Chapter 410: Snow Lion
Due to the dark clouds and heavy snowfall, visibility on the ice field was extremely low, and even though Han Li couldn't detect any clear spiritual power fluctuations with his spiritual sense, he could never be sure where there were any unforeseen hazards lurking in this alien environment.
The snowfall was gradually becoming heavier and heavier, and visibility certainly wasn't improving.
The azure spirit boat was flying through the air quite slowly at Han Li's behest, and the wings on either side of it were releasing a layer of azure light that enveloped the entire boat, as well as Han Li's duo.
Dense flurries of snow were falling upon the azure light barrier, only to be kept at bay, and the heavy snowfall didn't have much of an impact on the advancement of the spirit boat.
"This snowstorm is rather strange. My spirit eye ability is severely limited here. Can you see a bit further with your Illusory Ghost Eyes?" Han Li asked with slightly furrowed brows.
"I'm not able to see very far, either. On top of that, my spiritual sense is also being disrupted as well, and I'm only able to just barely detect things several kilometers away at most," Lu Yuqing replied with a shake of her head.
Han Li nodded in response. As the snowfall became heavier and heavier, he also found his spiritual sense being severely limited, and his sensory range was also fluctuating in an inconsistent manner.
After flying for several dozen more kilometers, Han Li suddenly pointed in a certain direction down below as he said, "There seems to be something over there."
"It seems to be some type of palace," Lu Yuqing mused as she turned in that direction.
The rooftops of a series of pavilions and tall pagodas could just barely be made out deep within the snow.
"Let's go down and take a look," Han Li said, and the spirit boat swooped directly downward at his behest, arriving in front of the cluster of buildings.
Only after the spirit boat was stowed away and the two of them landed on the ground did they discover that the snow here wasn't as deep as they had imagined. It only just barely reached their ankles, and beneath their feet were solid stone slabs.
After taking a moment to inspect their surroundings, they began to trudge over the snow-covered plaza deeper into the cluster of buildings.
Standing directly in front of them was a red archway that was several dozen feet tall. It had only two pillars, and it wasn't particularly ostentatious. There was a thick layer of snow on top of the archway, and the characters inscribed on it were rather indistinct, making it impossible to tell what had been written.
Only after getting close to the archway did Han Li and Lu Yuqing notice that its pillars were riddled with runes, but the spiritual qi that they contained had already completely run out, indicating that they no longer served their original purpose.
The two of them didn't linger here for long, passing through the archway before arriving in front of a large palace with a resting hill roof.
From the outside, the palace appeared mostly intact, with only one half of its gate missing. The stone staircase in front of the entrance was under the eave, so no snow had fallen upon it. However, there was a deep black mark on its surface, as if someone had cleaved it in half with some type of weapon.
"I can understand the presence of runes on the pillars of the archway, but why are there runes on their stone steps as well?" Lu Yuqing asked with a perplexed expression.
"If I'm not mistaken, this area was mostly encompassed within a concealment array, and the archway, these stone steps, and some of the bricks on the plaza collectively served as the core of the array, but they've clearly been destroyed," Han Li mused.
"Are you saying someone came here before us?" Lu Yuqing asked in a quiet voice as she took an uneasy glance at her surroundings.
"The spiritual qi in the array here has already completely faded, so the array had to have been destroyed a very long time ago. I'm presuming someone came here during a previous occasion of the immortal manor's emergence before destroying the array and taking whatever treasures were in here," Han Li replied.
Lu Yuqing was quite relieved to hear this, but also a little disappointed that the treasures here were already gone, and she said, "In that case, let's keep going and not waste any more time here."
"There's no hurry. There should be many places like this in the immortal manor, and we could encounter the same type of array going forward. If we examine how the array here was set up, we'll be able to save a lot of time bypassing further arrays of a similar nature if we encounter any," Han Li said.
"You're right! Why didn't I think of that? You're much more experienced and thoughtful than I am, Brother Liu," Lu Yuqing said with a hint of admiration in her eyes.
Han Li merely smiled as he made his way up the stone steps, then strode into the palace through the semi-destroyed gates.
Meanwhile, Lu Yuqing trailed along behind him in a cautious manner.
The palace was completely empty, and there were several holes in the roof that snow was falling through, but the snow dissipated on its own before it could land on the ground.
After emerging from the back door of the palace, Han Li and Lu Yuqing were greeted by the sight of several more palaces and a three-story pavilion. Just like the palace from before, there wasn't any clear damage, and everything inside had already been looted.
"Let's go."
Standing at the foot of the pavilion, Han Li summoned the azure spirit boat again, then called out to Lu Yuqing, and the two of them continued on their journey.
