"The three of you, fall back five thousand li first. If there's the slightest abnormality from their side, don't mind me. Retreat directly to your respective 'Heaven's Eye Pits.' We'll discuss everything when I return."
A fierce light flickered in Yan San's eyes. Knowing full well that the other party was provoking him, he had made a decision in an instant.
If both sides retreated five thousand li, although this distance was nothing to Nascent Soul cultivators and could be crossed in an instant, they would actually be ten thousand li apart. They would only be able to see him and Li Yan in the center. It wouldn't be easy for Gong Shengguang to launch a sneak attack on his three companions; they would have enough time to leave.
Li Yan's behavior today was a bit strange. Yan San also knew he was a poison cultivator and had also practiced body tempering.
But he had long wanted to kill this person, and this was his chance. Although there might be a trap, the other party said to go up ten thousand zhang. Did he have to listen to him? Couldn't he go even higher?
And during the ascent, he could slightly change direction. If the other party really wanted to fight him, he would have to follow. Let's see how he sets up an ambush then.
After speaking, Yan San swept a fierce gaze at the three Wind Beasts behind him. Seeing his vicious expression, the three knew he was furious and would not tolerate any further obstruction.
And as Yan San had said, with ten thousand li between them, even Gong Shengguang couldn't kill all three of them in an instant. Thus, without another word, the three Wind Beasts swiftly retreated.
The Great Elder and the others also exchanged glances and flew backward, their speed equally fast.
"You must be careful. The moment you feel strained, flee immediately. I will come at once!"
This was the Great Elder's voice transmission to Li Yan.
"I don't think this is necessary. We should just negotiate with them directly!"
This was Gong Shanhe's voice, but Li Yan just smiled at him.
"Little Junior Brother, it's best if you win!"
This was Gong Chenying's voice. She knew Li Yan too well. This junior brother of hers never took risks on things he wasn't sure about, which meant he at least had a way to save his life.
So, she said something different from the others. Li Yan smiled to himself. Sixth Senior Sister's way of thinking was truly formidable. He only had the confidence to save his own life.
The Second Elder and the others said nothing, silently retreating with the Great Elder. Li Yan's actions had already exceeded their expectations.
As the Tianli Clan, including the Great Elder and the others, retreated, Yan San stood his ground, his Divine Sense firmly locked onto them.
Li Yan hovered in mid-air, not flying away, calmly watching everything.
A short while later, the speed of the Great Elder's group slowed in Yan San's Divine Sense, and they indeed stopped five thousand li away.
Yan San glanced at Li Yan, then transformed into a massive, iron-black Wind Beast and shot toward the sky.
But as he flew up, he drew a slanted line. He didn't want the two of them to fight directly overhead, but to move at least another five hundred li diagonally from their original positions.
Seeing this, Li Yan just smiled faintly and immediately followed. At the same time, the group of Nascent Soul cultivators watching from both sides also rose into the air.
They reached a height of ten thousand zhang in an instant. After arriving, Yan San immediately flapped his huge wings and hovered in place, churning the surrounding world's spirit qi into a chaotic mess. His cold eyes stared at Li Yan, who had followed closely behind.
'He actually followed me up here?'
Yan San was somewhat surprised. He still hadn't figured out what trump cards the other party had to dare to fight him one-on-one.
However, at this point, aside from being vigilant, Yan San had cast all other matters aside.
"Kid, I've wanted to kill you for a long time. They say poison cultivators can easily slaughter those of the same realm. I wonder if your confidence comes from this."
"If that's what you're thinking, then let me show you the true gap between you and a Late-stage Great Cultivator..."
"You're as long-winded as ever. So much nonsense!"
Listening to Yan San's harsh words, Li Yan interrupted impatiently. At the same time, his figure suddenly vanished from his spot.
The next moment, Li Yan appeared behind Yan San's massive body. Yan San was startled by Li Yan's speed. He never expected his opponent to be so fast.
Even his Divine Sense hadn't caught his movement just now. He had only felt a slight fluctuation in the space behind him before a sense of danger rose in his heart.
'What kind of movement technique is this...'
He was utterly horrified, but his own movements were not slow. His body tilted slightly, and his iron-like black tail feathers instantly slashed backward like a blade.
Li Yan's speed was too fast. In an instant, the two were engaged in close combat, a method consistently used by body cultivators. Yan San was not surprised by this; the Great Elder and the others also favored this style.
But before this, speed had always been his own forte.
