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

Chapter 817: Long Journey

Shi Chuankong immediately noticed that there was something different about the glass lamp at the center of the array.

As it turned out, the eyes of the four beasts on the lamp had all lit up and were glowing red.

As soon as Shi Chuankong's gaze fell upon the red light, he was immediately rooted to the spot, as if he had been struck by lightning.

At the same time, his blood began to boil in his veins, and an intense wave of heat swept through his entire body, striking him with a sense of asphyxiation.

He hurriedly channeled his cultivation arts to protect himself, and as he settled his gaze on the four beasts once again, it felt as if they had all sprung to life and were leering maliciously at him.

An indescribable sense of fury and resentment began to well up in his heart.

All of a sudden, he felt as if this entire world had been extremely unfair to him. He never had any interest in competing against his siblings. Instead, all he wanted was to be able to travel the world as a wealthy merchant and collect all of the fine treasures that the realms had to offer. In his eyes, that was the most fulfilling life possible.

However, his siblings all seemed to harbor enmity toward him, and he couldn't understand why.

The more these vindictive thoughts took root in his mind, the more violent and twisted his expression became.

Right at this moment, a loud roar suddenly rang out.

It was Han Li's voice, and in the wake of the roar, Shi Chuankong's mental clarity was instantly restored.

His expression instantly darkened slightly, while a sense of lingering fear welled up in his heart.

As he turned his gaze back to the glass lamp, he discovered that it was still glowing red, but the red light was being suppressed by a burst of formidable spiritual sense.

The spiritual sense had naturally come from none other than Han Li, and despite his composed appearance, his consciousness was reeling internally.

It was unclear whether the refinement method left behind by the sisters was fake, or whether he had injected too many spiritual sense threads into the lamp earlier. In any case, Han Li had been struck by backlash from the lamp, and the four beasts had manifested themselves in his mind to devour his spiritual sense, attempting to suck his soul into the lamp.

At this moment, four giant beast projections were closing toward the center of his consciousness from four different directions, and in response, Han Li immediately channeled his Spirit Refinement Technique.

Bursts of formidable spiritual sense fluctuations were surging out of the center of his consciousness, forming a series of giant waves that swept toward the four beasts, resisting them in their advance.

However, this wasn't a permanent solution, and it could only delay the crisis.

Right at this moment, Han Li let loose a loud roar, and a burst of white light swept through his entire consciousness like a snowstorm, instantly freezing everything inside, including the four beasts.

However, before he had a chance to do anything else, a string of loud cracks rang out, and the four beasts freed themselves from the frozen snowscape before continuing in their advance.

Having already devoured a huge amount of spiritual sense from Han Li's consciousness, the four beasts had become too powerful to contain.

A sense of immense pressure was weighing down upon Han Li's entire consciousness, and to his dismay, the pressure was only continuing to mount further and further.

He knew that once the four beasts linked up with each other, his consciousness would be completely compressed, leading to the destruction of his soul, ultimately reducing him to nothing more than an empty husk.

Right as he was scrambling for a solution, a burst of purple light suddenly appeared above hsi consciousness, releasing bursts of warm and comforting energy that quickly replenished his spiritual sense.

Han Li was instantly reinvigorated, and he redoubled his efforts, resisting against the advance of the four beasts with all his might.

The four beasts were slowed down drastically, but they were still advancing forward little by little.

Han Li could feel more and more pressure building in his consciousness, and his spiritual sense was being stripped away bit by bit, while the purple light above his consciousness had also been compressed into a ball by the tremendous pressure.

A suffocating sense of fear began to well up in his heart, but right at this moment, a resounding boom rang out within his consciousness, following which the compressed ball of purple light suddenly erupted outward in all directions.

Finally, the final bottleneck standing in Han Li's path had been shattered, and he was able to push beyond his limits, achieving full mastery of the fifth level of the Spirit Refinement Technique!

Han Li was ecstatic, and bursts of formidable spiritual sense swept through his consciousness before converging to form an enormous spiritual sense sword.

The spiritual sense sword was semi-transparent, with intricate patterns etched upon its surface, and tremendous spiritual sense fluctuations were surging out of it in all directions.

As the spiritual sense sword slowly descended, the spiritual sense fluctuations only became more and more fearsome, and the four beasts were slowly forced back bit by bit, all the way until they were forced out of Han Li's consciousness altogether.

