With this thought, Li Yan delayed no further and immediately plunged downwards at high speed...
A dozen or so breaths later, the descending Li Yan's expression suddenly changed. Within his limited scanning range, something that resembled a continuous mountain range suddenly appeared.
Li Yan's heart jumped, and he immediately slowed down. He had now descended over eight hundred zhang from the upper edge of the wind's eye. Because the yellow light emitted by the "Gu" Character Talisman was like a bright lamp here, there was no need for him to conceal his aura. Thus, the moment he noticed something was wrong, a dark light flashed in his hand, and he gripped the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spike in both hands, on high alert. His Divine Sense was also firmly locked onto that object.
The undulating object was already beyond the range of his Divine Sense. Visually, the massive dark shadow extended into the darkness, like a colossal blood-red beast lying prone in the void. A faint layer of blood-red light covered its body.
'The Yin Mountain Beast! It's actually eight hundred zhang deep in the wind's eye. An Initial-stage Spirit Transformation cultivator would probably have a hard time here. Fortunately, I have Martial Uncle's talisman!'
Although Li Yan was prepared and had come specifically for this beast, seeing it for real still sent a chill down his spine. The colossal beast was just lying there in the void, yet the moment Li Yan saw it, the pores all over his body stood on end uncontrollably. An extreme sense of danger shot from the bottom of his heart straight to his head. A voice kept urging him to get away from here quickly. His magical power, which had been circulating smoothly, now felt stagnant.
Li Yan forcefully suppressed his wildly beating heart and the incessant warnings from his Sea of Consciousness. He took a deep breath and held it for several breaths, then slowly and cautiously approached. As Li Yan moved, the beast remained completely still. But how could Li Yan dare to be the least bit careless? He was approaching inch by inch.
The dark red object lay prone in the void, as if frozen. Below it, fierce cold winds were constantly blowing, as if holding it firmly in mid-air. According to the information Hong Yin had given, the Yin Mountain Beast's true body was a hundred zhang long. Its Dantian should be directly above the eye of the "Heaven's Eye Wind." Of course, it wasn't blocking the wind's eye, but hovering above it. This allowed it to continuously receive the infusion of the "Heaven's Eye Wind" and use the extreme yin power to recover from its injuries.
Li Yan had long since infused his eyes with magical power, staring intently downwards. Here, he did not dare to rely solely on his Divine Sense to judge the situation...
And as he descended inch by inch, suddenly, Li Yan's body shook violently, as if blocked by an invisible membrane.
'This... this is the sealing barrier from Hong Yin's Bodhisattva Marici Sarira!'
Li Yan, who had been completely focused on the blood-red Wind Beast, was startled by the sudden obstruction. His heart instantly began to race several times faster. When he realized what had happened, he could feel his back was drenched in sweat that had broken out in an instant.
Li Yan looked. At this moment, he was about ten-odd zhang from the back of the dark red giant beast below, but he could descend no further.
'This is it, the place Hong Yin said to lay the seal!'
Li Yan confirmed that the blood-red Wind Beast below had not awakened. He silently reviewed the plan they had made before coming and immediately made a decision.
How to deploy the seal had been discussed repeatedly with Hong Yin before he came. She had given him a set of techniques to prevent the two seals from canceling each other out. That would truly be a grand gift for the "Yin Mountain Beast."
Hong Yin had told Li Yan that he only needed to use the technique she gave him on the "Vajra Sacred Mountain-Suppressing Formation." Then, by activating the willpower within it, her Bodhisattva Marici Sarira, sensing the aura of the same lineage, would not generate a repressive force in opposition. Instead, the two Buddhist powers, blessed by the karma of willpower and incense, would merge back into the same source and reinforce each other.
Then, Li Yan could envelop the outside with the "Primal Qi Grand Clarity Formation," incorporating the inner seal as a child formation, which would further increase the sealing power. After that, the "Primal Qi Grand Clarity Formation" itself, with its own enemy-trapping restrictions activated, would become a grand trapping formation, like a cage.
After confirming the current situation, Li Yan glanced up at the "Gu" Character Talisman above him. The light was only slightly dimmer than before, which put his mind at ease. Then, with a flash of light from his hand, a string of prayer beads appeared before him. Li Yan quickly performed the technique given to him by Zhuo Lingfeng. The eighteen prayer beads instantly erupted with brilliant golden light. Amidst the light, four and a half Vajra-Hand Bodhisattva Dharma Manifestations appeared above the blood-red Wind Beast. At the same time, Li Yan formed the seals for the technique Hong Yin had given him. Immediately, a vast expanse of golden light also rose from the previously invisible barrier beneath his feet.
