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

Xiao An's fingertip lingered for a moment on the last wisp of smoke from the dissipating gray-black light. She closed her eyes, and the eerie blue light on the surface of her soul body shone again. This time, the light was even deeper than before, like a churned deep pool with dark whirlpools churning at its bottom.

"Senior, there's more." Her voice carried a suppressed gravity, as if she were touching something extremely heavy. "Deep within that lingering resentment lies another layer of seal. I didn't completely break it just now, but I can already sense that more complete fragments of information are hidden inside. Give me some time."

Li Hanshan did not urge him. He stood before Lu Zhantian's tombstone, the pure yang fire slowly circulating around him, burning away the wisps of gray-black smoke. He could feel a faint, chilling aura still lingering in the air above the grave, like turbid water that had not yet fully settled, with fragments of lingering resentment still lurking in the shadows, searching for a chance to regroup.

Xiao An closed her eyes, her soul power continuing to penetrate deeper. Her brows furrowed more and more, her fingertips trembling slightly, as if she were prying open a repeatedly reinforced iron door. A moment later, she suddenly opened her eyes, a genuine shock flashing in her dark green pupils, as if she had seen something far beyond her expectations.

"Senior..." her voice was slightly hoarse, "I saw it, please take a look too."

Her soul power unfolded in her sea of ​​consciousness, and the scene revealed after the seal shattered was like a stage with its curtain lifted, spreading out before Li Hanshan's soul. He first saw a sky he had never seen before—the color of that sky was not any kind of blue or gray he was familiar with, but rather a flowing, shattered glass-like hue, with fine silver light surging at its edges, like wounds repeatedly torn and healed by some force. A huge passage was slowly opening from the clouds, its edges covered with fine silver runes. The patterns of those runes were exactly the same as the restriction techniques he had learned from Luo Li, but their scale far exceeded any formation he had ever seen.

A figure was hovering below that passage.

He was a tall, middle-aged man with a handsome face and an imposing, dignified air. He wore a dark blue robe, the hem of which fluttered in the wind. His aura was like the sun compressed to its extreme; his mere presence caused the clouds within a hundred miles to disperse. His face vaguely corresponded to the weathered inscriptions on Lu Zhantian's tombstone, but he was more vivid and sharper than the image depicted in those inscriptions.

He looked up at the slowly opening passage, his laughter echoing between heaven and earth: "I, Lu Zhantian, ascend to immortality today—"

Before he finished speaking, the silver light surged violently. The edge of the passage was blindingly bright for a moment, then shattered like a bubble stretched to its limit—countless black shadows poured out from the broken passage, like an overturned beehive, densely packed, blotting out the sky. The shapes of these black shadows were exactly the same as the black mist that Li Hanshan had just fought, only their numbers were billions of times greater, like a black tide descending from the sky, engulfing the entire firmament.

Their goal is singular—that figure ascending to immortality.

Lu Zhantian's laughter changed in that instant. He raised his hand, and a dazzling silver light, so bright it was blinding, condensed in his palm. Like a giant sword descending from the sky, it cleaved the foremost group of dark figures in two, the severed surface exploding into countless tiny black fragments that scattered in the air like burning ash. But more dark figures surged forward like a tide, relentlessly enveloping him at the core of the silver light. Each of his attacks shattered thousands upon thousands of dark figures, yet their numbers seemed endless, constantly pouring out of the passage, turning the entire sky a deep black.

In the gaps between those black torrents, Li Hanshan saw a figure that made his breath catch in his throat—Luo Li. She was dressed in pristine white, barefoot on a flying sword, her hands forming hand seals, and a silver-white sword array unfolded behind her. The array consisted of thousands of flying swords, each imbued with the purest Yao Guang sword intent, like a flowing silver net weaving an impenetrable defense before her. Each time she activated the sword array, countless black shadows were shredded to pieces, but her own life force was visibly waning, her face as pale as paper, a trace of blood clinging to the corner of her mouth.

