"Boom!" A loud crash echoed.

The nine gigantic snake heads simultaneously collided with the sword screen formed by nine large swaths of azure sword light, only to be repelled by the force of the sword light.

The entire azure light sword screen remained completely still.

Han Li formed a sword incantation with his hand, and all the azure sword light immediately turned their blades downward, their movements perfectly synchronized.

An atmosphere of天地肃杀 (tiān dì sù shā, an idiom meaning "the universe is solemn and desolate") instantly spread out.

Hu Zhen and the others felt this aura, and when they looked again at the ten thousand swords standing tall, like an army arrayed in battle formation, they immediately felt that the Ten Thousand Sects Sword Formation they had cobbled together was like a ragtag army, weak and不堪 (bù kān, unable to bear or endure).

"Ji!"

He uttered a soft shout, and instantly, azure light blazed, and ten thousand swords were unleashed.

The dense sword light drew streaks of narrow azure light in the air, looking like falling stars, incomparably dazzling.

The nine giant snakes seemed to have sensed the danger and had already遁入 (dùn rù, escaped into) the depths of the dense fog.

But the sword light of the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords directly pursued them, disappearing into the fog.

Rumble, rumble...

Accompanied by a series of earth-shattering sounds, several suspended mountain peaks within the dense fog were pierced by the sword light and crumbled, and naturally, countless White Specters perished within them.

"Awoo..."

A moment later, another seven or eight miserable roars echoed from the depths of the fog.

A curve appeared at the corner of Han Li's mouth, and with a flick of his figure, he gracefully drifted towards the dense fog.

As soon as he flew into the fog, his brow furrowed involuntarily. This dense fog actually had the effect of blocking divine sense.

The round-faced youth and the others above, seeing Han Li's dashing figure flying into the fog, felt a great sense of relief. One after another, they couldn't help but praise, "Elder Li is truly a sword immortal of unparalleled grace..."

Hu Zhen heard this, but for some reason, he suddenly recalled a rumor that was widely circulated within the sect.

It was said that within the Zhulongdao, there was always someone hidden who was known as the "Number One Sword Cultivator of Tiannan"...

This thought flashed through his mind, but after all, such unfounded rumors were mostly just rumors spread by word of mouth within the sect. With the cultivation and experience of many True Immortals within the sect, none of them had ever heard of any place called Tiannan.

In the vast dense fog, Han Li's eyes shone with a water-blue light as he sped downwards. He quickly traveled hundreds of miles, and along the way, he saw huge fragments of rock floating everywhere, the remnants of the mountain peaks that had been cleaved by his sword light.

However, the depth of the chasm was far beyond his expectations. After flying nearly a thousand miles further down, he still couldn't see the bottom of the abyss.

The surrounding light was extremely dim, and the fog was so dense that it was almost tangible. His divine sense was mostly blocked, and he couldn't sense anything beyond a thousand zhang.

And before his eyes, if he didn't use the Ming and Qing Spirit Eyes, he wouldn't be able to see anything at all.

Looking at the blurred giant shadows around him, Han Li realized that within this dark abyss, there were actually suspended giant mountain peaks, and their number seemed to be even greater than above the fog, as if this abyss was the true body of this Floating Mountain Secret Realm.

Although some of the nearby mountain peaks were pitch black, he could see faint shadows moving on them, but he didn't know if they were the remaining White Specters.

As he continued to descend, the distance between him and the flying swords grew closer and closer. Finally, after passing over a giant mountain peak, he saw a patch of azure light in the depths of the fog.

Nine azure flying swords were surrounded by a huge azure sword shadow, and they were stuck on a black giant peak.

"Woo..."

Before he could get close, a low兽吼 (shòu hǒu, beastial roar) rang out from the black giant peak. Han Li focused his gaze and saw that each azure flying sword was reflecting shimmering black light.

Using the azure light from the sword body to see, he saw that the entire mountain peak was wrapped around by incredibly thick black snake bodies. The nine giant heads were pressed against the ground, and each one had a flying sword pinned to it.

After taking a closer look, Han Li realized that these were not nine giant snakes, but a nine-headed snake.

At this moment, the nine heads of the giant snake had been pierced by the sword blades. Most of their eyes were already listless, and only the eyes of the head in the center were still flashing with a faint golden light, but it seemed that they no longer had much luster.

With a wave of his hand, Han Li immediately caused the nine flying swords stuck in the snake heads to hum and tremble. After a burst of buzzing, they flew backwards and merged into an azure longsword in mid-air, returning to his side.

He raised his hand, grasped the sword hilt, and flew to land in front of the snake head that still had a trace of life, looking into its eyes.

Suddenly, Han Li's brow tightened, and he tapped the snake head with his toe, sending his entire body flying backwards.

He saw the snake head explode with a bang, sending blood and flesh flying everywhere. A black shadow shot out from the center, chasing after Han Li swiftly.

Han Li focused his eyes and saw that it was a young man wearing black鳞甲 (lín jiǎ, scale armor).

His cheeks were deathly pale, his eyes were extremely narrow and almost slanted into his temples, his eyebrows were bald, his cheeks were thin, his jawbones protruded, and he only had four fangs in his mouth, containing a scarlet snake tongue. On both sides of his shoulders, there were also four fist-sized肉瘤 (ròu liú, fleshy lumps). He looked like an ugly妖兽 (yāo shòu, demon beast) that had not fully transformed.

His figure flashed through the dense fog, arriving in an instant. His speed was extremely fast, and he held an unknown white尖骨 (jiān gǔ, sharp bone) in his hand, stabbing straight at Han Li's heart.

