A Record of a Mortal's Journey to Immortality: Immortal Realm

Chapter 919: Venturing Into Peril

As the dust settled, Han Li spotted a Black Scaled Elephant puppet with its head raised up at the heavens.

It had been buried under the rocks that had tumbled down from the collapsed mountain faces, but it had managed to blast its way out by brute force.

Han Li couldn't help but be impressed by how powerful the puppefied Black Scaled Elephant was.

It seemed that while the cultivators of Puppet City couldn't couldn't compare with their Profound City counterparts when it came to bodily refinement, they were extremely adept in the art of puppetry, and that was what had allowed them to establish themselves in the Scalptia Spatial Domain.

All of the Profound City cultivators displayed reactions upon seeing this.

The city lords remained calm and composed, while everyone else was either stunned by what they had seen, or were proclaiming that the Puppet City cultivators had done this on purpose.

All of a sudden, the roof of a stone palace on the back of another Black Scaled Elephant puppet up ahead suddenly opened up, and a spear around the same thickness as an adult human's arm shot out with an explosive boom.

At this point, the two-headed scaled falcon had already flown far into the distance, but the spear was able to catch up to it in a flash before piercing into its abdomen.

The two-headed falcon screeched in pain, but it was able to remain aloft as it continued flying away into the distance.

Clearly, the spear that had pierced into its body had been fitted with Explosive Scaled Beast star bones.

After this brief interlude, the Puppet City camp continued onward, as did the Profound City camp.

……

Half a year later.

Gusts of fierce wind were howling over a rocky black desert, and even though it was noon, the swirling sand in the sky made it feel as if it were just as dark as nighttime.

The ground was rumbling incessantly as countless large rocks were rolling around everywhere in the face of the fierce winds, and at this moment, the two groups of scaled beasts were huddled together in a pair of circles around a thousand feet apart with their heads facing inward to withstand the elements.

All of a sudden, the roof of a stone palace on the back of one of the scaled beasts was abruptly torn off by the wind, then swept away like a kite.

Immediately thereafter, a tall and imposing figure launched himself up into the sky out of the stone palace and into the ferocious sandstorm outside.

Profound acupoints were glowing on his legs, allowing him to tread on air and rush after the stone roof.

No more than twenty seconds later, the figure returned with the black stone roof held above his head with both hands, and he returned the roof back to its original place on the stone palace.

The figure was none other than Han Li, and after restoring the roof, he swept his gaze around the room with a wry smile on his face. Even though the roof had only been missing for less than twenty seconds, a thick layer of sand had already accumulated underfoot, and the stone table at the center of the room had also been smashed into pieces by a flying rock.

This black sandstorm has already been raging for over two months, when is it going to end?

Han Li heaved a resigned sigh as he swept away the sand on his stone bed with his sleeve before sitting down on it.

Initially, in the face of scaled beast attacks, the two parties from the two cities had been trying to compete against each other, with neither side willing to be outdone by the other, but as the journey wore on, the conditions had become more and more inhospitable, to the point that the two parties had no choice but to set their differences aside and work together.

……

Several more years passed.

The sound of a blowing horn rang out on a vast plain, and the Puppet City party that was leading the way suddenly stopped in its tracks.

The Profound City camp was trailing over a thousand feet behind them, and they also drew to a halt.

Inside a stone palace on the back of one of the Black Scaled Elephants, Han Li, Gu Qianxun, and Xuanyuan Xing were seated around a stone table.

"We've stopped again," Gu Qianxun remarked as her brows furrowed slightly.

"It must be another attack. The deeper we venture into the Scalptia Spatial Domain, the greater the spatial pressure, and the more powerful the scaled beasts that we encounter, so progress has been getting slower and slower," Xuanyuan Xing sighed.

"I thought that I would be able to cultivate in seclusion over this entire journey, but we keep being interrupted by scaled beast attacks. The only silver lining is that we get to keep the beast cores of the scaled beasts that we slay," Han Li said with a wry smile.

"Let's see what we're dealing with this time," Gu Qianxun sighed as she rose to her feet.

The three of them made their way out of the stone palace together, only to discover that the situation outside was not quite like what they had anticipated.

It was very calm and peaceful outside, with no danger in sight.

