This was clearly a treasure that was able to simulate the entire Heavenlean City, and as for the clouds of black Qi on the screen, those naturally symbolized the approaching devilish army.

These clouds of black Qi seemed to be moving extremely slowly, but in reality, the devilish army was approaching at a rapid speed.

"Please take a seat, Fellow Daoist Han, Fairy Silver Light. This battle is going to decide the fate of our Heavenlean City, so we"ll be counting on you, fellow Daoists," Master Azure Dragon said in an earnest manner as he rose to his feet.

"Of course, it"s only right that we do our part in such an important battle," Fairy Silver Light said with a smile.

An elated look appeared on Master Azure Dragon"s face upon hearing this, and he immediately offered words of grat.i.tude.

Fairy Lin Luan was also appraising the two with a smile on her face, and once they had taken their seats, she said, "According to the news provided by our scouts, the devilish army is throwing everything at us on this occasion, and leaving nothing in reserve. Thankfully, we had already antic.i.p.ated that this would be the case, and we"ve also made some preparations for this day. As long as we can hold off those devilish lords, there"s a very good chance that we"ll be able to force back the devilish army. Of course, we are very grateful that Sister Silver Light and Fellow Daoist Han have come all the way here to reinforce our city, and our four sects certainly won"t make this a thankless trip for the two of you. We"ve prepared some presents; please do accept them."

As soon as her voice trailed off, she clapped her hands twice, and two azure-armored guards immediately strode into the hall from outside. Each of them was carrying a silver platter covered by golden silk fabric, and they made their way over to Han Li and Fairy Silver Light before raising the platters high above their heads as a gesture of respect.

A peculiar look flashed through Han Li"s eyes as he waved a hand toward one of the silver platters, and the section of golden silk fabric draped over the platter rustled slightly before a blue bracelet flew out and was drawn into his grasp.

This was a storage bracelet of quite a high caliber.

Han Li injected his spiritual sense into the bracelet, and immediately drew a sharp breath. He had already antic.i.p.ated that the items in the storage bracelet would be extremely valuable, but even he didn"t think that it would be filled with so many precious materials and ingredients. This was virtually the equivalent of the entire wealth of a medium-sized sect.

As expected of one of the most prominent superpowers of the human race, the four major sects truly were extremely wealthy.

Of course, this was also due to the fact that the survival of Heavenlean City truly hinged on the upcoming battle. Otherwise, no matter how grateful Master Azure Dragon and Fairy Lin Luan were toward Han Li and Fairy Silver Light, there was no way they would offer such staggering compensation.

On top of that, if Han Li and Fairy Silver Light were to accept this ma.s.sive offering, then they would have no excuse to not give everything they had in the upcoming battle.

A faint smile appeared on Han Li"s face, and he said, "Thank you for the present, fellow Daoists."

He flipped his hand over as he spoke, and the storage bracelet vanished amid a flash of spiritual light.

After inspecting the contents of her storage bracelet, a hint of elation also flashed through Fairy Silver Light"s eyes, and she accepted it as well.

Both Fairy Lin Luan and Master Azure Dragon were very elated to see this, and the latter said, "If we can defend the city from the devilish army, we"ll have another present for the two of you following the battle as thanks for your efforts."

"Indeed, as long as we can withstand this attack, the suns will return to normal, and the Nine Sun Astral Formation will recover its function, which will restore the city"s ability to protect itself. However, prior to this, the four of us will definitely have a grueling battle ahead. I hope our presents will suffice as a show of our heartfelt grat.i.tude," Lin Luan said with a smile.

"This is indeed a very large present, and I"ll be sure to do everything in my power to help the city withstand this attack. The All-encompa.s.sing Devilish Cavaliers aren"t a concern as the copper puppet army will be able to counter them, but those Jialun War Devils are going to be very troublesome; I"m concerned that ordinary cultivators won"t be able to handle them," Han Li said in a slow voice.

"Rest a.s.sured, Brother Han; we"re also aware of just how powerful these Jialun War Devils are, so we"ve organized a group of elite cultivators and prepared some special methods to oppose them. I"m sure we"ll be able to keep those devils at bay," Master Azure Dragon replied in a slightly ambiguous manner.

