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

Chapter 1048: True Appearance

At this moment, Lan Yan was holding a weapon that resembled a curved sickle with an extended shaft, and there were three glowing blue crystals embedded into the sickle's blade.

As for Lan Yuanzi, he was wielding a thin longsword that also had three blue crystals on its blade, and the sword was releasing bursts of rippling blue light as he swung it through the air.

The two of them were calmly opposing a pair of lion-like metal beasts, and Lan Yan smiled as she said, "These metal beasts are quite powerful, so I'm sure their beast cores must contain metal-attribute law powers. Let's kill some of them so we can harvest their beast cores."

"These metal beasts are nothing compared with the treasures in the Eon Pagoda, so there's no point in wasting time here. Instead, we should focus on finding a way out as soon as possible," Lan Yuanzi said with a shake of his head.

"You're right. It would be quite a pain having to kill all of these metal beasts anyway," Lan Yan agreed with a nod.

"Don't get complacent. These things possess a great deal of offensive prowess, so you could sustain injuries from them if you're not careful," Lan Yuanzi cautioned.

Lan Yan nodded in response, then sprang up into the air before pointing a finger forward, and a burst of blue light instantly erupted out of her fingertip, forming a blue light barrier.

A series of ring-shaped patterns appeared on the light barrier, giving off a formidable water-attribute law aura.

The metal beast that was pouncing at her crashed headfirst into the light barrier with a resounding boom, and the light barrier immediately began to ripple violently, but it managed to hold itself intact and keep the metal beast at bay.

At the same time, she swung her sickle through the air, releasing an arc of blue light that resembled a blue crescent moon.

A sharp screeching sound rang out as the blue light barrier was torn apart, following which the golden lion was sliced into two down the center by the arc of blue light.

Meanwhile, Lan Yuanzi was more direct and barbaric with his approach, making no effort to defend himself at all as he sprang forward and pierced the thin longsword in his hand directly at the other golden lion's glabella.

The heads of these metal beasts were incredibly resilient, yet Lan Yuanzi's sword was able to piece a huge hole into the golden lion's head with ease, much to the astonishment of the onlooking Yu Kuohai.

Only then did he come to realize that Shi Mu wasn't the only one that had been putting on an act of weakness. With that in mind, he promised himself there and then that he would never judge a book by its cover again.

Right at this moment, Han Li suddenly took a glance in his direction, and his heart instantly leaped up into his throat upon seeing this. Thankfully, Han Li's gaze only lingered on him for a moment before he looked away again.

Even so, Yu Kuohai was still feeling very uneasy, and he actively distanced himself from Han Li and the Lan siblings to flee in another direction, making it absolutely certain that he would stay out of their way.

In reality, Han Li didn't care about him at all, and the only reason why he had taken a glance in Yu Kuohai's direction was because he could sense an even more powerful metal beast currently approaching from that direction.

As he turned his gaze back to the Lan siblings, he was surprised to discover that they were nowhere to be seen.

Before he had a chance to search for them, the golden eagle that had just slain Elder Yang swooped down upon him from above.

Han Li's brows furrowed slightly upon seeing this, and he turned slightly to the side before throwing a punch upward.

As soon as the golden eagle's talons came into contact with Han Li's fist, its entire body instantly exploded amid a powerful eruption of starlight, and its remains were quickly devoured by a qilin-like metal beast.

Immediately thereafter, the golden qilin let loose a thunderous roar as a pair of golden wings sprouted on its back.

Han Li was rather taken aback to see this, and this golden qilin seemed to have been the metal beast that he had detected earlier.

The golden qilin rushed directly at Han Li while opening its mouth to release a ball of golden, molten fluid that came raining down upon him from above.

Han Li immediately summoned an Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword before swinging it upward, and releasing a net of golden lightning that clashed against the molten fluid cascading down from above.

There seemed to be bursts of sharp energy within the molten fluid, and it was able to quickly tear the net of golden lightning apart.

However, the golden fluid had also been whittled down significantly by the golden lightning, and what little remained of it was torn to shreds by the sword qi from Han Li's Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Sword.

