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

The spirit boat traveled through the natural barrier for about two hours.

These two short hours felt longer to Li Hanshan than the previous months of voyage. An invisible pressure seeped in from all directions, penetrating the protective array, the cabin walls, his skin and bones, and drilling straight into his meridians and sea of ​​consciousness. He sat cross-legged on the futon by the porthole, a thin golden shield of pure yang energy forming around him, but it still couldn't block the needle-like stinging pain.

Qin Muyue's face was as white as paper. She leaned against the cabin wall, her hands gripping her skirt, her knuckles white, her lips pressed into a thin line. Leng Yue remained expressionless, but cold sweat trickled down her forehead, staining her collar with a dark patch. The emerald beads in Chu Mengyao's hand emitted a soft glow, reducing much of the oppressive feeling, but her breathing was also more rapid than usual.

The sect leader fared better than the others. Her peak Nascent Soul cultivation made her far more resilient than Golden Core cultivators. Although she was also slightly pale from the pressure of the sword intent, she was still able to maintain her composure and calmly gaze at the heart-stopping scene outside the porthole.

Deacon Xu's voice came from the main control room, still clear even through the bulkhead: "The spirit ship is currently traversing the core area of ​​the chasm. The sword energy is most concentrated here, and the pressure is greatest. However, this is also a rare opportunity for you."

Li Hanshan looked up towards the cabin door.

"These sword energies are fragments of laws left behind by ancient powerful beings," Deacon Xu said calmly, as if recounting a common occurrence. "Although your cultivation level is not yet sufficient to comprehend their profound mysteries, if you calm your mind and try to sense them, you can at least touch upon some of the surface of sword intent. Even if you can only grasp a tiny bit, it will greatly benefit your future cultivation."

Li Hanshan's heart stirred.

He closed his eyes and cautiously extended his Nascent Soul level divine sense beyond the edge of the protective array. The moment his divine sense touched those hair-thin sword energies, he felt an extremely sharp pain, as if invisible needles were piercing his soul. He endured the discomfort and slowly extended his divine sense along the nearest sword energy.

The sword energy hovered in the void, so transparent as to be almost invisible. Only through divine sense could one perceive its faint outline. It exhibited an imperceptible arc, its edges carrying an extremely pure sharpness, like a crescent moon frozen in time.

He tried to decipher its profound meaning, but found that as soon as his divine sense penetrated it, it was repelled by an even more powerful force. That force was too high-level, so high that his Nascent Soul stage divine sense was like an ant facing a collapsing mountain, unable to even touch the threshold.

He opened his eyes, his brows furrowed slightly.

The sect leader is also trying.

Her spiritual sense was much weaker than Li Hanshan's. As soon as she ventured to the edge of the protective array, it was shredded by the sword energy. Her face paled even more, and she had no choice but to withdraw her spiritual sense and close her eyes to regulate her breathing. Qin Muyue and Leng Yue were even worse off; they couldn't even get close to the edge of the protective array and could only silently feel the pervasive sword intent from inside the cabin.

Chu Mengyao was slightly stronger than them; the light of the emerald beads swirled gently in her palm, seemingly helping to alleviate the oppressive feeling.

"Understand as much as you can; there's no need to force it," Deacon Xu's voice rang out again, carrying the calm of someone with experience. "The levels of laws contained within these sword energies are far too high. Even a Nascent Soul cultivator would be fortunate enough to touch upon even a fraction of their edge. It's normal that you can't sense the complete picture yet. Perhaps when your cultivation level increases in the future, you'll be able to recall what you felt today and glean some insights from it."

Li Hanshan nodded, withdrew his divine sense, and stopped trying to comprehend it.

The spirit boat sailed for about half an hour, and after passing through the area with the densest sword energy, the scenery ahead suddenly opened up.

Li Hanshan's gaze fell through the porthole onto the sea surface that had just broken free from the natural barrier, and his pupils contracted slightly.

The seawater there was completely split in two by an unknown force.