Han Li swung the longsword in his hand downwards, slashing towards the white sharp bone.

Just as the sword blade was about to land on the sharp bone, the snake demon man's figure twisted strangely to the side, and his neck suddenly stretched a dozen times longer. His head wrapped around Han Li, and his bloody mouth opened wide, biting towards Han Li's neck.

With a crisp "clang," the white sharp bone was cleaved by Han Li's sword.

But at this moment, the snake demon's fangs had already reached Han Li's neck.

Just as it was about to bite down, a golden light suddenly appeared behind Han Li. A round wheel emerged, emitting a great light.

On the round wheel, twenty-four semi-transparent符纹 (fú wén, rune patterns) twisted and flickered, transmitting a very obvious法则 (fǎ zé, law/rule) fluctuation, instantly enveloping the area within ten zhang.

In an instant, the surrounding area seemed to have suddenly fallen into stillness. The dense fog seemed to have stopped surging and solidified around.

A look of fear flashed in the snake demon man's eyes. There was no heavy feeling of being bound on his body, but he became extremely slow. His opened mouth could not close, and he could only helplessly watch Han Li, with a slight smile on his face, move his neck away from his fangs.

"It seems the effect is not bad."

Han Li chuckled, turned around, grabbed his neck, and raised his other hand, slapping down on his head.

He originally had the idea of using this opportunity to test the power of the Mantra Wheel, so he deliberately let the snake demon get close. Otherwise, with his current cultivation, this demon would have died ten times over.

"Bang..."

The sound of a watermelon shattering slowly echoed, and seemed to be stretched out a dozen times.

Han Li pulled a black Nascent Soul that was not very maturely condensed from its broken head and crushed it into ashes with a twist of his palm.

Then, the golden light behind him retracted and slowly merged into his body.

After the Mantra Wheel disappeared, the surrounding space immediately returned to its original state. The dense fog flowed normally, and the snake demon man's body suddenly plummeted downwards, but because his neck was still being held by Han Li, he did not fall directly into the abyss.

"It seems that with the blessing of twenty-four Dao patterns, the range of the宝轮 (bǎo lún, treasured wheel) hasn't changed, but the deceleration effect has been greatly improved, I estimate it should be more than ten times." Han Li muttered to himself.

This time, opening the twelfth immortal aperture took a lot of effort, almost spending all the time used for the previous few immortal apertures combined. Moreover, this was the result of constantly taking various rare elixirs to improve cultivation. Otherwise, the normal consumption of time would probably be a hundred times greater.

This successful advancement to the mid True Immortal stage, cultivating the first Mantra Wheel Sutra, can be regarded as formally having the qualifications to comprehend the power of the Law of Time and try to condense the threads of law.

Thinking like this, Han Li waved his hand and pulled the snake demon's 残尸 (cán shī, remains) to his side, and from its chest cavity, he pulled out a dark-gold pellet with a slight fishy smell and casually put it away.

Then, he casually tossed the snake demon's remains into the depths of the Great Gorge. After dozens of breaths, there was a sudden sound of争夺 (zhēng duó, contending) and撕咬 (sī yǎo, tearing) below.

In the depths of this Great Gorge, there seem to be more abyss creatures.

Han Li faced the abyss, stared for a moment, then retracted his gaze, turned around and came to the mountain peak where the giant snake had been entrenched. The snake body that had been entrenched on the mountain peak had gradually withered and turned into a huge nine-headed snake slough.

According to Han Li's speculation, this snake demon had a cultivation approaching the early True Immortal stage, but he didn't know why it had only recently started蜕皮 (tuì pí, shedding its skin) and transforming, because it needed to eat a lot to hunt White Specters on a large scale, and even didn't hesitate to rush out of the Great Gorge to kill Zhulongdao disciples.

After being injured by the Azure Bamboo Cloudswarm Swords, it had no choice but to forcibly transform, and as a result, it was killed by Han Li here.

With a wave of his hand, Han Li put the snake slough into his storage bracelet. This thing was extremely tough and also had certain medicinal properties. Whether it was refining precious armor or elixirs, it could be of great use.

Without the snake slough blocking it, the true appearance of the entire floating mountain was revealed, with patches of幽蓝 (yōu lán, deep blue) fluorescent light lighting up.

Han Li flew to take a closer look and found that dozens of ice crystal-like blue plants were growing on the floating mountain. Their shape was similar to orchid grass, but the leaves were translucent and fluorescent, making them seem very extraordinary.

However, observing them, he couldn't feel much spiritual power波动 (bō dòng, fluctuation), as if they were just ordinary plants.

Just then, the leaves of these幽蓝灵草 (yōu lán líng cǎo, deep blue spirit grass) suddenly trembled at the same time, and they actually emitted陣陣 (zhèn zhèn, waves of) "嗡嗡" (wēng wēng, buzzing) sounds.

The sound was very small at first, but after spreading in the empty abyss, it became louder and louder.

"This is..." Han Li's brow furrowed, and he suddenly remembered that the abnormal rise of the dense fog seemed to be accompanied by this strange sound.

After thinking about it for a while, he simply collected all these幽蓝灵草 and put them away.

After checking in the abyss for a while and confirming that there was no more of this spirit grass, Han Li flicked his figure and sped upwards.

However, as he was about to leave the dense fog, his figure suddenly stagnated again. Instead of rushing out, he swept towards the suspended mountain peaks that had already collapsed.

These mountain peaks were originally outside the dense fog, and many spiritual medicines grew on them. This time, because of this change, they were swallowed up by the dense fog. In this way, the sect would naturally have no way to pursue it.

Under such circumstances, if he didn't collect some, wouldn't it be a waste?