Han Li cast his gaze toward the same direction, and blue light flashed through his eyes, allowing him to see the devilish army with an extremely high level of clarity, even though it was situated several tens of kilometers away.
Amid the countless devilish battle arks, there was a giant pyramid, at the tip of which stood a group of extremely eye-catching crimson-armored high-grade devilish beings.
They were gathered around a giant carriage that was drawn by several devilish beasts, each with five lion heads, a layer of deep blue scales all over their bodies, and a long scorpion-like stinger extending behind each of them.
The carriage itself was extremely intricate in design with an inky-black flag situated at its center, upon which were inscribed several large crimson devilish characters.
Beneath the flag were clouds of churning devilish Qi, within which stood a young man in a crimson suit of armor with seven or eight devilish lords standing on either side of him in a respectful manner.
The young man bore an identical appearance to the three Sacred Ancestor Xue Guang clones who had pursued Han Li, and a hint of killing intent flashed through Han Li"s eyes at the sight of him.
The crimson-robed young man seemed to have immediately sensed something, and he turned to meet the gaze of Han Li"s spirit eyes. His crimson pupils then instantly turned as black as ink, releasing a burst of bone-chilling suction force that attempted to forcibly draw in Han Li"s gaze.
Han Li"s heart stirred as he forcibly cut off their eye contact with his immense spiritual sense, and the crimson-robed young man"s expression changed slightly in response to this.
"Did you discover something, Fellow Daoist Xue Guang?" A lazy voice rang out from the other side of the beast-drawn carriage. The owner of the voice was a burly bronze-skinned man wearing a beast-hide garment; it was none other than the man whom Xue Guang had referred to as the number one devilish lord.
He currently had his arms crossed and was leaning against the railing on the beast-drawn carriage in a lackadaisical manner.
"A human cultivator was spying on us, but I startled him away. However, they were able to easily break free from my Blacklight Devilish Eyes, so they"re definitely no ordinary being," Xue Guang replied.
"Oh? They were able to resist your devilish eyes? Could this be the target you want me to deal with or perhaps that new late-Body Integration Stage being?" the burly man asked as an excited look appeared on his face.
"It"s hard to say. In any case, this is definitely going to be a troublesome opponent. If you encounter them, I would suggest you take extra caution," Xue Guang said as his brows furrowed slightly.
"Haha, rest a.s.sured, all I"m concerned about is that this opponent won"t be powerful enough to put up a good fight!" the burly man chortled.
Xue Guang could only shake his head with a wry smile in response.
Meanwhile, over at Deep Heaven City, Han Li had his eyes tightly shut, and only after a long while did he manage to recover from the sense of dizziness he had been struck by.
"Are you alright, Fellow Daoist Han?" the white-robed elderly man asked in a concerned manner.
"I"m fine. I was caught off guard by an opposing secret technique, but I"m alright now," Han Li replied with a nonchalant shake of his head.
"That"s good to hear. Have you managed to confirm if that man truly is the Sacred Ancestor Xue Guang clone?" the white-robed elderly man asked.
"I have. That man has an identical appearance and aura to the Sacred Ancestor Xue Guang clones I"ve seen in the past, so he should be one as well," Han Li replied.
"I see. The fact that this clone has appeared in the devilish army reaffirms the notion that they"re planning to launch an all-out attack. We"ll be counting on you to take on that clone, Fellow Daoist Han. There"s no need to defeat him; all you have to do is keep him occupied," Buddhist Monk Jin Yue said with a solemn expression.
"Hehe, rest a.s.sured, fellow daoists; as long as no other devilish beings intervene, this clone definitely won"t be able to affect the rest of the battle," Han Li said with a confident smile.
"We"ll be counting on you then, Brother Han. We"ll do our best to hold off all of the other devilish lords so they don"t disrupt your battle," the white-robed elderly man a.s.sured in an elated manner.
Han Li nodded and offered no response to this. After that, several of the elders that Han Li had met in the past all approached him with greetings, and they were clearly treating him more politely than they had in the past.
It was quite clear that his status as a late-Body Integration cultivator had earned him some awe and veneration from the elders of the city.
Han Li wasn"t very familiar with these other members of the panel of elders, so he only exchanged some obligatory pleasantries with them before falling silent again.
Right at this moment, a burst of loud rumbling rang out from the devilish army, following which hordes of ferocious devilish beasts rushed out of the sea of devilish Qi.