Han Li jumped onto the roof of the stone palace before peering into the distance, and he could see clear distortion in the space dozens of kilometers away.

Countless chaotic spatial rifts were wreaking havoc there like a storm, slicing the space there apart.

Directly below the densely packed array of spatial rifts was a bottomless abyss that stretched as far as the eyes could see in both directions, and wisps of black mist were rising up out of the abyss.

Giant black vortexes were visible at set intervals, stirring up the black mist to make it resemble demonic eyes that were looking into the abyss.

"What's that?" Gu Qianxun murmured as she arrived beside Han Li.

"I don't know, but I can sense that the spatial power in that area is extremely violent. Even from so far away, I can feel a faint tearing force in the air. I hope that's not where the Great Ruins are," Han Li replied.

Right at this moment, Chen Yang flew over to them with Daoist Xie, and the three of them cupped their fists in a respectful salute at his arrival.

"No need for formalities," Chen Yang said with a smile as he waved a dismissive hand. "I've come here to let you know that the Great Ruins are on the other side of that abyss up ahead."

Xuanyuan Xing and Gu Qianxun both turned to look at Han Li upon seeing this. It seemed that he had spoken their worst fear into existence.

"Do we have a way to cross the abyss?" Han Li asked.

"I'm not sure, but City Lord E Kuai has already gone to meet with Sha Xin, and I'm assuming they'll come up with a plan together," Chen Yang replied.

"I wonder if it's even possible to cross such a perilous abyss," Xuanyuan Xing said in a concerned manner.

"I heard from City Lord E that this black abyssal storm is already at its weakest point in the past one million years. Even as recently as a century ago, the area encompassed by the spatial rifts was several hundred kilometers wide, so we wouldn't have even been able to stand this close," Chen Yang sighed.

"In that case, why don't we wait a bit longer? Perhaps after another century, the storm won't pose any obstacle at all," Gu Qianxun said.

"Profound City and Puppet City have both already been monitoring this place for countless years, and both are afraid that the other will enter the Great Ruins before them. The main objective of this edition of the Five City Martial Gathering was to select people to enter the Great Ruins, but with Puppet City coming to us to propose a collaboration, City Lord E had no choice but to commence his plan a little earlier than expected," Chen Yang explained.

"It seems like Puppet City must've only proposed a collaboration out of necessity. I doubt that any one of the two cities would possess the power required to traverse this abyss on its own," Gu Qianxun mused.

"I don't think that's the entire reason. I think Puppet City was most likely also concerned that if they were to try and venture into the Great Ruins on their own, Profound City would take the opportunity to attack while all of their most powerful cultivators were away," Han Li said.

"That sounds like a very shrewd assessment, Fellow Daoist Li," Chen Yang said with a smile.

Right at this moment, a figure suddenly rose up from the Puppet City camp, ascending to an altitude of over a thousand feet before descending toward Profound City camp, where he was revealed to be none other than E Kuai.

As he descended, he pressed a palm down onto the air below, and the speed of his descent was instantly slowed, allowing him to land on the head of the giant crocodile-like scaled beast as lightly as a feather.

"Everyone, travel in the northeastern direction along the abyss. Make sure to look out for spatial rifts along the way," E Kuai ordered in a voice that wasn't very loud, but rang out clearly within everyone's hearts.

"Looks like we're setting off," Chen Yang remarked before departing with Daoist Xie, and the two camps continued onward.

As everyone traveled along the abyss, they discovered that its width wasn't uniform. Instead, some areas were clearly wider than others, and the spatial rifts above those areas also covered larger areas.

Occasionally, some scaled beasts would be spotted, stumbling into the range of the spatial rifts, upon which they would immediately be swept up and torn into pieces, dying extremely horrific deaths.

There were also some flying scaled beasts that were under the impression that they would be safe as long as they flew over the abyss, only to be sucked down into the masses of spatial rifts below by the tremendous suction force released by the giant vortexes within the abyss.

Han Li had personally witnessed a four-winged scaled eagle soaring out of the clouds at an altitude in excess of ten thousand feet in an attempt to fly over the abyss, only to plummet out of the sky like a dead weight before crashing down into one of the black vortexes.