Under the illumination of the vast golden light, the hundred-zhang-long Wind Beast remained motionless. But the part of its back closest to Li Yan was now revealed in perfect detail. Its spine was lined with blood-red sharp spines, like an ancient Stegosaurus. Its skin was rough, with ball-like muscles bulging high, like small mountains. Li Yan could even see its flank, which was gently rising and falling. The blood-red flank was covered in scales as red as blood. Each scale was thick in the middle and thin at the edges, like a sharp blade filled with blood, giving the impression that it could easily slice through the sky...
Just as Li Yan summoned the four and a half Dharma Manifestations, nearly a thousand zhang above, Yan San and the Great Elder were locked in an inextricable battle with the twin-headed man in the scholar's robe. The twin-headed man was completely unaffected by the yin wind here. For a time, even with Yan San and the Great Elder joining forces, they were at a disadvantage. They constantly had to divert at least thirty percent of their magical power to defend against the extreme cold yin wind. Although Yan San had experience dealing with the "Heaven's Eye Wind," the power contained in the yin wind here was completely different from that of their clan, so he didn't gain much of an advantage.
"I wonder how Fellow Daoist Li is doing? Our Divine Sense can't probe down there. If we continue like this, we'll probably run out of magical power in another fifteen minutes," Yan San quickly sent a voice transmission to the Great Elder. The rate of magical power consumption here was faster than they could recover with pills. And they couldn't just keep eating pills, as the pill poison would accumulate.
After two breaths, the Great Elder blocked a flying blood-red scholar's hat from the twin-headed man and finally replied. "The distance is five hundred zhang. If things go smoothly, he should be close by now, maybe even starting the sealing process. How about this: in ten breaths, you start recovering your full strength for a hundred breaths, and I'll block his attacks."
"You'll block him alone for a hundred breaths?" Yan San was astonished. He knew he probably couldn't do it himself.
"Let's go all out, but a hundred breaths is the most I can do! After that, you'll need to give me fifty breaths to recover and refine a pill. At this point, there's no time to think. We have to risk serious injury to buy time for Li Yan." The Great Elder's tone was resolute. At this point, they had to fight even if it meant getting hurt. The two of them were already at a disadvantage because of the opponent's geographical advantage. And this amount of time was not enough to refine a pill completely, but it was better than nothing, at least reducing some of the pill poison in their bodies. It was a desperate gamble.
Blocking the opponent alone would definitely result in injury. However, the Great Elder could rely on his powerful physical strength for attacks, reducing the consumption of magical power. Therefore, his current state was much better than Yan San's. But they were at the edge of the wind's eye, and his pure physical strength was also greatly weakened. A single punch might lose thirty to forty percent of its power to the extreme cold yin wind blowing from below.
"Alright, if even you, old ghost Gong, can do this, I'll also go all out and hold nothing back. I never thought our first time teaming up would be a rush toward our doom." Yan San's cold voice once again entered the Great Elder's mind.
In the distance, the twin-headed man in the scholar's robe watched the two, who were now mostly defending and rarely attacking, and the fierce look in his eyes intensified. He had already borrowed his main body's power today, but he didn't dare to borrow too much, as that would definitely affect his main body's recovery. And here, they could only rely on the incomparably domineering extreme cold yin wind blown from the wind's eye; there were no other methods. His main body also needed to refine the violent power within the extreme cold wind while simultaneously resisting the continuous buffeting of the Heaven's Eye Wind and the repressive force of the seal. The power of the seal wasn't just trapping his main body; that Bodhisattva Marici Sarira was constantly emitting a corrosive power, wearing down his main body's strength, assimilating his demonic power with Buddhist law. Due to these various factors, his main body had not yet recovered, and the power he could lend was actually not much.
'How dare you come down here. Let's see how long you can hold out!' the twin-headed man in the scholar's robe thought to himself. At the same time, his earlier worries were gradually dissipating, because after that Nascent Soul cultivator had descended, there had been no further movement. 'That reckless fool. Even my main body doesn't dare to get too close to the wind's eye...'
But just as both sides were making their own plans, suddenly, the face of the twin-headed man in the scholar's robe changed drastically. In the middle of his attack, all his movements suddenly stopped. His two heads drooped as two pairs of blood-red eyes looked down at his feet. 'That man cultivates a Buddhist method, and he's actually managed to sneak up to my main body's location!'
At this moment, the connection between him and his main body had suddenly become faint and intermittent. It was as if a layer of the most firm and yang Buddhist power was blocking the way. As he tried to sense his main body's exact location, the connection between them was rapidly weakening.