There were millions of devilish beasts with too many species among them to count. The devilish beasts rushed forward like a torrential flood, following which over 100 b.a.l.l.s of black light flew out from among their ranks.
Each ball of light contained a half-beast half-human metamorphosis stage devilish beast, and under their instructions, the chaotic hordes of beasts instantly became neat and organized. Aside from the occasional low beastly snarl, no other sound rang out from among them.
Aside from these ordinary devilish beasts, there were over 1,000 extremely eye-catching mountainous super devilish beasts dispersed throughout the hordes of beasts.
There was no end in sight to this army of devilish beasts, and more and more of them continued to emerge from within the sea of devilish Qi, as if there were truly no end to their numbers.
In what seemed like the blink of an eye, over 10,000,000 devilish beasts had appeared, and the elders" expressions were becoming progressively more strained.
"How could there be so many devilish beasts? Wasn"t there only supposed to be 5,000,000 to 6,000,000?" Elder Gu asked with a hint of alarm in his eyes.
"According to the information we had received earlier, there were indeed only supposed to be several million devilish beasts; these must be new additions to the devilish army," Buddhist Monk Jin Yue explained in a calm manner.
"With so many devilish beasts present, this battle is not going to be an easy one," a black-robed demonic man murmured with a dark expression.
"Rest a.s.sured, fellow daoists; these are only low-grade devilish beasts. No matter how many of them there are, they"re not going to have a decisive effect on the battle. I had already considered such a potential situation in advance and prepared countermeasures accordingly," the white-robed elderly man said.
"I see. In that case, we"ll leave it to you, Brother Gu." The other elders were quite relieved to hear this.
The white-robed elderly man smiled as he flipped a hand over to summon a white formation plate, then said something into it, and moments later, bursts of astonis.h.i.+ng energy fluctuations abruptly erupted as several giant formations emerged on the city wall.
At the center of each formation hovered an altar that was as white as jade, and there were several ordinary-looking items situated on these altars.
There was a dark blue bowl, an inky-black gourd, a silver longsword, and a white screen-like object.
"Those are the Four Celestial River Treasures! Isn"t it overkill to be using them on low-grade devilish beings, Brother Gu?" a demonic elder asked with a mixture of elation and concern on his face.
"These treasures are indeed extremely powerful, but their forte lies in their ability to attack ma.s.sive areas. In comparison, they"ll be much less effective when targeting individual powerful beings. As such, following some discussion with Fellow Daoist Jin Yue, we decided to use them against these low-grade devilish beasts in the end. On one hand, we"ll be able to kill a ma.s.sive number of devilish beasts, and on the other hand, morale will be boosted. Otherwise, if we suffer a large number of casualties as soon as the battle begins, morale will inevitably plummet. I"m sure this is also the reasoning behind the devilish army"s decision to send out all of these devilish beasts first," the white-robed elderly man explained.
The other elders all felt this to be quite reasonable, so they nodded in response and didn"t pry any further into the matter.
"There is indeed a ma.s.sive number of devilish beasts, but the most troublesome beings to take care of will be those devilish elites; they seem to have been deployed as well," Han Li suddenly said.
All of the elders hurriedly cast their eyes into the distance upon hearing this, and they discovered that groups of armor-clad devilish beings had appeared behind the hordes of beasts in the distance.
These devilish beings were either riding atop different types of devilish steeds or flying through the air as gusts of black winds. They were all giving off a ruthless aura of bloodl.u.s.t and following along silently behind the army of devilish beasts. If it weren"t for Han Li"s words of caution, the other elders wouldn"t have noticed them.
Amid the sound of rumbling war drums, a string of giant bell tolls suddenly erupted from within the sea of devilish Qi, and the inky-black giant arks, as well as the enormous devilish pyramid, also emerged with countless devilish battle carriages around them.
"Have they gone insane? They"re unleas.h.i.+ng all of their power from the get-go! Are they not planning to keep any backup reserves?" the white-robed elderly man exclaimed upon seeing this, and all of the other elders were also stunned by this development.
"It doesn"t matter what the devilish army is planning; we just have to stop them! Brother Gu, we can"t afford to panic at a time like this; let"s implement our original plan. Fellow daoists, the survival of our Deep Heaven City could quite possibly hinge on the outcome of this battle," Buddhist Monk Jin Yue suddenly yelled in a rousing manner.