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

Dark red array patterns swirled endlessly above the valley, like an impenetrable spiderweb, firmly enveloping the entire area. Granny Yin stood outside the array with her hands behind her back, her gray robe fluttering gently in the night wind, her cloudy eyes filled with a resolute composure.

"Breakthrough?" She scoffed, her voice hoarse and shrill. "A mere ghost wants to break through to the Nascent Soul stage within my formation? Boy, have you gone mad from being chased by me? Even living cultivators have to exhaust their efforts to cross that threshold of Nascent Soul, and a ghost? Hahaha—"

Before her laughter had even subsided, Li Hanshan had already made his move.

A surge of pure yang fire, a deep purple-gold, erupted around him, like a rising sun piercing the darkness, and hurtled precisely towards a spot on the array wall. The moment the fireball collided with the array patterns, a blinding burst of light exploded, the entire array wall trembled violently, and the dark red runes on its surface flickered wildly, yet it did not shatter. Li Hanshan sensed that the rebound force of the array patterns far exceeded that of ordinary restrictions; with his ninth-level Nascent Soul spiritual power, it would indeed be difficult to forcibly break through it in a short time.

But he hadn't originally intended to break the formation.

"Xiao An, begin." His voice was calm and unwavering.

Xiao An sat cross-legged within the formation, and the eerie blue light on the surface of her soul suddenly flared up, like a ghostly glow rising from the deep sea. The Yin Qi beads she had just absorbed shattered one by one within her body, and the vast Yin Sha power surged wildly along the meridians of the Netherworld Record technique like a lit fuse. Her aura began to rise at an unprecedented speed, and the threshold of the peak Nascent Soul stage trembled violently under the impact of this power.

Granny Yin's laughter finally ceased. Her cloudy eyes fixed on the rapidly rising aura within the formation, her brow furrowing slightly—the speed at which the Yin spirit's aura was ascending was indeed unusual. But she quickly regained her composure, coldly scoffing, "Even if she breaks through in the heat of battle, it's merely a transition from the peak of the Nascent Soul stage to the Deity Transformation stage. That threshold isn't something that can be crossed in a short time. With her accumulated power, it would take at least—"

Her words were interrupted again. Within the formation, Xiao An's aura, after a brief surge, collided with an invisible barrier. The impact was rebounded, causing the eerie blue light on the surface of her soul to flicker violently, but she did not retreat. She steadied herself, regrouped her soul power, and the second impact followed. Then came the third, the fourth, each time being repelled by the barrier, yet each time getting closer than the last.

Granny Yin's expression finally changed slightly. The frequency with which that Yin spirit was trying to break through the bottleneck of the Nascent Soul stage far exceeded her understanding. For ordinary cultivators trying to break through to the Nascent Soul stage, each attempt would take several days or even months to accumulate spiritual power, but she had tried seven or eight times in just one incense stick's time.

"What kind of cultivation technique does your spirit practice?" she asked in a deep voice, her tone carrying a genuine sense of unease for the first time.

Li Hanshan did not answer. He stood a few feet in front of Xiao An, pure Yang fire burning quietly around him, like an insurmountable barrier of flames. He held the broken sword in his hand, its dark blade shimmering with a faint blue light, the tip lowered, yet ready to strike at any moment.

Granny Yin stopped talking nonsense.

She raised her hand and pointed, and several half-step silver corpses rushed into the formation at the same time. Their silver-gray claws tore through the air, aiming straight for Li Hanshan's throat and dantian.

Clearly, this time, she brought in even more half-step silver corpses.

She was no longer going to wait; the speed at which that ghost was breaking through was too bizarre, and she had to interrupt it before it succeeded.

Li Hanshan was prepared. His broken sword slashed horizontally, the blade tracing a dark arc in the air, precisely striking the neck of the first half-step silver corpse. The silver-gray runes, repeatedly scorched by pure Yang fire, crumbled like dry clay under this sword strike, the sound echoing clearly in the quiet valley. The claws of the second half-step silver corpse attacked from the side; Li Hanshan dodged, and with another strike, cleaved this half-step silver corpse in two.

"Damn it!"

The consecutive loss of two half-step silver corpses brought Granny Yin's fear of the broken sword to its extreme.

Granny Yin snorted coldly, her hands forming hand seals. Gray-black Yin Sha chains shot from her palms, weaving into a dense net in mid-air and descending upon Li Hanshan. The chains were imbued with the pure Yin Sha power unique to the second level of the Nascent Soul stage; wherever they passed, even the moisture in the air froze into fine ice crystals. Li Hanshan leaped into the air, his broken sword unleashing a dark sword beam that cleaved a crack in the chain net, allowing him to escape through the gap.

Granny Yin's offensive did not stop. She continued to cast spells from outside the formation, bombarding the formation with one spell after another, constantly compressing Li Hanshan's space to move.

Numerous half-step silver corpses, along with the one who had reached the Nascent Soul level, coordinated with her attacks, constantly harassing him from the flanks, forcing him to be distracted and deal with the situation.

