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

The moment Li Hanshan opened his eyes, the flying boat was shaking violently.

His body, lying on the brocade mattress, was shaken to the side by the swaying, and he barely managed to steady himself after his shoulder hit the cabin wall.

Yin Lingyue woke up beside him, her dark purple eyes still showing signs of weariness, but she reacted quickly. The moment she sensed the abnormality of the flying boat, she sat up, her gray-black outer robe already draped over her shoulders.

A sharp whistling sound came from outside the cabin, a sound completely different from the ordinary wind, like countless invisible blades simultaneously cutting through the protective shield on the surface of the airship. The force of the cutting was more intense than any other time in the past month, and each impact caused the entire airship to tremble violently, even the spirit lamps on the cabin walls began to flicker.

Li Hanshan strode out of the cabin, the air rushing in from outside the door, mingling with the sharp whistling sound. He stood at the edge of the ship's railing, his gaze sweeping over the churning clouds surrounding the airship, his pupils contracting slightly.

They were flying extremely high in the sky, with the sea of ​​clouds below stretching out like an endless silver-gray ocean at the horizon. But above that sea of ​​clouds, there was an even higher sky that was churning at a speed visible to the naked eye.

The sky was an extremely abnormal dark blue-green, with a kind of unsettling, profound texture, like a piece of shattered glass paint slowly spinning in the void.

At the edge of the sky, fine, dark golden arcs of electricity surged, each arc beating at a frequency far exceeding that of ordinary lightning, releasing energy fluctuations powerful enough to tear an entire mountain apart.

Directly below that sky, thick, dark golden beams of light, each as thick as an arm, crashed down from the void, striking the outer protective shield of the airship with pinpoint accuracy. Each strike created a fine golden ripple on the shield's surface, and as the ripples subsided, a dull creaking sound could be heard emanating from the airship's keel, like an old ship navigating a storm, enduring waves exceeding its design limits.

Yin Yue stood at the bow of the ship, her silver-white veil billowing to her chin in the gale, her silver-white robe fluttering in the wind. Her hands continuously formed hand seals in front of her, spiritual energy flowing from her palms into the array base beneath her feet, constantly increasing the strength of the protective shield surrounding the flying ship.

But that was all she could do. The height of the sky was too extreme; the force of that dark golden pillar of light that crashed down far exceeded the range of ordinary gales—it was the destructive power of a higher level of space.

Li Hanshan strode to her side, grabbed the edge of the ship's railing to steady himself, and stared at the churning dark blue sky: "What's going on?"

"The gale has intensified." Yin Yue didn't turn around; her voice remained clear and distinct amidst the raging wind, but the extremely brief pause at the end betrayed that she wasn't as composed as she appeared. "The gale in this airspace never stays calm for long. We're unlucky; we've caught a periodic gale."

As she spoke, she suddenly pressed down with her right hand, and a stream of silvery-white spiritual energy surged from her palm, transforming into a thick light barrier that covered the protective shield surrounding the flying boat. The moment the spiritual light touched the dark golden pillar of light, it was violently struck and cracks spread outwards from the point of impact.

But she continued to channel her spiritual energy, constantly repairing and reconnecting the cracks. After a moment, she withdrew her right hand, stomped her foot hard, and the flying boat emitted a heavy hum, beginning its rapid descent.

The dark golden beams of light continued to strike, following the trajectory of the descending airship, each one grazing the edge of the protective shield. Only after the airship had descended tens of thousands of feet did the dark blue sky finally become obscured again by thickening clouds. The dark golden beams of light ceased their pursuit, the protective shield on the airship's surface gradually stopped trembling, and the creaking sounds from the keel slowly subsided.

Yin Yue stood at the bow of the ship, her silver-white veil billowing in the gale. She took a deep breath and slowly withdrew her hands from the array base. Li Hanshan leaned against the ship's railing, gazing at the dark blue sky above, now obscured by clouds again. He remained silent for a moment before speaking, "How did you fly so high?"

"Safer, faster." Yin Yue turned around, her silver-gray eyes gleaming with a cold light in the sliver of light seeping through the gaps in the clouds. "There are almost no cultivators patrolling this airspace. The patrol lights of ordinary demonic sects can only fly up to a height of ten thousand feet at most; any higher and they can't withstand the pressure of the gale. Although this route is dangerous, its advantage lies in its secrecy, and its trajectory won't be detected by the detection arrays of the sects along the way."

"If we keep flying upwards, where will we end up?" Li Hanshan asked.

Yin Yue paused for a moment. She stood at the bow, her silver veil billowing in the wind, clinging to her chin. A faint, distant gaze flickered in her calm eyes, as if she were looking at a place she had never truly reached. After a moment, she spoke: "You can't fly out."

Why?

"The gales from beyond the heavens are even more terrifying. Those dark golden pillars of light you just saw were merely the aftershocks of those gales. The true barrier to the heavens lies far higher up, where there is an invisible spatial barrier that will tear apart any force that attempts to cross it. Even cultivators at the Dao Integration stage dare not venture too deep into that area."

Li Hanshan remained silent for a moment, his gaze falling on the sky above, now obscured by clouds again. The dark blue, glassy texture of the sky seemed to linger at the edge of his vision, and the dark golden arcs of electricity were like some kind of imprint etched deep into his consciousness, impossible to erase. He spoke, his voice neither loud nor soft: "And ascension? Ascending to where? The Immortal Realm?"

Yin Yue stood at the bow of the boat, her silver veil fluttering gently in the night breeze. She remained silent for a long time, so long that Li Hanshan thought she wasn't going to answer, before finally speaking. Her voice was lower than before, carrying a dryness that had settled after years of experience: "I don't know."

She turned around, her silver-gray eyes gleaming coldly in the moonlight. There was no evasion or pretense in her gaze, only a kind of composure that remained unanswered even after repeated probing.

"In the past few thousand years, no one has ever successfully ascended. I have consulted countless ancient texts, including those marked 'top secret' in the core library of the Immortal Alliance, but I have not found any record of anyone ascending. Even the records of the Mahayana cultivators during the heyday of the Yao Guang Sect only mention the word 'ascension' in a few strokes, as if it had been deliberately erased, or as if no one had ever reached that point."

She paused, shifting her gaze from Li Hanshan's face to the sky above, obscured by clouds. Her voice was softer than before, yet it was like the lingering resonance of a taut string in its final vibration: "I don't know if immortals truly exist in this world."

Do immortals really exist in this world?

This is also a question that Li Hanshan really wants to know.

His gaze drifted to the horizon, and he remained silent for a long time.

The airship continued its silent flight forward. The clouds beneath its feet grew thicker and heavier, resembling an endless gray ocean.

Li Hanshan stood at the ship's railing, his gaze fixed on the horizon that was being dyed a dark gold by the twilight. The thoughts in his mind about ascension, about the immortal realm, about the path that countless cultivators regarded as the ultimate goal sank into the depths of his consciousness like pebbles thrown into a deep pool.