I'll make you the furnace and the cauldron, so you can refine Yin and Yang and prove the Great

Outside the secret area, discussions rose and fell in the square.

"Four sides! Senior Brother Li took all four sides by himself!"

"Senior Sister Yu and Xuan Yinzi each have two sides, which is quite impressive, but they are still a step behind Senior Brother Li."

"Then the key is the arena battle, right? The gap between the two flags isn't insurmountable."

"Senior Brother Li even defeated Zhao Shoudao, I really don't believe that Xuan Yinzi and Yu Mengjia can defeat him together."

"Join forces? How do you know they'll join forces?"

"Nonsense! How are we going to chase the Four Flags if we don't join forces? Would you not join forces if you were in our shoes?"

A murmur of discussion arose among the crowd. Ye Shuanghua stood at the edge of the waiting area, watching the three arenas slowly rising in the bronze mirror, her brows furrowing almost imperceptibly. She could see in Li Hanshan's perspective that he had already planted the four flags at the center of the arena, then sat cross-legged, closed his eyes, and regulated his breathing, wasting no time.

Within the secret realm, three arenas stand in a triangular formation on the open ground in the center. Each arena is approximately a hundred feet square, with golden array patterns flowing along its edges. A half-person-high stone pillar stands in the center, with a groove at the top that is just right for inserting a spirit flag. The arenas are several hundred feet apart, echoing each other to form a stable triangle.

Li Hanshan sat cross-legged on his arena, four flags swaying gracefully on the stone pillars beside him. His eyes were closed, and pure Yang energy flowed slowly through his meridians, replenishing the spiritual power he had expended while seizing the flags. The light of the Chongyang Yuan Embryo in his sea of ​​consciousness was more solid than it had been three days ago. After three rounds of practical combat, the tiny burrs on the surface of the Yuan Embryo had been smoothed and rounded, like a ripening fruit, radiating a warm and stable fluctuation of soul power.

"They should get in touch," Li Hanshan thought to himself.

He didn't have to wait long. About an incense stick's time later, two streaks of light landed one after the other on the open ground in front of the arena. Xuan Yinzi landed first, his silver-gray robe fluttering gently in the wind, holding two spirit flags in his hands, his brows and eyes carrying his usual calm and aloofness. Yu Mengjia followed closely behind, her light blue dress bathed in the warm glow of the twilight, the emerald green and earthen yellow flags swaying slightly beside her.

Xuan Yinzi didn't exchange pleasantries. He walked straight to the front of Li Hanshan's arena and stood there, his gaze falling on the four spirit flags stuck in the stone pillars. He slowly clapped a few times. The crisp sound of clapping echoed in the empty secret realm, carrying a deliberate and composed praise: "Four flags, Junior Brother Li, you truly live up to your reputation. On this trip to the secret realm, you've taken the most, and you've taken them the most securely."

He lowered his hand, a polite yet distant smile appearing on his lips. "However—now that the arena has been raised, the real main event is just around the corner. In this time, we will give it our all."

Li Hanshan opened his eyes, looking at the silver-gray figure in front of the arena, then at the pale blue figure beside him, and said calmly, "So, you're going to gang up on me?"

Xuan Yinzi didn't deny it. He even glanced at Yu Mengjia slightly, as if confirming their mutual understanding. Then he looked back at Li Hanshan, his tone calm yet carrying an undeniable certainty: "Otherwise what? Why do you think we only took two flags?" He took a half step forward, "Because the energy we saved can be used to deal with you."

Li Hanshan's gaze shifted from Xuan Yinzi to Yu Mengjia's face. Yu Mengjia stood a few feet to Xuan Yinzi's side, holding the two flags in her hands. Her pale blue dress shimmered softly in the twilight. Her gaze met Li Hanshan's for a moment, her watery eyes showing no evasion. After a brief silence, she nodded slightly, her voice tinged with a suppressed seriousness: "I'm sorry, Junior Brother Li, the opportunity to enter the Myriad Spirits Secret Realm only comes once." She raised her hand, the two flags glowing faintly in her palm. "I don't want to miss it either."

