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

The battle in the valley lasted for half a day.

Li Hanshan gripped the broken sword, his pure Yang energy surging through his meridians. Although the light of the Chongyang Yuan Tai still flowed above his head, it was noticeably dimmer than before.

There were three deep scratches on the scales of his chest armor, marks left by Chen Jie's natal spirit sword brushing past him during a brief moment. His left sleeve was torn, revealing the armor plate beneath, with a small crack along its edge.

Zhao Shoudao stood several dozen feet away from him, the grayish-yellow staff already replaced with the third one. The first two had been visibly damaged by the continuous scorching of the pure yang fire, and this one was the last spare in his storage bag, its surface now showing fine scorch marks. His breathing was much more rapid than before, fine beads of sweat glistening on his forehead, and the grayish-yellow phantom of his primordial spirit had become somewhat ethereal, no longer as solid and weighty as it had been at the beginning.

Chen Jie's condition wasn't good either. The dark golden natal spirit sword trembled slightly in his hand, and the sharp light at its tip had dimmed by a third. Although he had been staying on the periphery of the battle, not directly confronting Li Hanshan like Zhao Shoudao, the constant harassment from the sides had still consumed a lot of his spiritual energy. After another exchange of blows, his gaze quickly swept across the valley, as if confirming something, or perhaps waiting for something.

"Your nascent soul won't last much longer," Zhao Shoudao said, gripping his long staff, his voice carrying a suppressed certainty. "If you continue, your soul power will be exhausted first."

Li Hanshan didn't answer. What he said was indeed true. Chongyang Yuan Tai's soul power reserves had already been depleted by more than 70%, and the continuous high-intensity confrontation had caused the golden patterns on the surface of the Yuan Tai to flicker unpredictably. But he knew that Zhao Shoudao was also suffering, and the rate at which his Nascent Soul was being consumed was not to be underestimated in a battle at the third level of the Nascent Soul stage. Both of them were expending their energy, each gambling that the other would give out first.

Just then, Li Hanshan's divine sense detected a rapidly approaching aura. His brow twitched almost imperceptibly—he was all too familiar with that aura.

The Ghost Month has arrived!

As for the Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect, Li Hanshan had already noticed it long ago.

Yin Lingyue remained disguised as an old woman—a hunched back, a withered face, and gray hair fluttering in the wind. She landed a hundred miles away, her cloudy eyes sweeping over the battle in the valley.

"How lively!"

Upon seeing Yin Lingyue appear, the Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect was overjoyed. He quickly revealed himself, his gaze sweeping back and forth between Li Hanshan and Zhao Shoudao, before lowering his voice to say, "Senior Sister Yin, that old man is incredibly powerful. He's clearly only a Nascent Soul cultivator, yet he's been fighting two Nascent Soul cultivators for so long. This is an opportunity for us."

Yin Lingyue said calmly, "An opportunity?"

A glint of greed flashed in Yin Quanzong's Nascent Soul cultivator's eyes: "Hmm, they've been fighting for a long time and are exhausted. If we make a move, we can at least take one down. If we can refine it into a Corpse Demon, that would be a top-tier fighting force."

Yin Lingyue's cloudy eyes slowly turned to him, her voice carrying a suppressed hoarseness: "Which side do you plan to ambush?"

The Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect paused for a moment, then quickly replied, "Of course we'll help the Nascent Soul cultivator from the Hehuan Sect! Uncle Yin, look, that old man is already cornered; the light of his nascent soul is almost extinguished. If we join forces with the gray-robed cultivator, he's doomed!"

Yin Lingyue was silent for a moment. Then she nodded, her hunched body shifting slightly as if adjusting the angle of her attack: "Then contact them and tell them to prepare for the rescue."

The Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect was overjoyed. He immediately activated his divine sense, and a faint divine sense transmission shot out from between his brows, reaching Chen Jie's ears: "Friends from the Hehuan Sect! I am a Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect, and I am willing to lend you a hand! You hold off that old man, and we will flank him from the side and kill him in one strike!"

A glint of joy flashed in Chen Jie's eyes. While continuing to press down on Li Hanshan's flank with his natal spirit sword, he quickly responded to Zhao Shoudao with his divine sense: "Senior Brother Zhao, the Yinquan Sect is willing to take action and flank us from the side! If we surround him, he will surely die!"

Zhao Shoudao paused for a moment, then nodded slightly. He didn't speak, but he had already subtly adjusted the angle of the long staff in his hand, further blocking Li Hanshan's escape route.

Sensing the response from the two from the Hehuan Sect, the Nascent Soul cultivator from the Yinquan Sect smiled smugly. He turned to Yin Lingyue and whispered, "Uncle-Master, they've agreed! Let's make our move now!"

"good!"

The two flew towards the center of the battlefield, covering a distance of a hundred miles in an instant.

"Hahaha, Li Hanshan, you're dead!" Chen Jie laughed loudly upon seeing Yin Lingyue and the Nascent Soul cultivators from the Yinquan Sect arrive.

Li Hanshan's expression changed drastically: "You actually colluded with the Yinquan Sect!"

Chen Jie laughed and said, "What collusion? It's just that you're a soft persimmon, easy to squeeze!"

Having said that, he looked at Yin Lingyue and said, "So it's Granny Yin. You've come at the right time. Let's kill this Liao together!"

Yin Lingyue nodded slightly, and without saying a word, she summoned her silver corpse and, together with the Nascent Soul cultivator from Yinquan Sect, charged towards Li Hanshan. Seeing this, Chen Jie laughed even harder, but his laughter immediately froze.

Yin Lingyue and her silver corpse suddenly burst forth and launched an attack on Chen Jie.

