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

Elder Gong hovered in mid-air, his silvery-white spiritual light suppressing the surging black spiritual energy around the middle-aged man. But each suppression was accompanied by an even more violent rebound. Under the dark red light, the middle-aged man's face resembled a scorched bronze statue, his features distorted to the point of being almost unrecognizable.

A series of low growls came from his throat, like a beast trapped in an iron cage. Each impact caused fine cracks to appear on the surface of Elder Gong's spiritual light.

"Quick! Stop him! Don't let him get close to the center of the formation!" Several deacons dressed in the standard robes of the Immortal Alliance rushed in from all directions, each casting spells to try to reinforce the spiritual light barrier that was being attacked. However, most of them were at the Nascent Soul stage, and they were like paper lanterns in front of the violent spiritual power that erupted after the Void Refinement cultivator went into a state of demonic possession. Every time they tried to reinforce it, they were shaken back several steps.

Elder Gong's face was ashen, like a tightly pressed iron plate. He continuously channeled his spiritual energy to maintain the stability of the spiritual light barrier while glancing at the observing cultivators. His voice, slightly hoarse from the sustained suppression, was urgent: "Open the time array! His condition is deteriorating rapidly. I can only hold on for half an incense stick's time at most! The Alliance Leader must intervene, otherwise he will blast everything in the array to dust the moment his spiritual energy completely spirals out of control."

These words immediately caused a stir among the onlookers. Some unconsciously took a half step back, some exchanged glances, and others frowned and said, "Elder Gong, we finally accumulated enough merits to enter the core immortal island. If we interrupt it now, who knows when it will be open again—" The speaker was a thin-faced Nascent Soul cultivator. His voice was not loud amidst the surrounding discussions, but it clearly reached the ears of everyone present.

"Yes, we've only completed half of our cultivation. If we leave now, we'll have to wait decades to come back in," another voice chimed in.

"But we can't just stand by and watch our fellow disciples go mad and do nothing, can we?" a female cultivator retorted.

"Then what do you suggest we do? If we go out and then come back, all our years of arduous training will have been for nothing."

The murmurs swirled around the crowd. Elder Gong's gaze swept across the sounds. He could feel the spiritual energy under his control being assaulted with increasing force by the middle-aged man. Although he could maintain his strength with his cultivation level, if the man lost control and exploded, it would be all over.

A Void Refinement cultivator's self-destruction would cause immense damage to the time-space array.

Just then, another muffled explosion came from afar.

All eyes turned in that direction at the same instant—a cave dwelling located on the edge of the core area, its protective light barrier shattered like glass after being struck by the giant hammer, fragments flying everywhere. A grayish-white figure rushed out from the shattered barrier, surrounded by extremely chaotic spiritual energy fluctuations, his face as pale as paper, his eyes surging with a dark red light identical to that of the middle-aged man.

"Another one!"

Another cultivator has gone mad from cultivation. It was a young female cultivator with a cultivation level at the peak of the Nascent Soul stage. Her degree of cultivation deviation was slightly less than that of the middle-aged man, but the chaotic aura was enough to make her struggle wildly on the verge of losing control.

Her magic attacks were chaotic and unpredictable, blasting the spirit trees and stone steps around the cave into flying fragments. Several low-level disciples who couldn't dodge in time were sent flying by the aftershocks, crashing into a distant stone wall and spitting out blood.

Elder Gong's expression finally darkened completely. He maintained the suppression of the middle-aged man's spiritual power with one hand, while raising the other hand abruptly. A new silver-white spiritual light shot out from his palm, precisely wrapping around the female cultivator's limbs and fixing her in place.

The female cultivator let out a sharp scream, struggling desperately to break free from the restraints, but the suppressive power of the late-stage Void Refinement Realm cultivator was far beyond what a peak Nascent Soul Realm cultivator like her could withstand. The spiritual light was like an iron hoop, firmly binding her movements and keeping her suspended several feet above the ground in mid-air.

"We can't wait any longer," Elder Gong's voice rang out, decisive. "Once the formation closes, everyone's cultivation time here will be interrupted, but if someone dies, everything is lost. All disciples present, listen to my command—return to your respective caves and contact the outside world using communication talismans after the formation closes, awaiting notification of its reopening."

Before he could finish speaking, a voice rang out from the crowd: "Wait a minute."

Elder Gong paused slightly. He looked in the direction of the sound, his gaze passing through the retreating figures and landing on a young man dressed in the robes of an outer elder of the Purple Thunder Pavilion. The man stood not far from Shen Yun, his face calm and his gaze steady. The aura flowing around him fluctuated slightly at the threshold of the peak of the Nascent Soul stage, yet he showed no sign of panic despite the chaos before him.

