Fortunately, before coming out this time, the Great Elder had generously provided over a dozen Nascent Soul-level defensive talismans, which Li Yan had accepted without any politeness. The talisman on Li Yan's body, which had transformed into a yellow bronze bell, was torn to shreds by the spinning black snowflakes after a series of dazzling flashes. But Li Yan used this opportunity to circulate his "Nine Cauldrons Gui Water" technique, condensing his internal magical power into something as solid as a steel wire, calming its agitation and restoring its normal circulation. His spirit power shield also returned to normal.
Li Yan raised his hand, and another talisman transformed into a yellow bronze bell, enveloping him. At the same time, the magical power outside his body turned into a sheet of flame, continuously melting the all-encompassing black snow falling from all directions.
Seeing this, a sharp glint flashed in Yan San's eyes. He could sense that the fire-attribute spirit power Li Yan was using was extremely pure, surging like boundless, scorching heavenly fire. 'His magical power seems to have grown deeper. Could he be a Heaven Spirit Root cultivator, and a rare water-fire dual-lineage one at that? I never thought his fire-attribute spirit power would be so domineering.'
"Fellow Daoist Yan San, we agreed to cooperate sincerely. What is the meaning of this? If you know something else, I hope you'll say it now. Otherwise, we'll turn back, and the contract is void!" At that moment, the Great Elder's aged voice came over, as cold as the surrounding yin-cold wind.
When the black snowflakes had appeared, Yan San had been the first to stir up the wind and blast them far away. With so many snowflakes being blown up from below, it was normally not very effective to block them from a distance. One would usually let their body's defenses handle them before deciding on the next step. Otherwise, using magical power like this would be an unsustainable drain even for the three of them; they would have to constantly rely on pills and spirit stones to replenish their power. Yan San's actions could only mean one thing: he knew from the start that those black snowflakes should not be touched, which was why he had expended magical power to blast them away.
"Great Elder, you've misunderstood. I just had a gut feeling that these snowflakes were strange, so I subconsciously blasted them away. I truly didn't know what kind of attack they had," Yan San said nonchalantly. He had actually been near this place last time and was, of course, prepared for this. He just wanted to see how these two would handle it. These things couldn't kill them, but they would definitely expose some of their hidden strength.
The Great Elder's body was like a bottomless pit. When the black snowflakes landed on him, although they also began to spin, they rapidly shrank and vanished within a breath, as if they had been absorbed into his body. What surprised him was Li Yan. With just his fire-attribute spirit power, without even using a divine ability, the black snowflakes actually melted. Yan San knew very well that these snowflakes could not be melted by ordinary flames.
Last time, Yan San had also faced the extreme cold and used his wind-attribute magical power to cast a "Fireball Art." If it were in the outside world, a lake could have been boiled dry in an instant. But here, after casting the "Fireball Art," only the black snowflakes closest to the fireball could be melted. But then, more black snowflakes would pile on, and soon the fireball turned into a black ball of light. The flakes landed on it, spun rapidly, and merged, draining the fire within at an incredible speed. In less than ten breaths, the fireball he had cast turned into a dark, cold sphere.
"Fellow Daoist Yan San, I hope it's as you say. If any of us three are harmed, we'll see who suffers the most. Anyway, the Tianli Clan doesn't need the 'Heaven's Eye Pit' and can relocate at any time!" Li Yan floated in front of Yan San, his body wreathed in roaring flames, his voice exceptionally cold. Without concrete evidence, if the other party insisted they didn't know, you couldn't really force the blame on them.
"If you don't believe me, there's nothing I can do!" Yan San said with a helpless look on his face...
During the subsequent descent, the three of them continuously consumed magical power to resist the black snowflakes. They descended faster, like three heavy ice plummets. After a full half-hour, as they were holding spirit stones to recover magical power and passing through the black snowflakes, their vision suddenly blurred. All the snowflakes vanished. But in their place, gusts of chaotic, tearing cold wind blew out, sending the three of them staggering.
"Bang, bang, bang!"
The defensive talismans on their bodies instantly shattered, followed by a series of "k-k-k" sounds as their spirit power shields broke apart.
"Joint defense!"