Chen Jie was not unprepared, but he couldn't withstand the sudden sneak attack from Yin Lingyue and the Silver Corpse. When they launched their attack, Li Hanshan even used the Divine Soul Sword!

Chen Jie froze! His smile was still on his lips when he was struck head-on by a sudden sneak attack. The silver corpse's claws slammed into the protective aura on his back like compressed iron blocks, producing a dull, almost ear-piercing impact. His protective aura shattered in that instant, and he was sent flying hundreds of feet to the side like a catapult-launched stone, crashing into a cratered pile of rubble, raising a cloud of dust.

"What?!"

The smug look on the Yin Quan Sect Nascent Soul cultivator's face instantly froze into blank astonishment: "Senior Sister Yin..."

Yin Lingyue ignored him and attacked Chen Jie together with the silver corpse. Chen Jie was shocked and quickly summoned a talisman.

At the critical moment, the talisman Chen Jie unleashed exploded into a pale golden light barrier, simultaneously blocking Yin Lingyue's chains and the silver corpse's claws.

Fine runes flowed across the surface of the light barrier, like a flaming glass wall, cracked yet stubbornly maintaining its structure. Taking advantage of this brief respite, he staggered to his feet from the rubble, three deep, bone-revealing wounds on his back still bleeding, staining his greyish-brown outfit a dark red. His gaze swept back and forth between Li Hanshan and Yin Lingyue, his voice filled with barely suppressed shock, anger, and disbelief: "Yinquan Sect! You dare collude with the sect leader's lineage!"

Yin Lingyue said indifferently, "What collusion? It's just that you're a soft persimmon that's easy to squeeze."

Chen Jie paused.

He said those words himself.

Yin Lingyue's mind stirred. Under her control, the silver corpse lunged out again, its silver-gray claws, imbued with Yin energy, slamming fiercely into the golden light barrier. The barrier trembled violently, the runes flickering unpredictably. Her chains, like a living snake, coiled around the surface of the light barrier, relentlessly eroding the edges of the defensive structure through the gaps in the runes.

Chen Jie gritted his teeth and poured the remaining spiritual energy in his body into the talisman as if it were free. The golden light screen lit up again for a moment, temporarily suppressing the spreading cracks on its surface. But he knew this wouldn't last long; the golden talisman was just one of his trump cards for survival, not a true defensive magic weapon, and it would shatter completely in at most twenty breaths. He abruptly turned to Zhao Shoudao, his voice urgent: "Senior Brother Zhao! Help!"

Zhao Shoudao was adjusting the angle of his staff, trying to break free from Li Hanshan's control, when he heard Chen Jie's voice. He no longer hesitated. The grayish-yellow phantom of his primordial spirit suddenly swelled, pressing down on Li Hanshan like a mountain. The gravitational field instantly covered an area of ​​several dozen feet, compressing Li Hanshan's range of movement to a minimum. Li Hanshan's broken sword sank slightly under the pressure of that gravity, the light of his Chongyang primordial embryo flickered violently, and his figure froze in place for half a breath.

Just as Zhao Shoudao focused all his attention on suppressing Li Hanshan, a ghostly blue light silently emerged from the void beside him. Xiao An's figure rose like a bubble from the bottom of water, her soul suddenly solidifying in mid-air. Her hands formed a seal, and the jet-black soul banner unfurled behind her. The aura of eighty thousand ghost soldiers surged towards Zhao Shoudao like a beehive with its lid lifted, before he could fully react. The densely packed ghost soldier souls converged into a black wave, sweeping towards Zhao Shoudao's primordial spirit phantom. His movements abruptly froze, and the gray-yellow mountain was violently shaken by the torrent of ghost soldiers, forcing him to divert most of his spiritual power to maintain the stability of his primordial spirit phantom.

"A ghost?!" Zhao Shoudao's voice carried a hint of genuine surprise and doubt. "You have a ghost at the Nascent Soul level by your side!"

Li Hanshan didn't answer. Taking advantage of the moment Zhao Shoudao was forced to be distracted, he poured all the remaining soul power in his Chongyang Yuan Tai into the broken sword. At that moment, the jet-black broken sword erupted with an unprecedentedly dazzling light, the ancient blue patterns and pure yang energy of purple-gold intertwining on the sword to form a brilliant stream of light. He took a step forward, his figure like a stream of light tearing through the twilight, passing through the gravity field of Zhao Shoudao, which had been weakened by the Youbing, and slashed straight towards Chen Jie's direction.

The broken sword's blade struck precisely the crack in the golden light barrier that had been repeatedly assaulted by Yin Lingyue's chains and the silver corpse for over a dozen breaths. The instant the sword pierced through, the runes on the barrier's surface trembled violently, like birds being strangled, emitting a final, short buzzing sound before shattering completely. Golden fragments scattered and flew, like a shower of shattered glass streaking across the twilight with countless fine lines of light.

Chen Jie's pupils contracted sharply. He tried to retreat, but it was too late. The remaining force of the broken sword pierced through the protective aura he had hastily erected, precisely striking his dantian. Purple-gold flames spread from the point of impact, igniting all the remaining spiritual energy in his meridians. Chen Jie looked down at the broken sword in his chest, its flames slowly dissipating, then looked up at Li Hanshan. His lips moved, as if he wanted to say something, but he only managed to utter a short, burnt-out gasp. His body slumped forward, like a felled log, crashing heavily onto the rocky ground, where he remained motionless.

"The Nascent Soul cultivator is dead?"

Yin Quan Shou, a Nascent Soul cultivator, was greatly shocked. This series of events happened so fast that even he, a Nascent Soul cultivator, was stunned.