The twin-headed man in the scholar's robe brought his flute back to the mouth of one of his heads. A mournful sound soared into the sky. At the same time, his figure drifted and rapidly descended.
Yan San and the Great Elder had been preparing for a bitter struggle. Seeing the opponent suddenly stop his attack, and then hearing the mournful sound of his flute before he rapidly descended towards the wind's eye below, they immediately exchanged a glance and said in unison:
"Li Yan has arrived!"
"Fellow Daoist Li has begun the ritual!"
Without any hesitation, their figures flickered and they appeared below the twin-headed man, blocking his path. The Great Elder chuckled. "Where do you think you're going, friend!"
"Get out of the way, you filthy creatures!" the other head of the twin-headed man roared furiously. At the same time, it opened its mouth, and a long, scarlet tongue shot toward the Great Elder.
"Is that so? You'll have to kill us first!" Yan San roared, having already revealed his true form. His body was only three zhang in size, a measure to reduce the buffeting from the wind's eye while preserving his combat strength as much as possible.
...
Eight hundred-odd zhang below the center of the wind's eye, the moment Li Yan executed the technique Hong Yin had taught him, a sharp voice suddenly rang in his ears. "Who are you? As a man, you certainly aren't a disciple of the 'Red Whisk Temple.' Why do you want to seal me!"
Li Yan's heart jumped. He saw the blood-red Wind Beast, which had been lying motionless, suddenly move. A massive head lifted from between its claws. It was a creature that resembled a lizard, with a long head and a pair of cold, emotionless eyes, devoid of any feeling. Its entire face was dark red, giving a dual sensation of fire and ice. At this moment, its large mouth was opening and closing as it spoke, revealing a mouthful of fine, sharp teeth. Its long tongue flickered in and out like a snake's.
Li Yan was greatly alarmed. The other party had actually woken up while he was casting his spell. Cold sweat instantly broke out on his back again. However, he quickly calmed down, because the beast was just lying there and had not immediately cast a spell to kill him. 'Hong Yin's seal is acting on its main body. The attack power of this body that reaches the outside is weakened by at least eighty to ninety percent!' Li Yan's mind raced, recalling Hong Yin's speculation about the current state of the seal.
A sharp light flashed in his eyes. He didn't answer the other party at all. Instead, he fiercely pushed his hand seals. The four and a half Dharma Manifestations immediately burst forth with myriad rays of Buddhist light and then slowly sank downwards. At the same time, Li Yan's other hand danced like a butterfly flitting through flowers. A large sheet of green light spread out like a fishing net, enveloping the four and a half Dharma Manifestations. The "Primal Qi Grand Clarity Formation" had appeared!
The lizard-like Wind Beast saw that the young man above him was ignoring him completely and was even speeding up his hand seals. It could already feel a new Buddhist power, as well as another Taoist-like restriction, rapidly descending. It couldn't help but let out a roar. "A mere Nascent Soul brat, you're looking for death!"
In an instant, streams of dark red qi flowed over its body, as if resisting some heavy pressure. But no matter how furious the other party was, Li Yan paid it no mind. He was no hot-headed youth. The so-called act of exchanging words with the enemy before a fight would never happen with him. Killing was killing. He absolutely could not let himself die because he talked too much. Especially when he still had the strength to fight back. Otherwise, Li Yan might not even have a chance to cry in the end.
Seeing the red light rising from the other party's body, Li Yan's deployment of the "Primal Qi Grand Clarity Formation" became even faster. It took him just over two breaths to lay out the formation. Both sides were moving extremely fast. As the red light on the lizard-like Wind Beast's body flickered, it suddenly arched its back, pushed off the void with its feet, opened its mouth wide, and a world-destroying aura erupted from its body. Its hundred-zhang body then soared into the air. Li Yan felt his vision blur as an indomitable pressure washed over him. Immediately, the Divine Sense he had locked on the opponent was instantly annihilated.
A sharp pain shot through Li Yan's Sea of Consciousness, causing cold sweat to bead on his forehead. But layers of dark light were already flashing over his body, and at the same time, more than ten talismans appeared on his person. His Divine Sense being destroyed was a result of his probing. Although his body was protected by the "Gu" Character Talisman, Li Yan still wouldn't allow himself to have any weaknesses.
The moment his Divine Sense was annihilated, he saw a dark red head the size of a small mountain appear below his feet. The other party's speed was so fast that he couldn't react at all.
Li Yan instinctively cried out in his mind. "Not good!"