"What, you recognize me?" Han Li's eyes glinted with an odd light as he regarded the black-robed elder in a bland tone.
"N-no, this one has mistaken you for someone else! How could a junior possibly recognize an esteemed senior!" The black-robed elder shivered under Han Li's icy gaze and stammered out a hurried denial.
"Mistaken me for someone else?" Han Li stroked his chin noncommittally, then shifted his gaze away from the old man and swept it across the other cultivators, as though he truly believed the elder's words.
The grey-robed man glanced at the elder with some puzzlement. Though equally alarmed, he was more concerned with their perilous situation and had no mind for anything else — he merely wanted to flatter Han Li again and slip away at the first opportunity.
But Han Li didn't wait for him to speak. He said slowly: "Since you are cultivators of the Ghost Spirit Sect and have discovered my whereabouts, you'll simply have to count yourselves unfortunate. I'll be taking your lives!" The moment these words left his lips, Han Li's expression turned cold as frost. He swept his wide sleeve, and over a dozen streaks of azure sword light surged forth. Once clear of his sleeve, they flickered in the wind and multiplied into thirty or forty, sweeping toward the group like an overwhelming tide.
The grey-robed cultivator had already sensed trouble the moment Han Li's voice turned frigid. When he witnessed the terrifying momentum of Han Li's assault, his face drained of all color.
He had no intention of standing still and waiting for death. Without a second thought, his body whirled around and countless wisps of black qi erupted to shield him. Then a gold and a silver flying fork shot out from the black qi, transforming into two monstrous serpents — one gold, one silver — that blocked the way before the black mist. At the same time, the grey-robed cultivator desperately activated his escape technique, transforming into a streak of black smoke that fled rearward without a shred of concern for the black-robed elder or the others.
The Ghost Spirit Sect cultivators were terrified. Apart from the elder, every last one of them was cleaved apart by the azure sword qi that streaked through them with unstoppable force — beheaded before they could mount any resistance whatsoever. The elder was still trembling with terror when Han Li flicked his finger, and a single thread of azure light, hidden among the sword qi, pierced into the old man's body in an instant. The elder crumpled to the ground immediately.
Han Li paid the elder no further attention. His gaze shifted to the grey-robed cultivator, who had already fled over a hundred zhang away, and a cold smile tugged at the corner of his lips.
He pointed casually at the sword light, and over a hundred azure beams converged together, condensing in the blink of an eye into a single enormous azure sword. Then Han Li softly uttered the word: "Go."
The great sword emitted a deep, resonant hum. With a single tremor it transformed into a ten-zhang-long arc of azure radiance, pursuing the black smoke at an inconceivable speed. In the blink of an eye it had caught up, and a blinding azure brilliance erupted.
The grey-robed cultivator screamed. Whether it was the gold-and-silver serpents formed from his flying forks or the protective black qi generated by his cultivation technique, everything was annihilated in a single strike from the great sword — reduced to ashes. Even the grey-robed cultivator himself was turned into a rain of blood across the sky.
Only then did Han Li calmly recall his treasure. His gaze darkened as he turned back to the unconscious elder.
After a brief moment of thought, Han Li raised a single hand without hesitation. The elder's skeletal body whooshed into his palm. Azure light flickered as his other hand pressed firmly against the old man's skull.
A full quarter of an hour passed. Then a flame ignited in Han Li's hand, and the elder's body was reduced to a wisp of ash that vanished into thin air.
"A discarded disciple of the Hehuan Sect. Dong Xuan'er! I didn't expect she had formed a Golden Core too. But why would she send people to look for me? That is rather strange." Han Li floated in the air with his hands clasped behind his back, a hint of surprise on his face.
The black-robed elder's background was somewhat complicated. He had originally been a disciple of the Hehuan Sect. After committing a serious violation of the sect's rules — fearing that his soul would be extracted and refined — he had changed his name and fled into the Ghost Spirit Sect, where he had remained hidden ever since.
Han Li naturally had no interest in these details. What surprised him was that the elder had previously served under Dong Xuan'er for a period. At that time, Dong Xuan'er had already formed a Golden Core, and she had dispatched him along with several other Hehuan Sect disciples to frantically search for Han Li. She had even gone so far as to send the elder and the others to infiltrate the Nine Nations Alliance to secretly track down Han Li's whereabouts.
By that time, Han Li had long since departed for the Chaotic Star Sea, so the matter had come to nothing.
It was during that period that the elder had seen a portrait of Han Li, which was why he had recognized him with such shock earlier.
Now Han Li was thoroughly puzzled. He wasn't so narcissistic as to think that Dong Xuan'er was fond of him and had been pining after him — there was surely something strange behind her sending people to search for him.
Unfortunately, the black-robed elder's status had been too low, and he had no information on the matter.
After pondering for a while, Han Li still couldn't fathom why Dong Xuan'er had been looking for him, so he shook his head and put the matter out of his mind.
No matter what Dong Xuan'er's original reasons had been for sending people to find him, and no matter what her motives, so many years had now passed that it almost certainly had no relevance anymore. And with his current status as a Nascent Soul cultivator, there was even less reason to give it a second thought.