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

"Because he's more handsome than you."

These four words fell into the spiritual mist of the secret realm, like a pebble thrown into a deep pool, creating a silent ripple in the stillness.

Zhou Heng's face froze at first, then a bluish-green color spread from the base of his neck to the tips of his ears, and finally his whole face turned purple.

His lips trembled, and his Adam's apple bobbed twice, like a fish thrown ashore desperately searching for oxygen, but he could only utter a string of dry syllables: "You...you..."

He took a deep breath and finally squeezed out the rest of his sentence, "You, a cultivator at the late stage of the Void Refinement realm, actually use such a reason to reject me?"

To him, Yin Yue's reason was nothing short of a blatant humiliation.

Yin Yue tilted her head slightly, her eyes curving slightly beneath her silver veil, like a shallow stream illuminated by moonlight. She didn't reply, her languid and matter-of-fact demeanor causing Zhou Heng's blood to surge more violently than any words could express.

"I've been lying low in the Immortal Alliance for a thousand years!" Zhou Heng's voice rose, carrying the pent-up frustration of being publicly humiliated. "This year, I'll be 1,800 years old, and in just 1,800 years, I broke through to the mid-stage of the Void Refinement realm! You're telling me it's because he's more handsome than you? Do you think this is like choosing a courtesan in a mortal brothel?"

Yin Yue stood before the light screen, her silver-white robes billowing gently in the wind of the secret realm. Her tone remained clear and cold: "I am indeed somewhat interested in what you just mentioned. But you've omitted one thing from your conditions." She paused slightly. "You said you'd give me everything in return for helping me kill him. But you've overlooked the most crucial point—what guarantee do you have that you won't betray me after giving me what you've given?"

Zhou Heng's lips froze.

"You've been lurking in the Immortal Alliance for a thousand years. The control methods the Joyful Union Sect has given you are nothing more than poison pills, restrictions, or something even more covert. You can betray the Joyful Union Sect once, and you can betray it a second time. I help you today, and tomorrow you turn around and sell my identity to the Immortal Alliance. Isn't this kind of thing common in the Demonic Sect?" Yin Yue's voice was unhurried, each word falling on the most precise beat, like a string that had been repeatedly tuned. "Rather than making such an uncertain deal with you, it's better to cooperate with someone who has already made a Heavenly Dao Oath. At least his oath hasn't expired yet."

Zhou Heng was speechless.

He took a deep breath, forcibly suppressing his surging anger back into his chest, and shifted his gaze from Yin Yue back to the purple-gold figure in the distance.

After a few moments of silence, he spoke, his voice much lower than before, carrying a calmness regained after being cornered, like a trapped beast recalculating the hunter's weaknesses in a desperate situation: "Li Hanshan, let's try a different approach."

Li Hanshan had already walked several hundred feet away from him. He retrieved the Crimson Sun Sword into his storage ring, and pure Yang energy slowly circulated through his meridians. He stopped, his gaze calmly falling on the gray-robed figure: "What method?"

"You fight me one-on-one. One-on-one, life or death." Zhou Heng tossed the empty pill bottles on the ground, raised his gaze, and a fierce seriousness surged in his deep-set eyes. "I know you possess a Dao artifact, and I know how terrifying it is. But I know one thing even more clearly—without that Dao artifact, without that vengeful spirit by my side, what makes you, a peak Nascent Soul cultivator, think you can harm me?"

He stretched out his hand, pointing towards Li Hanshan's dantian, his voice growing faster and faster: "Your Divine Soul Sword is indeed sharp, but once I was prepared, that attack was simply not enough to decide the outcome. Your Pure Yang Fire is of extremely high quality, but the total amount of spiritual power is ultimately limited; the reserves of a peak Nascent Soul cultivator are a whole major realm lower than those of a mid-stage Void Refinement cultivator. What makes you think you can fight me this long?"

Yin Yue's eyes flickered slightly. Li Hanshan actually possessed a Dao artifact?

Li Hanshan didn't answer. He stood there, his pure Yang energy slowly circulating through his meridians, sensing the remaining spiritual energy reserves in his dantian. Zhou Heng wasn't entirely wrong. If he disregarded the Crimson Sun Sword and Xiao An's assistance, he indeed couldn't suppress a mid-stage Void Refinement cultivator in a direct confrontation. But his goal was never simply to win.

"You're right," he said calmly. "Without the Dao artifact and the Yin spirit, I truly cannot kill you. Therefore—I don't intend to use them."

Zhou Heng's eyes flickered slightly.

Li Hanshan retrieved the jet-black broken sword from his storage ring. The ancient patterns on the blade gleamed with a cold, eerie blue light within the golden glow of the secret realm. The tip trembled slightly, as if sensing danger. He held the broken sword horizontally before him, channeling pure Yang energy from his palm into the hilt. The eerie blue light slowly illuminated the patterns on the blade, not as dazzling as the Crimson Sun Sword, but possessing a more ancient and composed sharpness.

"A broken Dao artifact," he said. "It lacks the complete essence of a Dao artifact, possessing only its sharp edge. Is that enough?"

Zhou Heng stared at the broken sword for a moment, his eyes swirling with complex emotions. He could sense that the spiritual power contained within the broken sword was far less abundant than that of the Crimson Sun Sword from before, but its sharpness was more restrained and more deadly, like a blade honed to its limit, needing no flame, only the right angle of entry.

