Chapter 655: Turbulence
"The two of you contributed the most to breaking the restriction, so you deserve those two treasures," Immortal Lord Hot Flame said with a smile, and the crimson figure behind him vanished into his body as he spoke.
"Now that I think about it, that gourd that you summoned earlier was an Essential Immortal Treasures, right? It was certainly extraordinarily powerful," Fox 3 suddenly said as he turned to Han Li, and Shi Chuankong also turned to look at him with an intrigued expression.
As for Immortal Lord Hot Flame, he had already seen Han Li use the gourd in battle in the past, so he wasn't all that surprised.
"That's right. That gourd is an Essential Immortal Treasure that I managed to obtain by chance many years ago," Han Li replied in an ambiguous fashion.
There were a couple of reasons for why he had decided to summon the Profound Heavenly Gourd here. Firstly, Immortal Lord Hot Flame was already aware of its existence, so there was no need to hide it. Secondly, he wanted to display some power so that Fox 3 and Shi Chuankong didn't regard him as some Golden Immortal Stage pushover who posed no threat to them.
Of course, he had altered the power and aura of the gourd somewhat before summoning it.
"All Essential Immortal Treasures possess tremendous power, and they're only acquired by those with immense fortune. It looks like you're a very lucky man, Fellow Daoist Li. Hopefully, some of your luck can rub off on all of us on this trip," Fox 3 chuckled.
Han Li merely smiled and offered no response.
As this conversation was taking place, the white mist within the entrance of the sect had begun to churn violently, and it quickly transformed into a massive white vortex with a narrow passageway at its center.
Faint rays of light could be seen within the passageway, presenting a rather mysterious sight to behold.
"It's already taken us quite some time to break that restriction, so let's not waste any more time here," Fox 3 said as he flew into the passageway as a streak of silver light, followed immediately by Immortal Lord Hot Flame.
Han Li was just about to follow along as well when he suddenly noticed that Shi Chuankong didn't seem to be displaying any intention of moving from the spot, and he asked, "Are you not coming in, Brother Shi? All of the treasures inside could be taken if you're too slow."
"Go on ahead, Brother Li, I'll come in right after I've packed up this array. This array is a closely guarded secret of our Devil Race, so I can't afford to just leave it here," Shi Chuankong replied with a smile as he swept a sleeve through the air, releasing a burst of purple light that began quickly picking up the array tools on the ground.
"Alright, in that case, I'll be going on ahead as well," Han Li said with a nod before flying into the passageway as a streak of azure light.
A peculiar gleam flashed through Shi Chuankong's eyes as he watched Han Li enter the passageway, and after packing up the silver array on the ground, he quickly followed suit.
However, in the instant that he flew into the passageway, a small purple ball sprang out of his body before hovering in mid-air.
The ball was around the size of a walnut, and there were countless tiny silver runes etched onto its surface, giving off bursts of spatial fluctuations.
The purple ball shuddered momentarily before exploding to form a dense purple devilish cloud with countless silver runes flashing within it.
The purple devilish cloud was swirling and twisting like a living creature as it burrowed into space, but the silver runes within it were left behind to form a silver array that was several dozen feet in size.
The space at the center of the array shuddered violently before a rift opened up, then split apart even further to create a dark purple spatial passageway.
However, the spatial passageway seemed to be extremely unstable and looked as if it could collapse at any moment.
After that, he took a moment to inspect his surroundings, but all he could see were more chaotic white currents, while Fox 3, Immortal Lord Hot Flame, and Shi Chuankong were nowhere to be found.
Han Li's brows furrowed slightly upon seeing this, and he was just about to do something when a giant ball of white light suddenly appeared up ahead before sweeping up his entire body.
The ball of white light was filled with a burst of extremely chaotic time law powers, and Han Li was forced to close his eyes in the face of the blinding white light.
In the next instant, he was abruptly pulled downward by a burst of tremendous force.
A resounding thump rang out as he crashed into something, and all of the spatial turbulence around him instantly vanished.
Upon opening his eyes, he was ecstatic to discover that he had emerged from the white currents, and he had slammed into the ground, creating a massive crater with his fall.
He flew out of the crater before rising up into the air and inspecting his surroundings, upon which he discovered that he was situated on a flat and barren plain that was almost completely devoid of vegetation.
There was white mist all around him, and the sky was also a murky white color.
Due to the presence of this white mist, he wasn't able to see very far, but as soon as he released his spiritual sense to try and get a better grasp on his surroundings, he discovered that there was a burst of peculiar spatial power in the surrounding area that severely restricted his spiritual sense.
Even with his current spiritual sense, he was only able to spread it over an area with a radius of three thousand to four thousand feet.
Hence, he decided to turn to his Infernal Devilish Eyes instead, and that allowed him to see a little further, but visibility was still restricted to only around ten thousand feet.
The surrounding white mist was no ordinary mist, and it posed much impediment to his Infernal Devilish Eyes.
Despite the strange nature of the surrounding environment, Han Li remained calm and collected. He had explored countless ruins and secret areas, and he had encountered more than his fair share of strange places during those adventures.
After descending back down onto the ground, he swept a sleeve through the air to summon a palm-sized purple jade plate with a complex silver array engraved upon it.
This was a teleportation array plate that Shi Chuankong had given him before they entered the Illusory Smoke Swamp, and it had been refined using a secret technique unique to the Devil Race. The array plate was imbued with a hint of spatial power, allowing communication to take place even through spatial barriers, so it was far more useful in secret areas like this one than normal communication array plates.
The array plate rose up into the air at Han Li's behest, and it released a purple halo that was constantly flashing and fluctuating in brightness.
A long time passed, but no response came from the array plate.
Han Li's brows furrowed slightly upon seeing this, and he waited for a while longer before stowing the array plate away.
For some reason, he was unable to establish communication with Fox 3 and the others using the array plate.
If he couldn't find Fox 3, then there would be no way for him to complete this Reincarnation Palace mission, so this was a rather awkward predicament.
At this point, he still didn't even know what the mission entailed. He had raised the question to Fox 3 on multiple occasions in the past, but all Fox 3 had told him was that he would answer that question once they arrived at their destination. However, now that they had arrived, they were no longer in the same place.