The seawater on both sides, like two towering, transparent walls, was pushed back by an invisible force, revealing a narrow, straight, and bottomless chasm in the middle. The cut edges of the chasm were smooth as a mirror, as if tofu had been sliced ​​open in one swift motion by an extremely sharp object. The surging seawater was abruptly cut off at the edges of the cut, as if separated by an invisible barrier.

The ravine stretched from the horizon where the sea met the sky all the way to the end of the view ahead of the spirit boat, its length unknown.

Sunlight shone on the cut-open seawater, refracting a cold, bluish light that cast dappled shadows deep within the ravines. At the base of the water wall, large algae and dark reefs, found only in the deep sea, could be vaguely seen, their surfaces smooth and straight, as if cleaved open from the ocean floor by some force.

The sect leader had somehow appeared beside him, gazing through the same porthole at the ravine. After a long silence, he finally spoke: "This is the aftershock of that sword strike."

Li Hanshan nodded.

The power of that sword strike, even thousands of years later, could still cleave the endless sea in two, demonstrating the terrifying power it once possessed. Gazing at the bottomless chasm, he felt an indescribable awe.

"Let's go, or we'll get lost," Deacon Xu's voice came from the main control room. "Seeing too much of this kind of thing can easily shake one's resolve. There's no benefit in looking any further."

The spirit boat slightly adjusted its direction on the sea surface outside the natural barrier, and sailed towards the edge of that seawater trench.

The protective array's light had not yet gone out, clearly indicating that Deacon Xu remained vigilant about this area.

Li Hanshan stepped back from the porthole, returned to the prayer mat, sat down, and closed his eyes to regulate his breathing.

The spirit boat sailed for several more days in the seas beyond the natural barrier.

Without the oppressive force of the sword energy, the atmosphere inside the cabin became noticeably more relaxed.

Qin Muyue stopped leaning against the cabin wall and sat up straight to begin meditating and recovering. Leng Yue also returned to her seat; although she still didn't speak much, her complexion had returned to normal. Chu Mengyao put away the emerald beads, took out a pill, swallowed it, and closed her eyes to regulate her breathing.

That night, Li Hanshan sat cross-legged on a futon, preparing to enter a meditative state. The fatigue from days of travel and the depletion of his spiritual energy in the chasm left him feeling a long-lost weariness. He closed his eyes, letting his consciousness sink into the depths of his sea of ​​consciousness, and was about to enter a meditative state when that familiar pulling force suddenly surged up from the depths of his consciousness.

Unlike before, this time the traction was weaker and farther away than ever before, like seeing an extremely distant light in the long night, blurry and unreal.

He did not resist, allowing his consciousness to be drawn by that faint force and sink in a certain direction. Passing through layers of darkness, after an unknown amount of time, his consciousness finally landed in an unfamiliar world.

All around him was a vast expanse of grayish-white mist. There were no rivers, no bluestones, no moonlight, and he couldn't even see the ground beneath his feet clearly. He stood there, looking around, and found himself standing in a vast void, with a smooth, grayish-white stone surface beneath his feet, like the floor tiles of some kind of palace.

Luo Li is not here.

This place was unlike any of the other places he had ever been in his dreams.

Just as he was about to take a closer look at his surroundings, an extremely sharp sword light suddenly shot out from the gray mist. The sword light came without warning, was incredibly fast, and carried a chilling sharpness that made one's heart tremble, aiming straight for his brow.

Li Hanshan instinctively dodged to the side, his pure Yang fire condensing into a fire shield in his palm to block in front of him. The sword light struck the fire shield, producing a crisp metallic clang, and a deep crack was cut into the surface of the fire shield. Li Hanshan was shaken back several steps by the impact.

He steadied himself and looked up in the direction from which the sword light had come.

A figure slowly emerged from the gray mist. It was a young woman, tall and slender, wearing an extremely ancient-style blue-white robe, her long hair tied up with a simple wooden hairpin, her face as cold as frost.

She held a three-foot-long sword in her hand, its blade gleaming with a cold, eerie light, radiating a chilling sharpness. Seeing Li Hanshan block the sword, her brow furrowed slightly, and without hesitation, she unleashed a second strike.

"Heavenly Demon." Her voice was cold and clear, carrying a chilling killing intent. "Take this."