A smile finally appeared on his lips. It carried the unwavering certainty of a trapped beast finding an escape route in a desperate situation, and the relief of finally regaining the last shred of dignity after being humiliated. "Very well. Broken sword against Void Refinement." He raised his hands, dark gray spiritual energy slowly gathering around him. Although much weaker than at its peak, it was still as heavy as a mountain. "If I lose to this broken sword of yours, I'll accept death."

Before he could finish speaking, he slammed his hands together.

Spiritual energy suddenly exploded from his body, transforming into dozens of hair-thin threads of spiritual energy that spread out in all directions. Each thread precisely embedded itself into the ground and rock walls of the secret realm, like a spider web that was instantly spread out, covering the entire space within a radius of several miles.

The moment the threads touched the ground, they resonated with the spiritual energy of the earth's veins, and one after another, dark gray pillars of light rose from the ground, intersecting with each other to form a dense network of spiritual energy.

Li Hanshan sensed the existence of the net. He did not retreat; instead, he slashed horizontally with his broken sword, unleashing a beam of dark blue sword light that precisely struck the junction between the two nearest pillars of light.

The moment the sword light touched the node, the entire blockade trembled violently. Several beams of light flickered, but more beams immediately rose from the ground, filling the gap again.

Zhou Heng stood in the center of the pillars of light, his hands forming a hand seal, and he uttered a low shout. The spiritual energy around him spread rapidly along the pillars of light, and dense runes appeared on each pillar. These runes lit up simultaneously after the spiritual energy was injected, raising the defensive power of the entire blockade to a new level.

At the same time, he flipped his right hand, and a dark gray palm print condensed from the top of the pillar of light, carrying the immense spiritual power of a mid-stage Void Refinement cultivator as it slammed down on Li Hanshan's head.

The palm print descended with incredible speed, compressing the air in its path into a visible white shockwave. Li Hanshan didn't take it head-on; instead, he activated his Fire Shadow Step, his figure flashing like a streak of purple-gold light, leaping dozens of feet to the side to avoid the direct impact of the palm print. The palm print struck the spot where he had just stood, creating a massive crater several feet deep in the scorched earth, sending rubble flying in all directions like ignited arrows.

But Zhou Heng's attacks did not stop. The moment the first palm print missed, the second and third palm prints simultaneously materialized from two other directions, blocking Li Hanshan's retreat from the left and right.

At the same time, dense dark gray runes began to appear on the pillar of light of the blockade net. The moment the runes lit up, dozens of thin, hair-like spiritual energy beams shot out from the surface of the pillar of light at the same time, intertwining into an impenetrable net of light that enveloped Li Hanshan.

This guy, being a Void Refinement cultivator, does indeed have some tricks up his sleeve.

Li Hanshan held the broken sword horizontally in front of him, and pure Yang fire condensed into a purple-gold ball of light on the sword.

Zhou Heng dodged the direct hit of the sword light, but the aftershock grazed his left shoulder, tearing another gash in his already tattered gray robe. He grunted, his hand seals unchanged, and the array of light pillars beneath his feet began to spin rapidly. As the pillars spun, dark gray spheres of spiritual energy began to condense on each one, accelerating and expanding with each rotation, like dozens of dark stars ignited simultaneously.

Zhou Heng thrust his hands forward with a sudden burst of energy. In the same instant, all the light spheres detached from the pillar, transforming into dozens of dark gray streaks of light that hurtled towards Li Hanshan from all directions. These streaks of light moved with incredible speed, their trajectories intersecting to form a dense, three-dimensional attack net in the void. Each light sphere carried spiritual power at the Void Refinement level; once hit, it would trigger a chain reaction of explosions, completely engulfing the affected area.

At this moment, Li Hanshan's divine sense spread out to its fullest extent, like an invisible sensory network, taking into the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness the trajectory, speed, and spiritual energy fluctuations of every light sphere.

His figure flickered continuously among the streaks of light, the Fire Shadow Step exploding and extinguishing beneath his feet, each dodge precisely landing in the gap between two streaks of light. But there were too many orbs of light, some of which even changed direction in mid-air, blocking his next landing point.

Li Hanshan held the broken sword upright in front of him, the eerie blue light on its blade surging, and a cone-shaped sword aura shot out from the tip. That sword aura cleaved several oncoming orbs of light in two, the shattered fragments exploding on either side of the aura into countless dark gray specks. However, several orbs of light still managed to bypass the sword aura from the side, striking precisely the pure Yang shield that Li Hanshan had hastily conjured.

The protective shield trembled violently, its purplish-gold light flickering erratically under the continuous impact. Li Hanshan was thrown back hundreds of feet by the force of the impact, his feet carving two deep furrows in the scorched earth. He could feel his pure Yang energy being consumed at an accelerated pace; the power of those light orbs far exceeded that of ordinary early-stage Void Refinement techniques, each strike carrying the heavy spiritual power of mid-stage Void Refinement cultivators. Even if the shield blocked them, it would still consume a large amount of his spiritual power to offset the aftershocks.

"That was awesome!"

Although Li Hanshan was defeated, he laughed loudly. The reason he agreed to fight Zhou Heng one-on-one was because such an opportunity was too rare.

He was already very close to the Void Refinement stage, but breaking through to the Void Refinement stage was extremely difficult. At this moment, if there were a thrilling life-or-death battle to hone his skills, that would be the best thing.

The battles, especially those against Void Refinement cultivators, are the most intense, but where can one find a suitable Void Refinement cultivator under normal circumstances?

The current Zhou Heng is perfect for Li Hanshan. He is in the mid-stage of the Void Refinement realm, but he is seriously injured. He still has his skills, but his strength has been greatly reduced. He is the best whetstone for Li Hanshan!