The snowfall up ahead was still quite dense and heavy, and the deeper they progressed into the ice field, the more clusters of buildings that they encountered. The largest one of them was over 10 times larger than the one they had first encountered, while the smaller ones were just individual pavilions and pagodas, and it seemed that was where the servants stayed.
However, all of them had already been looted, while the restrictions around them had been destroyed.
Han Li wasn't surprised by this at all, but Lu Yuqing was pouting in disappointment, seemingly quite dismayed.
Fortunately, their journey proved to be quite peaceful thus far, and they didn't encounter any other people or demon beasts.
The two of them continued deeper and deeper into the ice field, and the snowstorm was gradually becoming more and more ferocious, while their spiritual sense was also being more and more heavily restricted, to the point that even Han Li's spiritual sensory range had been cut down to only a few dozen kilometers.
After flying over a short snow-covered mountain range, Han Li spotted another cluster of buildings situated in a valley up ahead.
He alerted Lu Yuqing to this, then directed the spirit boat into the valley.
As they drew close to the valley, they saw a snow-covered stoned lion that was several dozen feet tall, standing to the left of the valley's entrance. There was another stone lion on the right, and it was also covered in snow, but this one was laying on its side.
After descending in front of valley, Han Li made his way over to the stone lion on the left before brushing away the snow on it to reveal a series of complex runes that were slightly different from the ones that he had seen earlier, but he could tell that they were roughly the same type of restriction.
"The restrictions here have already been destroyed, so it looks like we won't have to enter the valley," Lu Yuqing mused with a disappointed expression.
Han Li was just about to respond when his brows suddenly furrowed slightly, and he grabbed onto Lu Yuqing's shoulder before hurtling back in retreat until his back hit the rock wall behind him.
All of a sudden, the stone lion that was laying on the right side of the valley's entrance abruptly sprung to life, springing up from the ground before sending a massive paw crashing down toward Han Li and Lu Yuqing with tremendous force.
A thick layer of snow fell off the stone lion's body, yet there was nothing under the snow aside from more snow, and it was as if it were a snow beast that had a body of ice and snow.
Only in the instant right before it reared up from the ground was Han Li able to detect that it wasn't just a lifeless stone lion as it seemed.
Han Li raised a fist, and a layer of azure light appeared over it as he threw a punch directly upward.
An azure fist projection tore through the wind and snow before clashing against the paw of the snow lion, and a resounding boom rang out as the paw exploded into a cloud of snowy mist upon contact with the fist projection.
Before Han Li had a chance to withdraw his fist, his brows furrowed slightly, and he could feel a burst of intense chill seeping into his fist, upon which a layer of white frost instantly appeared over his knuckles.
He hurriedly withdrew his fist in alarm, and in the meantime, a blue vortex was taking shape on the snow lion's raised front paw.
Bursts of fierce suction force were emanating out of the blue vortex, sucking in all of the surrounding snow.
As more and more snow surged into the vortex, the destroyed front paw of the snow lion was mostly healed in the blink of an eye.
"That's not a puppet or anything like that, Brother Liu, it's a frost beast that's unique to this immortal manor. If you don't shatter the frost core in its body, it'll be able to keep drawing upon the snow in the area indefinitely to heal its own wounds, making it near unkillable!" Lu Yuqing hurriedly said.
"Frost core? What's that?" Han Li asked while staring intently at the recovering frost beast.
"It's an extreme frost crystal that's nurtured in the body of the beast. It's a bit like a demon beast's demon core, and it's commonly found directly behind a snow beast's eyes," Lu Yuqing hurriedly replied.
Han Li' immediately focused his gaze on the blue eyes of the snow lion upon hearing this, following which an azure flying sword shot out of his sleeve, reaching the left eye of the snow lion in a flash.
The frost beast didn't appear to be very intelligent, and in the face of the oncoming flying sword, it swatted directly at it with its front paw, the same one that was still yet to make a full recovery.
The flying sword was very fast, but it wasn't imbued with much power. However, in the instant that it came into contact with the paw of the snow lion, a flurry of swordlight erupted forth in all directions like a blooming sword lotus flower, instantly destroying the entire leg connected to the snow lion's paw.
At the same time, a streak of azure sword qi shot straight through the snow lion's left eye, cleaving its head in half.
A sharp clang rang out as the tip of the flying sword pierced into the blue crystal that was around the size of a human head, but it was only able to penetrate around an inch into the crystal.
Traces of white light were surging over the crystal, and a flurry of snow instantly converged toward the snow lion's head.
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