The Great Elder was the one with the highest cultivation here. Moreover, after cultivating the "Qiongqi Purgatory Art" to the peak of the sixth layer, his physical senses were even faster than his Divine Sense. In a place where Divine Sense was no longer exceptionally keen, the moment the snowflakes disappeared, he immediately caught the external anomaly.
A light flashed in the Great Elder's hand. The glossy walking stick he held suddenly opened from the top, and an Oiled Umbrella appeared above their heads. Each rib of this Oiled Umbrella was like a sharp arrow, and its canopy was made of some unknown material that felt as solid as a mountain. The moment the Oiled Umbrella opened, golden light curtains cascaded down from its edge, protecting the three of them in the middle.
Yan San also acted at the same time. He spat out an egg-sized, dark purple pearl of light, which spun around and flew above their heads. As the purple pearl spun, ribbons of silk-like light wrapped around the three of them, assisting the golden light in defending against the terrifying gale that could blow away a giant mountain in an instant.
As for Li Yan, although his heart had jumped when his spirit power shield was shattered, he calmed down as soon as the Great Elder instantly summoned his magical treasure to cover them. He only put up another layer of spirit power shield and did not act. This was what the Great Elder had specified earlier: when he called for a joint defense, Li Yan didn't need to act; he and Yan San would handle the resistance.
Li Yan seemed to trust the Great Elder, but in reality, from the moment he started suppressing the extreme sense of palpitation, his Divine Sense had been in constant communication with his storage space. He was confident he could protect himself at the most critical moment. Seeing the surrounding attacks being blocked, Li Yan also felt a slight sense of relief.
At this moment, his Divine Sense had been suppressed to a range of about twenty zhang, not even as far as his magic-infused eyes could see. The surroundings were empty. There were no more wind pillars, snowflakes, or ice pillars. There was only an entire space filled with extremely cold wind and coldness. The thing that had broken their defenses in an instant was this cold wind. Li Yan estimated that the power of this cold wind was even fiercer than the astral wind in some chaotic flow spaces. A normal Mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator, relying solely on their spirit light shield, probably wouldn't last half a breath before turning into nothingness in a cry of unwillingness, their body and soul instantly annihilated. In his memory, it seemed only the astral winds in some black holes might be stronger than the cold wind before him.
"This is the edge of the wind's eye. Further down, we will enter the true range of the wind's eye. The power of the cold wind below should increase by one to two times for every hundred zhang we descend, and this power is cumulative. However, generally speaking, the distance from the edge of the wind's eye to the core is no more than five hundred zhang. Therefore, we can only escort Fellow Daoist Li as far as possible, but we can't escort you to the final position. My magical treasure's defense probably won't last more than a hundred zhang." Yan San suddenly spoke up.
Upon hearing this, Li Yan and the Great Elder couldn't help but look down into the seemingly endless, bottomless black abyss. The Great Elder could feel a powerful tearing force coming from the Oiled Umbrella in his hand, as if it could be blown inside out at any moment. He continuously poured magical power into it, driving the formation within. At the same time, the "Qiongqi Purgatory Art" in his body circulated endlessly, his hand gripping the umbrella handle as firmly as an old tree's roots, steady as a rock.
Feeling what Yan San described, the Great Elder estimated that his Oiled Umbrella could only last for a descent of just over a hundred zhang. He couldn't help but swallow. 'No wonder Hong Yin said you need at least a Spirit Transformation cultivation to reach the core. If I were to go down with just my own strength, without using a defensive magical treasure, seventy zhang from here would probably be my limit.' Feeling the powerful tearing force in his hand, the Great Elder silently calculated in his heart. He knew exactly how strong his physical body was, but even so, he couldn't resist the erosion of the cold wind here.
Li Yan was also listening to Yan San's account. "We need to descend five hundred zhang?" he confirmed again.
"I'm speculating based on the core positions of the three clans' wind eyes. This should be the maximum depth, but I'm not sure if it's really the case. Or, it might only be one or two hundred zhang from this edge. Fellow Daoist Li, are you sure you can descend to a depth of five hundred zhang?" Yan San's voice remained emotionless, but his eyes slanted toward Li Yan. He was still somewhat skeptical of Li Yan's claims, but no one would joke with their own life. Especially someone as shrewd as Li Yan. Besides, would the Tianli Clan play along with him to trick him?
"Down!" Li Yan said only one word.