The scene shifts. Lu Zhantian stands in the center of a cratered wasteland, his dark blue robe mostly torn to shreds, revealing scorched skin beneath. A black gash runs across his chest, its edges rippled with fine black lines, as if some living thing is eroding his flesh from the wound. His gaze falls on Luo Li, his lips move as if to say something, but his voice is muffled by the wind and the shrieks of the shadowy figures. Luo Li abruptly turns to look at him, her expression changing drastically. She rushes towards him, only to be blocked by a group of shadowy figures.

Lu Zhantian didn't wait for her. He looked up at the sky filled with shadows, a faint, almost relieved smile appearing on his lips. Then—a dazzling silver light erupted around him, like a sun exploding within him, rapidly expanding in all directions from his body, engulfing all the shadows within a radius of thousands of feet. Those black shadows, impacted by the light, were like pieces of paper thrown into a furnace, instantly vaporized, leaving not even a trace. But the price of that light was equally clear—the dark blue figure rapidly became transparent, shattered, and dissipated within the light, like a weathered stone statue, peeling away from its edges, ultimately vanishing completely into the vast silver tide of light.

The Mahayana cultivator self-destructed.

Li Hanshan abruptly pulled himself out of those images, feeling a throbbing pain in his temples and a dull ache in his mind. He steadied himself by leaning against a nearby tombstone, the image of Lu Zhantian's self-destruction branded into the depths of his consciousness, refusing to fade. A Mahayana cultivator, someone only one step away from ascension, had actually been forced to the point of self-destruction.

He steadied himself and reviewed the turbulent thoughts swirling within him. Based on the remnants of these extraterrestrial demons he had encountered so far, their difficulty lay primarily in three aspects. First, ordinary spiritual energy attacks had extremely limited effect on them. Flying swords, spells, and even pure Yang fire required extremely high quality to cause any real damage; attacks of insufficient quality were like throwing mud into the sea. Second, almost all of them possessed spatial manipulation abilities, allowing them to traverse short distances as freely as breathing, making it impossible to truly pinpoint their location. Third, their energy type was fundamentally different from the spiritual energy system of cultivators, like the laws of two different worlds naturally repelling each other upon contact.

The perspective he gleaned from those fragments—when Lu Zhantian ascended to immortality, the passage opened from top to bottom, and the dark figures surged forth from within it—was clearly a view from above. Those extraterrestrial demons had been waiting. They had long been waiting at the exit of that ascension passage, waiting for the cultivator to open the gate to the immortal realm, and then pour in. Their prey was never ordinary cultivators, but those who had reached the end of their cultivation path and were knocking on the gate to immortality.

"They prevent cultivators from ascending," Li Hanshan whispered his speculation.

He then thought of the Northern Wilderness Sword Sect. The Northern Wilderness Sword Sect's destruction seemed to occur after the destruction of the Yao Guang Sect. The strongest members of the Northern Wilderness Sword Sect were only at the Nascent Soul stage; how then had the Northern Wilderness Sword Sect attracted the attention of the extraterrestrial demons?

As for that insurmountable barrier in the Endless Sea, the terrifying sword intent that cleaved the sea in two was something even Luo Li had never seen before. Its appearance must have occurred after the destruction of the Yao Guang Sect.

Is there a connection between them?

There is another name, which is the ancient ruins that Luo Li mentioned. In her time, there were a huge number of ancient ruins. Where did these ruins come from? Were they from sects that were wiped out?

In that case, have those demons existed for an even longer time, repeatedly reaping the lives of generations of cultivators who try to surpass their limits on the endless earth?

His thoughts were like turbulent water, with more and more guesses surfacing from the churning mud. Just then, a very subtle tremor suddenly came from the depths of his consciousness—something was moving within him. The sensation was extremely faint, like a cool breeze traveling through his veins, yet it made every hair on his body stand on end instantly.

The lingering black mist he had dispersed had somehow bypassed all his senses and seeped into the depths of his consciousness. Those black fragments that should have been completely incinerated, like ashes surviving a flame, were slowly reforming at the edge of his soul. Before he could react, an icy, chilling sensation gripped the core of his consciousness like an iron clamp—his vision was instantly swallowed by pure darkness.

His eyes also changed color, no longer showing any whites, but becoming completely black.

"senior!"

Xiao An noticed the change in Li Hanshan and called out urgently.