Great Jin, three thousand li outside Heavenly Mechanism City, in the Nameless Desolate Valley.
An almost imperceptible spatial ripple flickered, like a fleeting crease on the surface of a tranquil lake, then vanished. Han Li had silently appeared inside a natural stone cave concealed by vines at the bottom of the valley.
He did not immediately head to Heavenly Mechanism City, nor did he alert anyone. His return to Great Jin was entirely different from his first covert arrival a century earlier. Back then, he had needed to conceal his identity and keep a low profile. Now, he was a bona fide Deity Transformation cultivator, with a fearsome reputation for killing a cultivator of his own stage and annihilating the Heavenly Demon Sect. That reputation could deter others, but it could also make him a target.
The waters of Great Jin ran far deeper than those of the Heavenly South and the Chaotic Star Sea combined. Its six great Deity Transformation cultivators openly held one another in check, while who knew how many ancient monsters remained hidden from the world? There were also numerous top-tier sects and great families with long legacies and unfathomable foundations. Though the Heavenly Demon Sect had fallen, whether other branches of the demonic path-or even certain righteous factions-would harbor hostility toward this "outsider," this deadly Deity Transformation fiend, remained unknown.
I must know both myself and my enemies, settle my plans before making a move. Han Li sat cross-legged on a slab of bluestone, his eyes half-closed. His overwhelmingly powerful spiritual sense had already spread outward from the valley like an invisible tide, extending in every direction with extreme caution and exquisite precision.
Fully unleashed, the spiritual sense of a Deity Transformation early stage cultivator could cover ten thousand li. But Han Li deliberately restricted