Meanwhile, Shi Chuankong was standing on the small boat, looking at Han Li with a tense expression. He was holding a piece of Purple Sun Warm Jade in his hand, and he was internally debating whether he should place this piece of jade on top of Han Li's head as well.

Right at this moment, a streak of semi-transparent light shot out of Han Li's glabella, giving Shi Chuankong a huge fright. He was just about to get out of the way when he discovered that the streak of light was a translucent little sword, and it was hovering in front of his glabella in a stable fashion.

Shi Chuankong remained completely still, not making any false moves, and he took a glance at the Soul Devouring Lamp out of the corner of his eye. To his relief, he discovered that the red light in the eyes of the four beasts had already faded.

Shortly thereafter, Han Li slowly opened his eyes, and it was clear that the storm had been weathered.

The spiritual sense sword flew back into his glabella, vanishing out of sight, and eh took a glance up at the piece of Purple Sun Warm Jade hovering above his head, then looked back at Shi Chuankong as he cupped his fist in a salute and said, "Thank you for your help, Brother Shi. I shudder to imagine what would've happened if you hadn't intervened."

"There's no need to thank me, Brother Li. The more powerful you become, the safer I'll be. By the way, what happened just now? Everything appeared to be going smoothly, but the lamp suddenly began wreaking havoc seemingly out of nowhere," Shi Chuankong said.

"I'm not sure what went wrong myself. It seems like I injected too much spiritual sense into the lamp, thereby triggering backlash from the four beasts. I was truly in dire straits, and it was only thanks to your help that I was able to break through my bottleneck and turn the tables," Han Li explained.

Shi Chuankong had no idea what Han Li was talking about, but he had a rough idea of just how perilous the situation had been.

"What was that little sword just now?" he asked.

"That was a Spiritual Sense Sword, a spiritual sense ability that I attained after reaching full mastery of the fifth level of the Spirit Refinement Technique. I don't know exactly how powerful it is right now, but it's definitely quite a formidable ability," Han Li explained.

This was a subject that concerned Han Li's cultivation, so it was inappropriate for Shi Chuankong to pry any further.

At this point, the Heavenly Dream Staircase had already been left behind, and the boat had emerged from the open body of water, leaving only a trail of ripples in its wake.

Eighty years flew by in the blink of an eye.

In a region of the sea that was as black as ink, a gargantuan black whale with a huge island on its back was swimming through the waves.

The entire island was no more than a thousand feet tall with a very level terrain, and it was thriving with lush greenery, interspersed throughout which were a series of pagodas and pavilions.

Two people were seated across from each other in a small mountain pavilion at the center of the island, having some wine in the warm breeze.

Seated on the left was Han Li, and he was holding a cup with a smile on his face as he remarked, "Surely it was overkill to rent an entire whale island just for the two of us."

"I rented this island for you, Brother Li! The arrays on the island can keep out devilish qi while drawing in the world's origin qi, and I thought that would allow you to travel in greater comfort," Shi Chuankong countered.

"I appreciate that, it's just that I'm worried that we're being too ostentatious here and could end up attracting attention to ourselves. Also, now that you mention it, the closer we get to the center of this region, the denser the devilish qi in the environment has become. I can keep it out thanks to my devilish cultivation arts, but it's still rather annoying," Han Li replied with a wry smile.

"It's fine. They don't know our exact itinerary, so there's no way they can intercept us," Shi Chuankong assured with a smile.

"Your eldest brother and fifth sister are no slouches. It seems like they haven't done anything over the past few decades, but there's no telling what sinister plots they could be hatching behind the scenes," Han Li said.

"In any case, we're almost at Ink Sea City, and from there, it'll only be one more stop before we reach Night Sun City. While it's important to be on our guard, there's no need to be excessively cautious," Shi Chuankong replied with a smile.

Right at this moment, a melodious call rang out from the gargantuan whale down below.

Shi Chuankong's brows furrowed slightly as he cast his gaze into the distance, but wasn't able to see anything, and a slightly apprehensive look appeared on his face.

Han Li also took a glance into the distance, then remarked, "We seem to have encountered a sea beast, but it's only at the pinnacle of the Golden Immortal Stage, and it doesn't seem to be particularly vicious in nature."

As soon as his voice trailed off, a vast expanse of light suddenly appeared beneath the waves, following which a giant ball of water emerged from the depths, breaking through the surface of the sea.

The ball of water was a white jellyfish that was far more massive than the black whale, and it was glowing internally, giving it the appearance of a giant beacon that was sitting above the waves.