or the Rejuvenation Technique, it requires cultivation at the Core Formation stage or above to perform. Furthermore, cultivation greatly regresses after performing the spell, and it’s common to even drop an entire cultivation realm. I’m also a bit curious to see who is performing this technique. If their cultivation is decent, we can just take them in. The Divine Dove Hall is still short a few enforcement officers!” The man seemed exceptionally doting towards the woman. Hearing her question his words, he didn't get angry; instead, he indulged her.

“Alright! We’ve been flying in this beast carriage for nearly a month. I’m a bit stifled. It would be good to go to the island and clear my head.” The woman hesitated for a moment before agreeing.

“Wait a moment. I’ll remove the protective barrier now!”

As he spoke, a white light flashed on the carriage. The glow slowly dissipated, revealing the people seated inside.

Indeed, there were two people inside the beast carriage, a man and a woman, seated at the front and back ends respectively.

One was a barefoot young man, about twenty-seven or twenty-eight years old, dressed in linen robes and wearing a tall crown. He had a refined and scholarly appearance, with a faint golden glow occasionally emanating from between his brows, suggesting an unknown cultivation technique.

Beside him sat a young girl of sixteen or seventeen.

The girl was clad in white gauze robes. Her skin was like congealed jade, and her silken hair flowed down to her shoulders. Her beauty was exquisite and unearthly. However, her complexion was slightly pale, lacking a rosy color, making her appear like an ethereal fairy, dreamlike and illusory.

The girl leaned against a corner of the beast carriage, her delicate brows slightly furrowed, appearing somewhat displeased. However, upon seeing the protective barrier removed, her expression shifted, and she gracefully stood up and stepped out of the carriage.

The man watched her actions with a gentle gaze. Seeing this, he gently stepped out of the beast carriage with a slight smile.

“Fellow Daoist Wen, what’s your certainty that the Ghost Mist will appear nearby? To my knowledge, as the most mysterious natural disaster in the Starry Sea, there’s no discernible pattern to when or where the Ghost Mist appears,” the girl said, looking towards the island without turning her head, uttering something seemingly unrelated to the current situation.

The man, however, seemed accustomed to this. With his hands clasped behind his back, he replied with a smile:

“Indeed, there’s no precise pattern to the Ghost Mist’s appearance. However, after painstakingly collecting detailed information on Ghost Mist occurrences over the past few centuries, I discovered something quite interesting. A portion of the places where the Ghost Mist appeared were areas where volcanic eruptions had recently occurred nearby. While not every time, at least one-third conformed to this pattern. And this particular sea region recently experienced two consecutive undersea volcanic eruptions, so the probability of the Ghost Mist appearing should be quite high.”

Upon hearing this, a flicker of surprise appeared in the exquisite girl’s beautiful eyes. After a moment of hesitation, she slowly asked again:

“Fellow Daoist, you’ve spent so much time bringing me all the way to this sea region, truly just to see the Ghost Mist appear? Ordinary cultivators flee from the Ghost Mist; who would actively seek it out?”

“Why not? I have nothing pressing to do recently, so why not come and see if my calculations are correct? If the Ghost Mist truly appears, do you think I, Wen, wouldn’t flee?” The linen-robed young man’s lips curved into a faint smile, revealing a look of indifference.

Hearing this, the girl fell silent for a moment.

“Shall we go now? It seems their spellcasting is at a critical stage. Will we be disturbing them?” After a moment, the girl pointed to the celestial phenomenon above the island and calmly asked.

“Disturbing? When I, Wen Tianren, want to meet a Core Formation cultivator, there’s no such thing as disturbing them. If this person is tactless enough to utter disrespectful words, I’ll simply eliminate them,” the linen-robed man’s refined face suddenly showed a hint of arrogance, and he spoke without ceremony.

The woman looked at the young man in front of her, speechless for a moment.

However, this man’s divine abilities were indeed unfathomable. Although he hadn't yet formed a Nascent Soul, cultivators of the same stage were simply not on the same level as him.

