Under Han Li's command, the Gold Light Brick talisman treasure quickly materialized its true form. A golden brick roughly a foot long floated into midair, radiating dazzling light.
Meanwhile, the spiritual energy within Han Li's body poured into the brick like a surging river, flowing ceaselessly. Before long, a third of his magical power had been drained. This made the golden glow above his head even more blinding—so bright that one could hardly look at it directly!
The young woman was simultaneously pouring her full effort into restraining the ink flood dragon while watching Han Li's every move. When she saw the golden brick manifest, the uneasy fluttering in her heart finally settled—Han Li hadn't been lying. This talisman treasure really could break through the beast's defenses.
The ink flood dragon seemed to sense that things were going badly. Its two claws gripped the sides of the ring tightly, thrashing with ever-greater ferocity—so hard that the girl's Vermilion Bird Rings began to tremble faintly! Her expression changed, and she quickly called out to Han Li: "Hurry! It's about to break free!"
Hearing this, Han Li dared not hesitate. He pointed a finger at the talisman treasure above his head, and the golden brick shot toward the ink flood dragon with a whoosh. Mid-flight it suddenly grew enormous, swelling to the size of a small hill, then smashed down upon the flood dragon with brutal force.
The still-struggling flood dragon knew the situation was dire, but its two green eyes suddenly flashed with a vicious gleen. It opened its mouth, and the purple elixir liquid that Han Li had been so wary of sprayed out once again—directly intercepting the descending golden brick and holding it up, preventing it from falling for the time being.
Both the young woman and Han Li were startled by this. Han Li could only stare helplessly since he needed to control the golden brick, but the young woman bit her cherry lips, pulled a yellow bead from her robes, and flung it at the beast that was still locked in a stalemate with the golden brick.
With a soft pop, the bead struck the ink flood dragon's head and immediately burst apart. A small cloud of yellow mist instantly enveloped the dragon's head, causing the flood dragon to let out a panicked, low roar. Naturally, the purple liquid it had been spraying stopped as well.
Without the purple liquid to hold it back, the slightly dimmed golden brick came crashing down, landing squarely on the dragon's skull with an earth-shattering boom. Blinding golden light flooded the entire underground world in an instant, then quickly faded back to normal.
The golden brick, now returned to its original size, transformed back into a streak of golden light and flew back to Han Li's side.
In midair, only the dying beast remained.
Half of the ink flood dragon's head had been smashed to a pulp. One of its dragon eyes had burst completely from its socket and been knocked off to who knew where. The other eye, though still in place, was oozing blood ceaselessly. The entire flood dragon looked utterly wretched!
It seemed this beast wouldn't be long for the world.
The girl's face lit up with joy. She hurriedly pulled a small crystal bottle from her storage pouch, chanted something over it, then pointed at the ink flood dragon. Several thin streams of black qi shot from the bottle's mouth and wrapped sinisterly around the dragon's body.
Before long, a miniature green flood dragon that looked exactly like the ink flood dragon was forcibly extracted from its body by the black qi. Though it clawed and bit in a desperate struggle, it was gradually pulled into the small bottle.
After the young woman sealed the bottle and carefully examined the tiny ink flood dragon inside a few times, she could no longer hide the smile spreading across her face—she was beaming from ear to ear. Then her autumn-like eyes glanced once more at the now lifeless corpse of the flood dragon, and she fell into thought.
Seeing all of this, Han Li immediately understood that she had seized the dragon's Primordial Spirit. Though he didn't know exactly what an ink flood dragon Primordial Spirit could be used for, the sheer delight on the girl's face told him it must be worth a fortune.
At that moment, the young woman reached out and recalled the Vermilion Bird Rings into her body. The ink flood dragon's corpse dropped from midair and landed right at Han Li's feet.
"Since I've taken this dragon's Primordial Spirit, I'll leave its body to you. After all, we killed it together!" The girl landed beside Han Li and spoke with a casual generosity.
Han Li looked at her satisfied expression, then down at the flood dragon's carcass, and felt a pang of silent frustration: "How generous of you. You're giving me this body because you figure I can't do anything with it, aren't you? We both know how tough this ink flood dragon's shell is! I bet she just wants to watch me make a fool of myself!"
With this thought, a cold gleam flashed in Han Li's hand, and a massive silver sword appeared—the formidable magical weapon that had once belonged to the barefoot man.
Without a word, he swung the great sword downward with all his might. With a thunk, the silver blade sank three inches into the flood dragon's body. Though it didn't cut very deep, it had at least breached the dragon's defenses—enough to make the girl standing nearby gasp, her mouth hanging open in shock.
Seeing her reaction, Han Li found it rather amusing and continued swinging the sword, ready to strike again.