He flicked his fingers and five dense bolts of lightning lashed out. Another light flashed from his hand to produce a square embroidered cloth drifting downward. Its surface faintly glowed with strange talisman characters in a mysterious fas.h.i.+on.

When the green shadow saw this, he was alarmed but not frightened. Instead, he shook his shoulder, summoning two grey shadows from his back. In a blur, they split off to confront the oncoming lightning and cloth.

The green shadow then twisted his body, wanting to create some distance.

An icy harrumph sounded from the winged silhouette above him.

An inconceivable event followed!

As soon as the green shadow heard him, he violently trembled. Afterwards, his figure stopped and was left in a daze.

A rolling thunder rang and the five bolts of golden lightning were the first to strike the shadow puppet.

Upon contact, the grey shadow dissolved from the golden light like ice to the sun. A grey mist was all that was left behind.

Simultaneously, the odd talisman characters on the embroidered cloth lit up and ruptured. Myriads of fine silver threads covered the grey shadow and immediately retracted it back into the cloth, holding the shadow puppet firmly in place.

Thunder rang from the embroidered cloth, and countless arcs of lightning leaped out, attacking the immobile shadow puppet.

At that moment, the winged silhouette flapped his wings and immediately disappeared with the flash of a silver line.

A moment later, the silver line appeared above the green shadow. The winged silhouette then waved his hand in a casual motion.

His palm sparkled with light and soon light lit up from his fingers, releasing five various colored bone rings.

The rings were as fine as jade with pea-sized skulls meticulously carved from their surface. The eyes in the skulls stirred and the skull opened its mouth as if it were alive.

The five skulls release different colored glacial flames, and they fused together to create a gorgeous barrier of rainbow flame.

Just as he collected himself from being intimidated before, the green shadow saw flames light from in front of him as he was about to be engulfed in rainbow flames.

He felt his entire body tensed and felt it become incredibly slow.

In the next moment, the green shadow felt great terror.

However, he was a high-grade existence in the shadow clan. He instantly let out a piercing shriek from his mouth, causing his green body to burst into countless green threads. They scattered in every direction to avoid being trapped by the rainbow flames.

The winged silhouette seemed to have already antic.i.p.ated this and suddenly swiped down with his other hand.

Light lit up from it and the image of a small black mountain was faintly revealed from his hand. With a flip of his hand, rings of grey light suddenly rushed out from his palm.

When the grey light flew out, the green threads seemed to have encountered their match. As the rings swept the green threads inside of them, they were instantly crushed and turned to green dust.

At that moment, the green shadow’s crimson eyes were filled with terror.

However, his body felt immense pressure as if the land itself was weighing down on him. Against such a powerful ability, he couldn"t muster himself to escape.

Winds tore as differently colored light shot out from the winged silhouette’s hands, placing a series of talismans on the green shadow.

The green shadow blurred and the crimson light gradually faded from his eyes.

An inconceivable event occurred.

Under the restriction of the talismans, the green shadow began to shrink until he was only a fist-sized green ball that weakly pulsed with faint green light.

The winged silhouette didn’t find this odd in the slightest and withdrew his abilities. He simply reached his hand out in the air.

The green ball immediately tore through the air and easily arrived in the person’s head.

At that moment, the winged silhouette turned to the dumbstruck azure-armored old man and said with a smile, “Fellow Daoist Yue, I’m afraid I’ve arrived too late. Are you alright?”

The old man eventually collected himself and withdrew the flying sword in front of him. He returned the smile and saluted the man, “Brother Han, what are you saying? Had you not saved my life, I fear I would’ve been in trouble. I’ve long heard of your exceptional abilities, and now I see those rumors are entirely true! Even a high-grade Shadow Tribe member isn’t enough to be your match.”

The winged silhouette was actually a youth wearing a set of azure armor, Han Li!

But at that moment, Han Li already progressed his cultivation to mid-Deity Transformation stage.

Han Li chuckled in response and said, “Brother Yue is exaggerating. It"s just that my techniques happen to be effective against the Shadow Tribe members. If it were another foreign race, my attacks wouldn’t have been effective.

“Hehe, Fellow Daoist Han is quite modest. Who could’ve known that your small squad would suffer no casualties during decades of patrol a.s.signments? I heard in those years, you’ve killed quite a few foreign tribe spies. Tch tch, considering all your merits, my praise hadn’t been enough.” The old man wryly laughed and shook his head.

