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

The moment the Crimson Sun Sword was drawn, it was like a small sun, its crimson light spreading throughout the entire secret realm, causing the light in the realm to dim slightly.

Li Hanshan had long anticipated that Zhou Heng would be difficult to deal with—a cultivator at the mid-stage of the Void Refinement realm, whose spiritual energy reserves and physical strength far surpassed those of the Nascent Soul realm, possessed the trump cards accumulated by the Immortal Alliance over a thousand years, and might even have trump cards from the Joyful Union Sect.

Therefore, he never intended to wage a war of attrition from the beginning. His opponent's level was too high, and the longer the conflict dragged on, the more disadvantageous it would be for him. He needed to play his strongest card from the start, taking advantage of Zhou Heng's moment of weakness to completely tip the scales of victory.

The Crimson Sun Sword emitted a deep hum in his hand. The flame patterns sealed deep within the sword flowed rapidly as if awakened, spreading from the hilt to the tip, and layer upon layer of crimson-gold light shone brightly.

The entire sword, like burning firewood, emitted a high temperature that distorted even the air. Li Hanshan could clearly feel the yang attribute essence contained within the sword resonating intensely with his pure yang energy in his palm, like a sleeping beast that had smelled a shared aura and suddenly opened its eyes.

Without hesitation, he poured most of the pure Yang energy in his dantian into the sword. The flame patterns on the Crimson Sun Sword erupted completely at that moment, and the crimson-gold light on the sword increased several times over. The entire sword spun in his palm like a sun compressed to its extreme.

He took a step forward, and the ground beneath his feet cracked instantly, the cracks spreading rapidly in all directions from his footing, each crack radiating a scorching golden light.

Then he struck.

A crimson-gold sword light shot out from the tip of the sword, like an elongated fragment of the sun, carrying a terrifying heat that could tear space apart, and precisely slashed towards Zhou Heng's chest.

Zhou Heng's pupils contracted to their maximum size in that instant.

His first reaction wasn't to block the Crimson Sun Sword. Because just before the Crimson Sun Sword fell, his sea of ​​consciousness had already been pierced by another attack.

Sword of the Soul.

The divine sword, which Li Hanshan had repeatedly tempered with his soul power for countless years in the dream, struck his sea of ​​consciousness with precision the instant he had just diverted most of his spiritual power to deal with Xiao An's Netherworld Short Spear.

Although he was at the mid-stage of the Void Refinement realm, his spiritual sense was not as strong as Li Hanshan's. In addition, the Divine Soul Sword was too sharp, and his sea of ​​consciousness was directly cleaved open when he was caught off guard!

Zhou Heng felt a sudden darkness before his eyes. The sensation of his sea of ​​consciousness being blasted open was too unbearable, even for someone at the Void Refinement stage. Intense pain exploded from the depths of his soul, spreading along his meridians to his limbs and bones.

"ah--!"

He let out a short, miserable howl that echoed throughout the secret realm, startling even the low-level demonic beasts in the distant dense forest into scattering in all directions.

But the scream lasted for less than half a breath. The soul foundation of a mid-stage Void Refinement cultivator was indeed far superior to that of ordinary cultivators. The moment he was severely injured by the Soul Sword, he forcibly mobilized the remaining power of his sea of ​​consciousness and used a layer of dark gray soul barrier to forcefully push the golden sword shadow out of the core of his sea of ​​consciousness.

The barrier was like a shattered shield, riddled with cracks yet barely maintaining its structural integrity. But his soul was severely damaged.

The sharp intent of the Divine Soul Sword, like an unquenchable dark fire, remained deep within his sea of ​​consciousness, continuously scorching the foundation of his divine soul.

Just as he barely managed to stabilize his mind, the sword light of the Crimson Sun Sword arrived.

The crimson-gold beam of light, carrying terrifying heat enough to melt a mountain into molten iron, struck the protective aura he had hastily conjured.

The protective aura around him melted, cracked, and dissipated rapidly from the point of impact like wax being pierced by a red-hot iron rod. Without a word, Zhou Heng flicked a pure silver talisman from his sleeve.

This is a sixth-tier defensive talisman. Although it is also sixth-tier, this one is of superior quality and can withstand an attack from a mid-to-late stage of the Void Refinement realm.

The talisman exploded in his palm, transforming into a thick, silvery-white light barrier in front of him.

The sword light of the Crimson Sun Sword struck the light barrier.

The light barrier trembled violently, its silver-white runes flashing wildly under the scorching crimson gold, cracks spreading rapidly from its center outwards. But it had indeed blocked the light.

The full release of the sixth-tier defensive talisman neutralized most of the power of the Crimson Sun Sword on the surface of the light barrier, leaving only the scorching aftershocks to seep in through the cracks, burning several charred marks on the edges of Zhou Heng's robes.

The residual force of the Crimson Sun Sword did not dissipate. The sword light, which had been largely neutralized, continued to advance after shattering the light barrier, striking the ground behind the light barrier and the spatial barrier at the edge of the secret realm.

The moment the sword light touched the ground, the entire secret realm trembled violently. A fissure hundreds of miles long spread outwards from the point of impact, swallowing up the dense forests and hills. The ground on both sides of the fissure rolled over like planks cleaved by a giant axe, revealing the bottomless dark chasm below.

The sword light finally dissipated after slicing through the spatial barrier at the edge of the secret realm, but it left a scorch mark tens of feet long on the pale golden light screen, with runes at the edge flashing wildly, like a bleeding wound.

Zhou Heng was sent flying backward by the aftershock of the sword light, his feet leaving a series of dark gray spiritual energy ripples in the air, his chest heaving violently. Before he could regain his footing, a silver-purple light shot out from Li Hanshan's sleeve, striking him precisely in his retreating path.

That sixth-order purple lightning talisman.

The moment the lightning exploded in front of him, the entire secret realm was illuminated as if it were daytime. "Roar!" A lightning dragon, carrying lightning power at the Void Refinement level, tore apart the protective spiritual light that Zhou Heng had just re-condensed around his body. The lightning rushed straight in along the direction of his meridians, turning his entire body into a charred black.

Zhou Heng let out a muffled groan as the force of the impact propelled him backward several miles, crashing heavily into a high mountain and embedding himself in its rock.

With a loud "boom," the rocks crumbled, and half of the mountain collapsed from the impact.

At that moment, Li Hanshan's next attack arrived.