"We can't waste time here. Down!" the Great Elder also shouted. Every breath they spent here was a rapid drain on their magical power and stamina. Instead of talking nonsense, it was better to save their power.
But just as the three of them were about to descend rapidly, an extremely cold voice suddenly came from the darkness ahead. "Trespassers will die!"
Immediately, a figure emerged from the darkness like a ghost. The moment Li Yan and Yan San saw it clearly, both of their bodies shook violently. It was a man dressed in a blood-dripping Number One Scholar's Red Robe. It was the very same "Yin Mountain Beast" clone Li Yan had met and fought with before.
Before coming this time, Li Yan had of course considered that he might encounter the two men in the blood-dripping Number One Scholar's Red Robes. But in the last battle, of the two remaining men, one had used a secret art to merge into the other's body. At that time, it was clear he had paid a heavy price and could no longer maintain his combat strength. The other man had been injured by Hong Yin and then struck by Li Yan's Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike, his soul likely affected, and had subsequently fled. Li Yan had been on guard against their appearance the entire way down, but had not encountered them. He had even started to think that those clones were too heavily injured last time and were recuperating, unable to come out. He never expected to run into one at the edge of the wind's eye.
What shocked Li Yan even more was that although this man in the blood-dripping Number One Scholar's Red Robe had the same appearance and held a long flute, two identical heads had grown on his shoulders. They were two heads, each wearing a blood-red scholar's hat. The voice just now had come from one of the heads. Its face was the same green color Li Yan had seen before. But the other head's face was blood-red, like a flayed, bloody human face, and it was staring at Li Yan with a venomous hatred. This reminded Li Yan of the shrunken figure's gaze before it entered the other's Dantian.
When the man in the blood-dripping Number One Scholar's Red Robe saw the faces of Li Yan and the others, the green-faced head let out another sharp cry. "It's you again!"
With that, his gaze locked onto Yan San. He recognized this person had come once before, but unfortunately, he had failed to keep him here.
"You take Fellow Daoist Li down, I'll hold him off!" At this moment, a fierce aura erupted from Yan San. He had suffered at the hands of several identical-looking people last time. It was just that the three who had besieged him then were all Mid-stage Nascent Soul. If he hadn't been invaded by the yin-cold wind, he would have killed all three of them long ago. But the person before him now had two heads and was at the same realm as him, Late-stage Nascent Soul. His aura even seemed stronger than his own.
As he spoke, Yan San had already taken a step out from under the umbrella. At the same time, the purple pearl had flown to the top of his head, showering down streams of purple light that circled around his body. Simultaneously, the Great Elder took Li Yan and rapidly descended. The two coordinated with a perfect, unspoken understanding.
The twin-headed man in the blood-dripping red robe narrowed his eyes. He didn't know what these people were here to do. Below was the core of the "Heaven's Eye Wind." The three of them had reached this place; with their cultivation, they should have felt the extreme danger below, yet someone was still trying to block him while the others continued down. Logically, he could just let the two Nascent Soul cultivators go down, because they couldn't descend very far before they would be torn to pieces by the cold wind of the wind's eye.
But at this moment, the twin-headed man in the blood-dripping red robe felt an inexplicable palpitation, and a sense of life-and-death crisis welled up in his heart. He had also been cultivating near the main body since his last injury. And after merging with the other clone, his strength had surged dramatically after his injuries slowly recovered, reaching the Late-stage Nascent Soul.
Yan San yanked the two black iron feathers from behind his ears and threw them forward, his magical power erupting violently. As the two black feathers flew forward, they intersected and transformed into a pair of black giant shears a hundred zhang in size, which appeared above the head of the twin-headed man in an instant. The blades opened wide, like the ruthless blades of two dark gods of death, and with a "kacha" sound, they scissored toward the two heads. Their speed was so fast that the gleaming black blades scraped against the surrounding cold wind, creating two smooth arcs of black light at their edges.
The twin-headed man's green face shook violently. The wings of his red scholar's hat flapped, and the two hat-wings instantly expanded, lashing out like two long whips. With two muffled "thwacks," they struck the blades of the giant shears one after the other.
At the same time, he brought the long flute to the mouth of his blood-red face. A sound wave shot out from one end of the flute, formless and invisible, instantly arriving behind the Great Elder...