Li Hanshan circulated his pure Yang energy to its fullest state, raised his hand, and condensed the purplish-gold pure Yang fire into a flaming longsword in his palm. At the same time, the two spirit flags beside Xuan Yinzi suddenly unfurled, transforming into two silver-gray streams of light that merged into the air around him, like lit lamp wicks, condensing into a flowing protective halo around him.

Yu Mengjia formed hand seals, and pale blue spiritual energy surged around her, transforming into a rapidly spinning stream of air. What began as a gentle breeze swirling around her waist expanded, spun, and condensed in the blink of an eye, forming a blue wind curtain several meters wide, enveloping her entirely. Fine runes flowed along the edges of the wind curtain, each containing the pure spiritual energy unique to early-stage Nascent Soul cultivators, carrying a sharpness capable of cutting through steel.

The two moved almost simultaneously. Xuan Yinzi pointed his right hand like a sword and slashed at Li Hanshan from afar. A silver-gray sword light shot out from his fingertip, slashing towards the top of the stone pillar in front of Li Hanshan. The sword light was extremely fast, with a deliberately controlled precision—it did not directly attack Li Hanshan himself, but went straight for the four spirit flags stuck in the stone pillar.

Yu Mengjia darted out from the side, a pale blue curtain of wind leaving a long, blue trail behind her. Her movements were incredibly fast, like a leaf caught in a storm, flashing past the edge of Li Hanshan's divine sense lock. Her objective was equally clear—to take advantage of the moment when Xuan Yinzi was distracted to flank and attack the spirit flag on the stone pillar.

Li Hanshan did not retreat. Pure Yang fire condensed into a purple-gold flame sword in his hand, slashing head-on at Xuan Yinzi's silver-gray sword light. At the same time, he turned to the side, conjuring a thin fire shield with his left hand, precisely blocking the path Yu Mengjia was about to take, forcing her to change direction.

"Interesting." A flash of silver light appeared in Xuan Yinzi's eyes, and his figure suddenly vanished, transforming into dozens of silver-gray sword shadows that attacked Li Hanshan from all directions simultaneously, like dozens of sharp blades flying out at the same time, blocking all his escape routes. At the same time, Yu Mengjia's wind curtain suddenly swelled up and rushed in from the side, an invisible force field spreading out in front of the wind curtain.

Li Hanshan sensed the dual pressure coming from two directions simultaneously. Xuan Yinzi's sword shadows were dense and precise, like flying needles controlled by invisible threads, with every deviation at an angle accurate enough for him to make minor adjustments; Yu Mengjia's wind curtain pressed down from the side with overwhelming force, stirring up the airflow and compressing his space to a minimum.

He didn't take the blow head-on. He twirled the flaming longsword halfway in his palm and slashed towards the corner where Xuan Yinzi's sword shadows were most concentrated. Pure Yang fire condensed into a fine golden light pattern at the edge of the blade. At the same time, he took a step forward, purple-gold flames exploding beneath his feet. He shot through the weakest gap in the sword net like an arrow leaping from the water.

Xuan Yinzi's brow twitched slightly, clearly not expecting him to find such a tricky angle to break through while attacked from both sides. But he didn't stop. The scattered silver-gray sword shadows in the air simultaneously contracted, condensed, and merged, reforming into a single silver-gray longsword in the void, chasing after Li Hanshan's back. Yu Mengjia's wind curtain also turned in sync, drawing an arc from the side, bypassing the front of the stone pillar, and blocking his retreat again. The two attacks seemed to be controlled by the same invisible hand, precisely intersecting, each strike sealing off his next landing point.

Forced by the dual pressure, Li Hanshan had to constantly change positions. His flaming longsword clashed with Xuan Yinzi's silver-gray sword light several times, each time keeping the opponent's attacks at a safe distance. Yu Mengjia's wind barrier compressed his movement space with each retreat, like a closing cyan wall. He could feel that the two of them were indeed well-coordinated—not the kind of familiarity honed beforehand, but more like each adjusting their rhythm in sync with extremely high combat intuition, trying to drive him into a corner.