Li Yan had fought them once before, and Yan San had seen him in action. At that time, Li Yan's speed wasn't this fast; it was his physical strength that had left an impression. This had led to a misjudgment on his part.
Seeing a black light flash before him, cutting toward him like a blade, an eerie light flickered in Li Yan's hands, and at the same time, his skin lit up with silver light.
He immediately used "Phoenix Soars to the Heavens" to its fullest, pushed "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water" to its peak, and fully erupted with the peak fifth-layer power of the "Qiongqi Purgatory Art."
He clasped his hands into a fist, raised it high above his head, and fiercely chopped down at the black light in front of him. This was the strongest strike from his body tempering art.
In an instant, the blade-like tail feather and the thick, black-dragon-like wave of qi from Li Yan's fist slammed into each other.
"Boom!"
The two masses of black light collided, erupting with a sky-shattering roar.
The sound shook the heavens. In the space where the two were, the clouds for hundreds of li around scattered like startled birds fleeing in panic, turning into specks of fluff as they rolled away.
Immediately, terrifying spatial cracks appeared in the sky, swallowing all the cloud fluff.
Although their battle was more than ten thousand zhang above the ground, this single blow still caused the earth below to crack and the rivers to surge and flow backward.
The mere aftershock of their fight caused giant boulders to roll down from the mountains that were not protected by formations.
At a height of ten thousand zhang, two fan-shaped waves of black light spread out in all directions. Li Yan and Yan San were at the center of the shockwave, their robes and black feathers fluttering wildly, yet the man and the demon stood as firm as a rock, motionless.
A look of astonishment flashed in Yan San's eyes.
'This kid also cultivates the 'Qiongqi Purgatory Art'? Who is he? How could the Tianli Clan let him cultivate such a divine scripture?'
'It's just that his 'Qiongqi Purgatory Art' realm seems to be even lower than the Fourth Elder's, but why is its power so far beyond theirs?'
'In terms of strength, he's almost on par with Gong Shengguang. This... this seems to be a combination of several types of power?'
'In such a collision, his body is completely unharmed. The aura he's erupting with is indeed that of a Mid-stage Nascent Soul. In that case, the toughness of his physical body might be a notch stronger than Gong Shengguang's. This...'
Yan San was shocked by the immensity of Li Yan's power and the toughness of his physical defense. He grew even more suspicious of Li Yan's identity.
In Li Yan's strike, he had sensed the familiar power of the "Qiongqi Purgatory Art."
At the same time, he could also sense a difference. Li Yan's attack power was the result of mixing several arts, not just the power of the Tianli Clan's supreme scripture.
After these powers were mixed, although they were formidable, there was still a sense of mutual cancellation between them; they couldn't be thoroughly fused and integrated.
He couldn't control his power as well as the Great Elder, who had reached a state of effortless mastery. This weakened Li Yan's attack effect significantly, but it was precisely this that revealed Li Yan's terrifying potential.
In the future, once these powers were fully integrated, if he himself hadn't broken through, it would be very difficult to take another blow.
At the same time, Yan San had a new understanding of Li Yan's physical toughness. To break his defense, his attacks would have to land directly on him with at least eighty percent of their power to break through instantly.
But in a clash like this where their attacks canceled each other out, the aftershocks, though seemingly capable of overturning rivers and seas and even cutting through the void, had less than forty percent of their power actually reaching Li Yan, and were directly blocked by his spiritual energy shield.
This was a hard-hitting method of meeting an attack with an attack, seizing the offensive with an offensive. Only someone with absolute confidence could attack so directly.
After his punch was unsuccessful, Li Yan's figure shot up into the air. Two streaks of dark light suddenly appeared in his hands. The "Five Elements Return to Grandmist" in his body circulated like lightning, and his five-element magical power instantly merged into a pure expanse of Gui Water.
With a flick of his hands, the two streaks of dark light, infused with ninety percent of his magical power, flashed and vanished in the air. Almost simultaneously, gray glows stabbed out from the side of Yan San's head and from behind him.
Yan San flapped a single wing, and a sky-blotting illusory wing met the two streaks of dark light. At the same time, he spat out a small, gray, long-handled hammer from his mouth.
With a blur, the gray hammer also appeared in front of Li Yan's face, smashing toward him.
Both of them were incredibly fast, both meeting attacks with attacks, giving off a sense of fierce courage.
From the start, they had launched several thunderous attacks in the blink of an eye. Among the Nascent Soul cultivators watching from afar, only the Great Elder could clearly see the exchange.
Gong Shanhe could only vaguely follow with his Divine Sense, and he was extremely shocked.