But he never retreated even a step. The purple-gold flame barrier was like a red-hot iron wall, blocking all her attacks several feet away from Xiao An.

One hour passed. Two hours passed.

Li Hanshan began to pant heavily. The attacks from Granny Yin and the Silver Corpse had put too much pressure on him, and his spiritual energy was greatly depleted. He was already injured.

In fact, if it weren't for the Nine Revolutions Golden Body Technique and his Pure Yang Holy Body, his body would have been eroded beyond recognition by the Yin Sha Qi long ago.

Granny Yin's spiritual energy was significantly depleted, yet she still couldn't break through Li Hanshan's defenses. That boy's pure Yang fire was of too high quality; each collision caused noticeable erosion to her Yin Sha magic, forcing her to expend extra spiritual energy to maintain the intensity of her attacks. Her breathing quickened slightly, and a shadow of gloom flashed in her cloudy eyes.

Of course, the most important thing was that the broken sword in Li Hanshan's hand was too troublesome.

She changed her strategy. Instead of trying to force a breakthrough, she switched to ranged attrition—her spells no longer aimed for a single blow to break through his defenses, but instead used continuous low-frequency attacks to exert pressure, like ants gnawing at a giant tree, gradually consuming Li Hanshan's spiritual power.

The silver corpse at the Nascent Soul level would launch sneak attacks from time to time.

Although this method is slow, it is the safest when the formation is sealed off. Once the old man's spiritual power is exhausted, the Yin Soul's breakthrough will naturally be interrupted.

Li Hanshan sensed her intention. The consumption of his pure Yang fire was indeed accelerating; those seemingly harmless low-frequency attacks accumulated, causing his spiritual power to decrease at a visible rate. After blocking for half an hour, he took out a silver-white talisman from his sleeve and infused it with spiritual power. A soft light barrier unfolded around him, completely isolating him from those low-frequency spells.

The defensive talisman given by Ye Shuanghua.

Granny Yin's attacks struck the light barrier like raindrops hitting glazed tiles; though dense, they couldn't penetrate it even slightly. The Silver Corpse's attacks, powerful enough to split mountains and shatter rocks, also couldn't break through the light barrier.

Taking advantage of this opportunity, Li Hanshan put a large number of Rejuvenation Pills into his mouth, and the spiritual power in his dantian was replenished at a speed far exceeding the usual rate.

Granny Yin stood outside the formation, her gray hair swaying slightly in the night breeze.

Her lips were pressed into a straight line, and her cloudy eyes were filled with suppressed anger. She had expended a great deal of spiritual energy to set up arrays and traps, but she hadn't even been able to touch the hem of the other party's clothes more than a few times. The quality of the defensive talisman made it impossible for her to even begin to attack.

But her gaze quickly returned to its coldness. She saw that the Yin spirit within the formation had attempted countless times to break through the bottleneck, yet it always fell short by the final step. That invisible barrier was like an insurmountable iron gate, blocking it from reaching the threshold of the Nascent Soul stage. Granny Yin was certain—the Yin spirit's accumulation was ultimately insufficient, and it couldn't break through in a short time.

"Boy, how long can your defensive talisman last?" Her voice regained a touch of calm certainty. "One day? Two days? Her strength is already waning. Once she's exhausted, let's see what you'll use to block her."

Within the formation, Xiao An's aura did indeed begin to subtly decline. The bottleneck was more solid than she had imagined, and the dozens of consecutive impacts had greatly depleted her soul power.

She originally thought that the Yin Qi beads she had accumulated were enough, but when she truly touched that threshold, she realized that she had underestimated the barrier to the Nascent Soul stage—what she needed was a power that was purer than mere Yin Qi.

Li Hanshan sensed Xiao An's predicament. He closed his eyes and sent a wisp of his divine sense into the Yangwen space.

Golden mist swirled slowly through the air, and the flowers continued to bloom quietly. On a petal belonging to Xiao An, he saw—a drop of dark golden mist, slowly condensing at the tip of the petal. It was a drop of mist that had naturally formed in the Yang Pattern Space after he and Xiao An cultivated their souls together, containing the pure soul power generated when their souls merged, its quality far surpassing that of ordinary Yin Qi beads.

He used his divine sense to guide the drop of dark golden mist, leading it out of the Yang Pattern Space. The mist droplet hovered at his fingertips, radiating a warm and profound light, like an amber enveloped in moonlight. He turned and walked to Xiao An, sending the droplet of mist into her soul.

The moment the mist bead merged into Xiao An's soul, she shuddered violently. That extremely pure soul power, like a lit fuse, exploded deep within her soul. Her previously receding spiritual energy, like a flame ignited by kindling, surged forth once more, more turbulent and pure than ever before. The invisible barrier that stood between the peak of the Nascent Soul stage and the Divine Transformation stage now hummed under its strain.

Granny Yin's expression finally changed completely. She sensed that the aura within the formation was rising at an unprecedented speed, and the crack in the bottleneck was widening at a visible rate. She held back no longer, forcefully pushing her hands forward. The silver corpse transformed into a silver-gray meteor, hurtling straight towards the figure breaking through the formation—