Elder Gong's gaze fell on the unfamiliar face, his brows furrowing slightly: "Who are you?"

Shen Yun stepped forward half a step from Li Hanshan's side, clasped her hands in greeting, and said, "Elder Gong, this is Li Hanshan, an outer sect elder of my Purple Thunder Pavilion. He is quite accomplished in talismanic arts and formations, just now—"

Elder Gong interrupted her, his gaze still fixed on Li Hanshan: "You have a way?"

Li Hanshan took a few steps forward, sensing the gazes of the retreating cultivators converging on him from all directions. He could feel the scrutinizing pressure emanating from the late-stage Void Refinement realm, but he didn't stop. He stood before Elder Gong and said, "This disciple has a question I'd like to ask Elder Gong first."

Elder Gong's brows furrowed even more, but he sensed the spiritual energy fluctuations within the middle-aged man surging at an increasingly rapid pace. There was no time for him to carefully choose his words. He suppressed his impatience and said, "Speak."

Li Hanshan raised his head, his gaze meeting Elder Gong's piercing eyes: "Has the acceleration ratio of this time array increased from the initial three times to five times?"

Upon hearing this, the surrounding cultivators, who had been whispering amongst themselves, fell silent for a moment. Then, an even more intense murmur erupted from the crowd.

Five times? How come I didn't know that?

"The Immortal Alliance's announcement clearly stated three times the normal rate, so when did it become five times?"

"If it really is five times the normal amount, then haven't we spent almost twice as much time cultivating inside as we expected?"

Elder Gong's pupils contracted slightly for a moment. He looked at the young cultivator before him, his lightning-like eyes flashing with an instinctive wariness and scrutiny, as if a core secret had been touched: "How did you know? This matter is top secret even within the Immortal Alliance; even ordinary elders might not know. You, a mere outer sect elder of the Purple Thunder Pavilion—"

"I discovered it by chance," Li Hanshan said, not dwelling on the matter. Instead, he continued, "Increasing the acceleration rate of the formation is indeed a good thing for cultivators with ample time, but for those on the verge of a breakthrough, the speed of spiritual energy accumulation will be pushed to the limit. The hidden dangers in their meridians that would normally take decades to gradually dissipate will be suppressed to a critical point within just a few years."

He glanced at the two figures bound by the spiritual light. "Their demonic possession is not accidental."

Elder Gong's gaze lingered on Li Hanshan's face for a long time. After a moment, he spoke, his voice lower than before, yet carrying a solemnity born from the fact that he had been struck by a crucial point: "Indeed, five times, this is the increase from this instance. The Immortal Alliance has inspected the array's core multiple times and found no abnormalities—"

His confirmation caused the surrounding cultivators to show expressions of both surprise and delight. This meant that they could stay within the time array for a longer period this time.

"This disciple can save them," Li Hanshan said, "but I need Elder Gong's cooperation. This disciple needs Elder Gong to stabilize the spiritual energy circulation in their dantian cores with his Refining Void level spiritual power when this disciple makes a move, so that this disciple can separate the inner demon meridians from the spiritual energy core one by one at the soul level."

Elder Gong stared at him for a few moments, then slightly stepped aside, clearing a path between the two figures bound by the silvery-white spiritual light: "You make the move. If anything goes wrong, I'll take responsibility."

Li Hanshan said nothing more, took two steps forward, and stood in front of the middle-aged man. Pure Yang energy condensed into a warm golden halo in his palm, probing towards the man's dantian. He could feel that the suppressed, violent spiritual power, bound by that layer of silvery-white spiritual light, was like a frozen sea of ​​fire. The surface appeared calm, but beneath it lay a vast amount of energy powerful enough to blast the entire cave into dust the moment it was released.

He spent about the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, peeling away, severing, and burning away the demonic veins that had taken root in the middle-aged man's meridians. He could feel the violent spiritual energy within the man's body stabilizing at a visible speed, and the dark red light surging in his pupils slowly regaining their clear luster.

The second person was faster. The female cultivator's inner demon meridians were shallower and located further out than the middle-aged man's. He cleared away all the tangled meridians in less than half an hour. When the last trace of disordered spiritual energy in her body returned to normal, she swayed slightly in mid-air, then slowly lowered her head as if a skeleton had been stripped of all its support.

"He actually managed to do it."

"Amazing, they can even cure a qi deviation."

When the surrounding cultivators saw that Li Hanshan had actually dealt with two demon-possessed cultivators, their eyes lit up and they looked at Li Hanshan with great astonishment.