The black-robed figure saw the light barrier reform and wasted no more words, forming seals with both hands.
A deep, archaic chant issued from his mouth. The sinister demonic energy surging around his body swelled several feet higher, then coalesced into tentacles black as ink that writhed ceaselessly.
Han Li narrowed his eyes, fixing his gaze on his opponent without moving. But within his sleeves, faint crackling sounds could be heard, and flashes of golden light flickered inside.
Against a demonic cultivator, Han Li had long been confident he could instantly kill someone at the same level. All he needed was to seize the gap in the opponent's attack, and he could strike them down in one decisive blow.
But in that very instant, the black-robed figure's pupils turned blood-red, and a bestial roar tore from his throat. The demonic energy around his body then burst apart, and beneath the black robe, his frame began to swell.
In the blink of an eye, his body had expanded to more than twice its original size.
"Oh?" Han Li murmured, slightly taken aback.
It wasn't the transformation in size that caught him off guard — it was the sudden, total disappearance of the opponent's demonic energy, replaced by an eerie presence that made his skin crawl.
The black-robed figure's blood-red eyes burned with madness. His swollen body then abruptly contracted, and in the span of a single blink, he had shrunk into a three-foot-tall dwarf. His figure shot backward, slamming into the barrier wall behind him.
Han Li's heart lurched. His mind raced, and a deep sense of foreboding settled over him.
He raised both hands. Two thick arcs of golden lightning shot forth, converging in midair into a massive golden net that swept down toward the black-robed figure.
He immediately shook his sleeve, and a small blue shield flew out, expanding into a colossal barrier that braced the space before him. His other hand slapped the storage pouch at his waist, and the Restriction Bead dropped into his palm.
If things went sideways, he would use the bead to shatter the barrier and escape without a moment's hesitation.
He knew the opponent was about to unleash some trick, and he had no intention of standing around with his hands tied.
While Han Li's thoughts churned, the black-robed figure beneath the golden net let out a shrill, piercing scream. With a thunderous boom, his entire body inexplicably exploded — every inch of flesh bursting into a fine spray of blood that scattered in all directions.
Han Li flinched in alarm, but his expression quickly shifted to bewilderment.
He had braced himself for some kind of self-detonation — a vicious, suicidal technique. But all the blood and gore had splattered against the barrier wall without so much as reaching his side. There didn't seem to be any destructive force behind it whatsoever.
Bewildered, Han Li grew wary.
But then he noticed something deeply unsettling.
All the bloody remnants had stuck to the opposite barrier wall, and not a single drop fell. What was more, under his very gaze, the flesh began to squirm across the wall's surface in a grotesque, unnatural manner.
Han Li stared, practically dumbstruck.
With several wet, squelching sounds, the flesh suddenly dissolved into billowing clouds of blood mist that raced along the barrier. Its speed was terrifying — in the blink of an eye, more than half of the white light barrier had been transformed to a deep crimson. A nauseating stench of blood filled the air, so sharp and iron-heavy it was almost suffocating.
Heart pounding with dread, Han Li hurled the Restriction Bead at the barrier wall behind him.
With a resonant bang, the moment the bead touched the wall, it detonated into a sphere of pitch-black light.
The section of barrier flickered erratically, and the entire dome trembled.
Han Li's spirits surged. His ten fingers danced in rapid succession, firing ten arcs of cyan sword qi one after another at the same weakened spot. The white light flickered violently, and the wall was on the verge of shattering — But just as elation flooded through him, a blinding flash of crimson swept before his eyes. A vast curtain of blood mist rolled across the barrier wall, dyeing it scarlet.
Han Li's heart sank. He looked up and surveyed his surroundings, only to realize that the entire barrier had turned blood-red. Blood mist churned overhead, condensing from thin air into thick droplets of viscous blood. The stench intensified tenfold.
He had no time to think further. He opened his mouth, and with a roll of thunder, a beam of golden lightning as thick as a bowl shot forth, striking the crimson barrier before him.
The golden light exploded. The blood mist briefly dispersed — then immediately reformed, as though utterly unscathed.
This was entirely beyond Han Li's expectations.
He had been on the verge of unleashing the Green Bamboo Bee Cloud Swords, but froze, his expression turning grave.
At that same moment, the spectacle of opponents self-detonating and transmuting the barriers played out across all ten arenas simultaneously.
Ten Nascent Soul cultivators participating in the wager battle, caught completely off guard, found themselves trapped within the altered barriers.
Below, the ten Core Formation cultivators overseeing the formations knew at once that something had gone terribly wrong. Keeping a wary eye on the opposing spell masters, they scrambled to form seals and shut down the formations.
But to their great shock, the instant the barriers turned blood-red, the spell masters said not a word. They simply turned, abandoned the formations entirely, and flew straight back to their own lines.