'How did this kid's strength increase again? He can actually trade blows with Yan San!'
The gray, long-handled hammer viciously hammered at Li Yan's forehead. It was so fast that the moment it appeared, it was less than a foot away from him.
Li Yan, however, stood his ground, not even dodging. He raised his left palm, and a scene that no one expected occurred.
Instantly, the gray, long-handled hammer slammed into his palm. A piercing yellow light erupted from Li Yan's palm.
The gray, long-handled hammer was actually blocked. It spun like a pinwheel in his palm, but no matter how it tried to advance, it couldn't break through Li Yan's single hand.
"What?"
Yan San's eyeballs nearly popped out. This time, he was truly shocked. Li Yan had no magical treasure in his hand whatsoever, yet he had blocked his magical treasure's attack with a single flesh-and-blood palm.
Although this magical treasure was not his life-bound one, its attack power ranked in the top three among his several treasures. It was one with extremely strong destructive power. Even Gong Shengguang wouldn't dare to catch it with his bare hands.
Yan San had used this magical treasure because he knew Li Yan was a poison cultivator and didn't want to use his life-bound treasure directly, lest it be tainted by poison. They were long aware of Li Yan's skill with poison.
Although the poison Li Yan had laid on the defensive line couldn't harm him, it was only meant to deal with ordinary Wind Beasts.
Just by seeing that he could refine so much poison by himself, Yan San and the others had already guessed that this was a true Grandmaster of Alchemy, and a Grandmaster of the Dao of Poison at that.
Otherwise, the Tianli Clan couldn't possibly have produced so many raw materials for refining poison to deal with Wind Beasts. Only a Grandmaster of the Dao of Poison had this ability to turn the rotten into the miraculous.
Only in their hands could ordinary raw materials be turned into immensely powerful and vicious poisons. But what he never expected was that the other party's physical body was so ridiculously strong.
But just as Yan San was shocked, his heart jolted again.
Because on the other side, when the illusory wing he had created came into contact with the two streaks of dark light, he was horrified to find that his soul actually felt an extreme tremor.
It was as if someone could tear it from his body or shatter it with a single blow. This was an extremely terrifying feeling.
'Could this be... a soul-type magical treasure? Or are those two magical treasures coated with a poison that can erode the soul?'
Yan San immediately sensed the strangeness of the two magical treasures' attacks, which made his divine soul tremble.
But for a moment, he first thought of Li Yan as a Grandmaster of the Dao of Poison. The possibility of his magical treasures being coated in poison was highest. It was unlikely he possessed a soul-type magical treasure.
Magical treasures that attacked the soul and Divine Sense were too rare. Yan San had only heard of them, never seen one. Not only were the refinement methods for such treasures priceless, but the raw materials were also incredibly precious in every realm.
Although Li Yan was a Nascent Soul cultivator, the probability of him obtaining such an opportunity and cultivation method was minuscule, especially since he himself was a Grandmaster of the Dao of Poison.
Sensing something was wrong, Yan San's figure flickered and he had already moved several hundred zhang away, leaving only the illusory wing to block the two streaks of dark light.
What he didn't know was that he was lucky he hadn't blocked it with his physical body. Otherwise, his soul would have been injured by now.
But Li Yan hadn't used the "Soul-Leading Draw Kill" finishing move, only the first-level art of the Subduing Wave Soul Kill. His purpose today was not to reveal all his trump cards and injure the other party.
After dodging, just as Yan San was about to cast another spell, another change occurred in front of him.
Both sides' attacks were as fast as lightning. As Li Yan sent out the "Gui-Yi Water-Parting Thorns," a silver light flashed over his body, and he fiercely pushed his left palm forward.
A searing yellow light erupted from his palm, blocking the gray, long-handled hammer that was spinning like a pinwheel. At the same time, an immense force was generated, sending the hammer spinning horizontally away.
'Is... is his true form some peerless fierce beast, or has he cultivated some top-tier cultivation method!'
This left Yan San, who had intended to continue attacking with his magical treasure, somewhat bewildered. He was clearly just a Mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator. How could he have such terrifying strength?
At the same time, Li Yan raised his hand and beckoned. The two streaks of dark light that had pierced the illusory wing trembled and blurred, reappearing above Li Yan's head like two extremely agile, small black snakes, coiling restlessly.
Li Yan then actually placed his hands behind his back and spoke with a seemingly arrogant tone.
"Fellow Daoist Yan San, do you think I can exchange a few more blows with you? If we were to have a decisive battle now, what kind of outcome do you think it would be?"