The small bottle simply spun once in the wind, then flashed and vanished into thin air.
The next moment, gales raged above the dense forest, and five-colored spirit clouds rolled forth.
A thunderclap rang out from the clear sky, and an enormous bottle mouth large enough to blot out the sky suddenly emerged from within the spirit clouds. It tilted slightly downward, and countless dark green rune patterns sprayed forth from within it.
The instant those runes flew out of the bottle mouth, each one transformed into a wisp of azure qi and detonated with a burst.
In the blink of an eye, a tremendous wave of law fluctuations enveloped the entire stretch of land below.
A deep rumble echoed through the air!
The air trembled slightly, and countless trees and clumps of earth surged skyward like a tidal wave.
At first, they were just individual trees and balls of soil, but in the blink of an eye, entire stretches of dense forest and large chunks of earth were wrenched up.
No matter how much was pulled in, anything within a thousand zhang of the bottle mouth trembled and disintegrated into powder, all of it swallowed without exception.
The void across ten thousand li of surrounding space blurred and distorted in an instant, entirely shrouded within a thin layer of green light. Below, a massive dark basin had appeared out of nowhere on the ground, its bottom perfectly smooth and completely devoid of vegetation, and it was growing deeper at an alarming rate.
With a furious roar, a mass of white light suddenly burst upward from somewhere beneath the soil of the basin. After a single flash, it transformed into a monstrous giant elephant over a thousand zhang tall.
The elephant's entire body was crystalline white, and a pair of purple-red fire wings had manifested behind its back. A mere flick of those wings sent rings of purple thunder-fire surging outward as it shot furiously toward Han Li's position.
"So it's the Heavenly Image Venerable. No wonder you possess the ability to transform wood into spirit."
Han Li's pupils contracted slightly at the sight of the white flying elephant, but he merely pointed one finger toward the bottle mouth high above in a pointing gesture, silently mouthing an incantation.
With a muffled bang, the enormous bottle mouth's green light flickered once more, and something seemed to flash out from within it in a blur.
The white giant elephant let out a mournful cry, and as if conjured by ghosts, a dark green chain had materialized around its body. In the next instant, it was bound tight.
The giant elephant beat its wings frantically, a layer of white crystalline light surging over its entire body as wave after wave of astonishing shockwaves roared outward, but the dark green chain clung to it like bones clinging to marrow, refusing to let go. Then, as the surrounding air blurred, the chain suddenly thickened and tightened.
With a deep groan, the giant elephant shattered apart piece by piece like porcelain, revealing a middle-aged monk wearing a white kasaya robe.
The monk had refined features, but his face was now filled with panic. Seeing the chain flicker and move to coil around him once more, he gritted his teeth, shook his sleeve, and drew out a blood-red, slender and peculiar blade. With a flash, he hacked it savagely into the chain.
With a deafening boom!
A thick, fetid stench billowed outward within the blood-red light, and a blindingly bright blood-colored flower bloomed in the sky, nearly swallowing the monk entirely.
Yet the dark green chain remained utterly unscathed as it rolled through the blood-colored light, and after a blur, it settled firmly around the monk once more.
At the same time, patches of green light surfaced in the surrounding void. They converged toward the center simultaneously, and a towering green-tinged hurricane roared skyward. An unbelievable force surged from within it, tearing the blood-colored flower to countless fragments.
The hurricane then, amid a burst of crystalline light, suddenly transformed into countless green blades that swept inward toward the monk at the center.
Each of these plate-like green blades was as thin as paper, covered with strange dark green spirit patterns, and emanated a faint aura of law.
Still bound, the monk swept his spiritual sense over the green blades and his face drained of all color. Before they could actually fly toward him, he suddenly bellowed: "Stop! This humble monk admits defeat and is willing to hand over the Dao tokens willingly." The moment those words left his mouth, he hurriedly opened his mouth and spat out a pale silver token.
Han Li's chanting came to an abrupt halt. His gaze swept over the silver token, and he said flatly: "Just one? Where are the rest? If you refuse to surrender them all, don't blame me for showing no mercy."
"Fine, I'll hand them all over! Having encountered a cultivator as powerful as yourself, this humble monk is simply unlucky and has no choice but to withdraw from the competition entirely." The middle-aged monk's pupils contracted slightly at Han Li's words, but after a brief consideration, he gave a bitter smile.
He opened his mouth again and spat out two more silver tokens.
The instant those two tokens left the monk's possession, a ripple of fluctuation stirred beneath him, and a five-colored light formation materialized out of thin air.
The formation merely spun once, and the monk vanished from the void along with it in a single flash.
All that remained at the original spot were three silver tokens and one dark green chain.
Han Li watched this scene unfold without the slightest surprise. Instead, he smiled and raised his hand in a beckoning gesture.
With a soft whoosh, the dark green chain and the bottle mouth high above both blurred and vanished. The surrounding green light curtain and the dark clouds in the sky also dissipated into nothingness, and a small green bottle descended slowly from high above.
At the same time, the three silver tokens trembled and shot toward Han Li of their own accord.