“Nonsense, so the other Fellow Daoists must be alright?” Han Li chuckled and then he looked around.

“There should be any problems. Since that Shadow Tribe member has been restrained, the puppets he controlled should’ve dispersed. My subordinates had been earlier possessed, but since only a short time had pa.s.sed, their vitality will only be a bit damaged in the worst case. So why did you come across this place? Where are your subordinates?” When the old man saw that Han Li didn’t want to continue that conversation, he tactfully changed the topic.

Han Li took out a jade box from his storage bracelet and put the restrained green shadow in it. Then he calmly answered, “Hehe, it was only a matter of luck. I recently acquired a high-grade Foreign Spirit Plate, so it gives me a broader range. I happened to be patrolling with my squad in a nearby area and the plate rang. As for my subordinates, I ordered them to stay in place before I took off.”

“So it was like that. I’ve managed to escape calamity through luck alone!” The old man sighed.

At that moment, the two black-armored guards nearby approached Han Li and uttered deep thanks for his timely arrival.

From a distance, the other cultivators were returning and arrived before Han Li, uttering a similar word of thanks.

Han Li uttered a few pleasantries before saying farewell and flying off in an azure streak.

After Han Li disappeared from sight, the large man with a fierce expression muttered, “I heard when Senior Han just arrived at Deep Heaven City, he was only at early Deity Transformation-stage cultivation, but his abilities were on par with a mid-stage cultivator. And ten years ago, he entered mid-stage and his abilities became even more profound.”

The other black-armored guard said with admiration, “More than just that. I heard that in the decades he spent on his patrol a.s.signment, he killed eight high-grade foreign beings. He can’t be compared to an ordinary dark azure guard. Could it be that ascended cultivators are all such fearsome existences.”

The middle-aged woman snorted and said, “Ascended cultivators are a grade stronger than those native to the spirit realm, but that Senior Han is an outlier even among ascended cultivators.”

The other cultivators were startled when they heard this.

After Han Li faded from sight, the old man twirled his beard long in thought. After a short while, he waved his hand and had his squad depart.

Hundreds of kilometers away, an azure streak tore through the air and the light faded away to reveal Han Li.

At that same moment, a dozen streaks of light flew up from the ground and stopped before Han Li to reveal black-armored cultivators.

“Squad Leader!”

“Senior Han!”

They all called out to him and stood at attention while floating in the air.

After several decades had pa.s.sed, the squad remained safe and sound, but this time, they viewed Han Li with obvious respect. They no longer possessed an ounce of disobedience.

This was to be expected.

The other three squads that undertook patrol missions in similar areas would see an astonis.h.i.+ng number of deaths. There were times that over half the small squads would need to be replaced. Although his own squad encountered many dangers, Han Li resolved each of them with ease, earning him the unopposed command of his squad.

Of course, under Han Li’s guidance, the squad acquired many rewards, much to their satisfaction.

Han Li nodded and casually said, “Let’s go, the foreign being was a green shadow and it has already been disposed of.”

A cultivator with a young appearance chuckled and said, “A green shadow? That is quite troublesome. The squad leader must’ve been able to restrain him easily with his Divine Essensefused Light. Let alone the green shadow, if a scarlet shadow appeared, the squad leader might’ve had a real fight.”

Han Li snorted and said, “A scarlet shadow is something that even Spatial Tempering cultivators find difficult to deal with. How could I possibly deal with one? Alright, let’s hurry on our way. After we patrol this last area, we’ll be able to rest for another year. Last time, we encountered a high-grade Cave Hollow Tribe being there. This time, we encountered a high-grade Shadow Tribe Being.”

Cultivator Ma’s cheek twitched and he sullenly said, “That’s right. Isn’t this becoming too ordinary over the past ten years? Even if we commonly discover foreign tribe scouts, it can’t happen this often. There are even high-grade beings among them, each of them entering the swamp without any fear. I heard that the Buried Bone Desert that the demons are managing on the other side are also encountering a large number of foreign tribe scouts. Large number of metamorphosed demons are also dying on their patrols. Could it be there are foreign tribes that plan on attacking Deep Heaven City?”

When the others heard this, their expressions vastly changed and their smiles faded.

Still as beautiful as before, Fairy Xu frowned and said, “That can’t be, it had only been thirty thousand years the foreign tribes last attacked Deep Heaven City. Don’t they usually launch an attack every sixty thousand years?”