Immediately thereafter, Han Li sprang up into the air directly at the golden qilin, which flapped its wings with all its might in retaliation, conjuring up gusts of golden wind that swept through the air like a storm of sharp golden blades.

The path up ahead was sealed off by the gusts of golden wind, so Han Li sprang up further into the air, vaulting himself over the gusts of golden wind before throwing an almighty punch down upon the golden qilin's head.

A burst of tremendous power erupted out of Han Li's fist, causing the space below to compress upon itself in layers, following which his fist struck the golden qilin on the top of its head.

The qilin's legs instantly folded under the weight of Han Li's punch, sending it crashing to the ground.

Its head was split open by Han Li's fist, but it was clearly very much disoriented.

Han Li landed on the top of its head, and a contemplative look appeared on his face, following which he pressed a finger against his own glabella before drawing it outward.

A translucent thread that was as thin as a strand of hair was pulled out of his glabella, and it swirled around his fingertip like a spirit snake.

Immediately thereafter, the translucent thread burrowed its way into the golden qilin's head at his behest, and its head instantly drooped down as if it had fallen asleep.

Han Li gave a pleased nod upon seeing this, then conjured up a huge door of silver light in front of the golden qilin.

"You'll make a decent guard dog," Han Li murmured to himself, then sprang back through the air, landing behind the golden qilin before giving it a kick on the backside to send it flying into the door of light.

After that, he closed his Flower Branch domain before turning to a certain direction.

A blue light barrier emerged from the golden light in that direction, and the Lan siblings made their way out from within.

"That's a domain treasure, is it not? No wonder you were able to completely loot such a massive part of the secret area. Having said that, don't you feel a little ashamed, stooping as low as to scrape up an entire plot of spirit farmland for yourself, Fellow Daoist Han?" Lan Yan said with an amused smile.

"When did you discover my true identity?" Han Li asked with slightly furrowed brows.

"You've been spying on us this entire time, Fellow Daoist Han. Did you think we wouldn't have noticed?" Lan Yuanzi chuckled.

Looking at the physical affection on display between the two, Han Li couldn't help but feel a little sick to the stomach as he asked, "Aren't you two supposed to be siblings?"

A furious look appeared on Lan Yan's face at the sight of Han Li's disgusted expression, and she snapped, "My brother and I are not related by blood! We were both orphans who were picked up by our master, so we both adopted our master's surname. Only a filthy scoundrel like you would think of something so putrid."

In contrast, Lan Yuanzi seemed to be completely unbothered.

"I couldn't care less about your relationship. I was hoping to avoid a battle against you two, but it looks like that's out of the question now," Han Li mused.

"A battle is still very much avoidable," Lan Yuanzi countered with a faint smile. "All you have to do is surrender yourselves to us, and we'll take you back to the Nine Origins Temple with us after we leave this secret area."

"Does everyone from your Nine Origins Temple like to make this same joke? The last person who said this to me was Dongfang Bai. Are you two familiar with him?" Han Li asked.

"How dare you!"

A furious look immediately appeared on Lan Yan's face as she prepared to pounce at Han Li, only to be stopped by Lan Yuanzi.

"Don't fall for his provocation. He was able to storm into the Immortal Palace and kill Dongfang Bai, so he's most definitely not to be taken lightly, even for us," Lan Yuanzi cautioned.

Lan Yan composed herself slightly upon hearing this, and she switched to a two-handed grip on her long-shaft sickle as she glowered intently at Han Li.

"Seeing as you insist doing things the hard way, the two of us will gladly oblige," Lan Yuanzi said in a serious manner as he gently swept his longsword through the air, conjuring up a spherical, blue light barrier that encompassed the entire surrounding area in a radius of several thousand feet.

Han Li's brows furrowed slightly upon seeing this. He could sense that much of the metal-attribute spiritual qi in the air had suddenly faded away, and all of the surrounding metal beasts were also driven out by the spirit domain.

As for the cultivators of the Spirit Heaven Sect, Blazing Light City, and the Worry Not Pavilion, close to all of them were already dead at this point.

"This spirit domain of yours is quite interesting. It doesn't appear to harbor any offensive power, but it's able to drive back those metal beasts," Han Li mused in an intrigued manner.