To say he was the foremost Core Formation cultivator in the Starry Sea would likely be an accurate description.

“Oh!” The man’s expression suddenly shifted, and he glanced towards the island, a hint of surprise on his face.

“What is it? What happened?” The girl was a little curious, but she still asked in a cold tone.

“Interesting. There are now three Core Formation cultivators gathered on that small island. Two of them are unremarkable, both at the early Core Formation stage; one of them has a rather mysterious concealment technique, but it’s nothing noteworthy to me. However, the other, a late Core Formation cultivator, is extraordinary. They actually detected my divine sense, and their divine sense is no weaker than mine.” The man spoke while gazing intently at the island, a hint of seriousness appearing on his face.

Upon hearing this, the girl’s expression was somewhat moved.

She had personally witnessed how powerful the man’s divine sense was. Even compared to Nascent Soul stage old monsters, it was not far off.

Now, for another Core Formation cultivator to possess divine sense as powerful as his, it was truly hard for the girl to believe. For the first time, a strange expression appeared on her face.

However, the girl also knew that despite the man’s gentle and amiable appearance, he was not magnanimous. Instead, he was sinister, ruthless, bizarre, and capricious. He would even take lives at the slightest displeasure. And his cultivation was terrifyingly high.

Even though he was deeply infatuated with her now, she only dared to maintain a cold demeanor, not daring to overly provoke him.

Fortunately, the man seemed to view conquering her mind and body as an interesting game, never forcing himself upon her. This brought her a slight sense of relief.

Although the man’s expression was as usual, she estimated that he had most likely developed killing intent towards the cultivators on the island.

After all, the man had always prided himself on his divine sense being no less than that of a Nascent Soul old monster. How could he allow a cultivator of the same stage to exist with comparable power?

The girl sighed inwardly, able to offer only a hint of pity to the cultivators on the island.

Meanwhile, on the small island, several miles from the valley, lay a scattered rock pile. It was completely silent, as if deserted.

Suddenly, a sharp whistle pierced the air. Then, an incredibly thick, tricolored giant spear unexpectedly shot forth from below, flashing past the low-lying rock pile in an instant.

A piercing sound emanated, and light flashed in the low air. The giant spear instantly impaled a suddenly appearing white energy shield.

Inside the energy shield, a figure swayed. A pale face, filled with extreme panic, startlingly appeared.

Just as the person opened their mouth in shock, intending to spew forth a section of purple jade ruler, the sound of the energy shield cracking was heard simultaneously. Before the white figure could even activate their magic treasure, the giant spear swiftly pierced through their chest.

The corpse, reeking of thick blood, plummeted directly from the air. With a ‘thud,’ it fell into the scattered rock pile and vanished.

Meanwhile, the tricolored giant spear in the air had, at some unknown point, transformed into a swarm of insects. One cluster enveloped a storage pouch, while another surrounded the purple jade ruler, flying back towards the small valley amidst low buzzing sounds.

A short while later, Han Li held the storage pouch in one hand, scanning it with his divine sense, while casually toying with the purple jade ruler in the other.

Moments later, Han Li put away both items. He slowly raised his head, gazing in a certain distant direction, his expression turning somewhat grim.

Just recently, as he released his Gold Devouring Beetles, he felt an almost imperceptible divine sense sweep over him, startling Han Li so much that he nearly jumped.

In his impression, only Nascent Soul stage old monsters could possess such terrifying divine sense. Yet, after carefully tracking it, he discovered this divine sense originated from the newly arrived group of cultivators. It was only after he covertly scanned them that he was startled to realize:

The individual emitting this terrifying divine sense was, astonishingly, also a late Core Formation cultivator, just like him. And they were also young, not much older than him.

Han Li was utterly shocked.

The very instant his divine sense had just swept past, the other party also detected his presence. As a result, they used some unknown restriction, and that area suddenly forcibly pushed his divine sense out, preventing him from intruding further.