"Oh? It sounds like my concerns were unnecessary, then. You seem to already have everything planned out; would you be able to disclose your plans to me and Fairy Silver Light?" Han Li asked with a calm smile.

"Of course. Aside from the Nine Sun Astral Formation, we"ve spared no expense to activate all of the other formations in the city to their maximal extent. On top of that, we"ve also brought out the 32 Spatial Tempering Stage puppets stored in our treasure vault, which is one of our trump cards..." Thus, Master Azure Dragon began to introduce the preparations they had made, and Fairy Lin Luan would interject from time to time to provide additional details.

Both Han Li and Fairy Silver Light listened with rapt focus, and close to two hours later, a large number of high-grade cultivators suddenly began to frequently enter and exit the hall. All of them wore grim expressions and flew away to different parts of Heavenlean City to carry out the orders they had received.

Not long after that, a resounding bell chime rang out across the entire city, and groups of armored warriors and countless streaks of light appeared in the city before rus.h.i.+ng to all of the city walls.

At the same time, a series of formations of different sizes emerged on a plot of empty land in a secluded corner of the city. These formations were all radiating dazzling light, and some of the nearby buildings suddenly began to transform, taking on the form of ma.s.sive giants or huge battle carriages and flying arks.

At the center of the city, the ma.s.sive conference hall suddenly began to tremor violently before slowly rising up out of the ground, then hovered in mid-air after growing to over 100,000 feet tall.

Not only that, but the seemingly ordinary patterns running along the surface of the hall suddenly lit up and arranged themselves into a series of profound five-colored runes.

A dull thump rang out, and a dense five-colored light barrier emerged from the underside of the hall, then swelled to encompa.s.s the entire building.

Immediately thereafter, a burst of buzzing rang out from the hall, and it flew toward a certain direction as a giant ball of five-colored light.

A few hours later, the giant hall appeared in the air above a certain section of the city wall, where it hovered in a stationary manner.

On the city wall and inside the city down below was an enormous army of human warriors and low-grade cultivators that stretched for as far as the eyes could see; this was an army of millions!

There were also around 7,000 to 8,000 high-grade cultivators in the air above the army, and all of them were standing on flying treasures with grim looks in their eyes.

In a certain corner of the human army down below, there was also a large horde of ferocious-looking spirit beasts.

All of them had vicious looks in their eyes and seemed extremely eager for blood, but they were being controlled by a certain invisible restriction and didn"t even dare to utter a single sound.

Deep under the ground beneath these ferocious beasts were a series of complex underground tunnels, within which a copper puppet army was standing at the ready.

Among this army were 32 particularly eye-catching golden puppets, each of which was around 1,000 feet tall.

At the same time, there were a dozen or so white-robed cultivators situated on a giant plaza in Heavenlean City that was surrounded by countless guards. These cultivators were busy at work standing around a purple super formation that was virtually entirely constructed from blocks of purple jade stones.

All of these stones were engraved with runes of different colors, and they formed nine secondary formations that the super formation was ultimately comprised of.

This was an extremely rare hierarchical linked formation!

At the center of each of the nine formations was a miniature formation formed by blue runes, and these miniature formations were releasing bursts of astonis.h.i.+ng glacial Qi, as well as a rank odor.

The entire super formation was quite dim, and the nine secondary formations seemed to have completely ceased to operate.

Only those miniature blue formations were still as dazzling as ever and resembled scintillating suns that would never be snuffed out.

The dozen or so white-robed cultivators seemed to be extremely wary of those blue formations, and even as they were placing pieces of some kind of golden crystal around the entire formation, they made sure to keep far away from those blue formations.

Time slowly pa.s.sed by, and around eight hours flew past in the blink of an eye.

Right at this moment, the sound of war drums rang out in the distance, striking the listener with the feeling that their blood had been set alight.

Immediately thereafter, one black thread appeared after another, and they gradually thickened before forming an inky-black devilish sea that surged toward the city from a distance.

There were countless indistinct devilish shadows within the sea, and the outlines of a series of mountainous giant arks were particularly eye-catching.

Light flashed from the roof of the giant hall in the air above Heavenlean City, and a dozen or so humanoid figures emerged before casting their eyes toward the devilish sea in unison.