However, such a one-way restriction also had many drawbacks, as seen when encountering a cultivator like Tu Tai, who could forcefully break through and who, for a time, no one could stop.
But in any case, the cliff above was controlled by humans, so these risks were originally within a controllable range. After all, a cultivator as powerful as Tu Tai was a top-tier existence, and there were only a few such beings in the world.
The entire space within the gourd-shaped cliff was a dark, cyan color. Whether it was a cultivator or a demon cultivator, once inside, the color of their bodies and the immortal arts they cast would either be a faint black-cyan or a deep, solid black.
Li Yan saw at a glance that the cultivators stationed below were primarily from the Ten-Pace Courtyard. They were flying on their swords, engaged in an exceptionally brutal fight with the enemy. It seemed that even when Qian Fangshu led reinforcements to support the battle above, he had left behind the sword cultivators with the strongest offensive power to guard this place.
In the few moments Li Yan watched, he saw two sword cultivators, both near and far, fall into the ink-like, roiling black tide along with several demon cultivators while fighting. For a short while, none of them managed to re-emerge.
The sight made Li Yan and the others gasp. Although some of them knew of the dangers of the Devil's Cliff Crevice, they could not have imagined the fighting was this intense.
Just as Li Yan and the group of Malevolent Spirit Sect cultivators were unsure whether to turn back to support the southern flank or to enter the Devil's Cliff Crevice nearby, Zhu Luan's voice entered their minds. "Today must be the coordinated attack day set by the demons from the South Sea and the Demon Realm. Otherwise, they wouldn't have been able to so easily find the Devil's Cliff Crevice through the irrepressible Demonic Qi. The Demon Realm's side is desperately trying to break the planar barrier. You are to go down and support the Ten-Pace Courtyard cultivators. Remember, once you are down there, do not engage the enemy deeper than fifty feet."
These words seemed cumbersome, but transmitted via Divine Sense, they took only an instant, clearly explaining the current emergency at the Devil's Cliff Crevice.
However, Zhu Luan and the others had only just received this information from Su Changyang via transmission. Otherwise, they wouldn't have sent out nearly all the cultivators who had been guarding the crevice earlier.
At this moment, Zhu Luan was in the sky, locked in a fierce battle with a portly Demonic General. The Demonic General was also at the Late-stage Nascent Soul, and every move he made shook the mountains and the earth, forcing Zhu Luan to retreat continuously. But Zhu Luan was surrounded by a ring of red and white light. Each time, the portly Demonic General refused to clash with it head-on, his eyes turning crimson with frustration.
Below, the cultivators like Li Yan, who were seeing the brutal slaughter beneath the Devil's Cliff Crevice for the first time, were still in shock. After receiving the transmission from Ancestor Zhu Luan, they finally understood that what they were seeing was a special situation. Usually, although there were demon cultivators who charged out, it would never be as frenzied and brutal as it was today.
Just then, several more people flew to Li Yan's side, and a familiar voice entered his mind. "Little Junior Brother, you will team up with the other senior brothers and sisters later. Today, the Demon Realm is desperately attacking the barrier. Many demon cultivators have come through, and it is extremely dangerous. You must be very careful."
Li Yan turned at the sound and saw Li Wuyi standing on a jade-colored book slip. The book slip shone with a brilliant light, making Li Wuyi look handsome and divine.
As he spoke, he had already flown in front of him. His gaze toward the chasm below held a rare gravity, and there was a trace of confusion in his expression.
In fact, it wasn't just Li Wuyi. Any cultivator who had ever been stationed at the Devil's Cliff Crevice found the recent transmission from the Nascent Soul ancestor strange. In the past, when they fought demon cultivators here, they could descend as far as three thousand feet below the cliff to engage the enemy.
But just now, Ancestor Zhu Luan had inexplicably instructed them to stay within a fifty-foot depth. At that depth, even a slightly larger movement might cause them to cross the line.
'What on earth did Ancestor mean by that? Could it be that they have left some grand formation beyond fifty feet? Now that the demon cultivators are constantly pouring out, have they begun to activate the formation?'
Li Wuyi was still pondering Ancestor Zhu Luan's transmission, unable to figure out the reason for a moment. But as for the words of a Nascent Soul ancestor, though they were confused, no one dared to question them.
Of course, Li Yan and the others were unaware of this. They thought the ancestor's instructions were a uniform warning to all the disciples who had never been to the Devil's Cliff Crevice before, fearing they would wander off recklessly.
At this moment, behind Li Wuyi, Wei Chituo, Lin Daqiao, and Gong Chenying had also flown over. They had already exchanged greetings with Li Yan from a distance, so there was no need for much pleasantry now, nor was there time.
Gong Chenying merely nodded at Li Yan, her crimson lips moving slightly. A long-missed, familiar voice sounded in Li Yan's mind. "Be careful."
It was a very short, two-word phrase, but it warmed Li Yan's heart. This feeling was different from the concern his Senior Brother had shown him. The warmth from Li Wuyi was like that of an elder's care.
Li Yan nodded at all four of them, his gaze lingering on Gong Chenying for an extra moment. He took a deep breath and looked away.
Ahead, Li Wuyi had already charged down. At the same time, Li Yan's Divine Sense swept sideways, and in an instant, he saw the white-robed young woman with Li Changting in the distance. The two of them were surrounded by two different colored Gu-insects, circling their bodies and protecting them.
The white-robed girl's black hair was casually tied back with a purple-red ribbon. Her ink-black, jade-like eyes merely swept past Li Yan, her face devoid of any expression. She did not send him a voice transmission.
This was the first time Li Yan had seen Zhao Min holding a magical treasure. In her hand, Zhao Min carried a long, slender, azure sword. The blade was covered in shimmering blue flames. As the flames danced, they made her look like the Moon Goddess Chang'e descending to the mortal world.
Although they were far apart, Li Yan felt as if he could feel the bone-chilling coldness from the sword.
"Extreme Cold Nether Fire." A name he had read in the scriptures jumped into Li Yan's mind.
This was an extremely rare exotic fire of Heaven and Earth, a mutated form of earth fire. Its flames could burn anything into crystalline particles. It was an excellent earth fire for refining extreme-cold medicinal pills and forging water-attribute magical treasures, a flame that many alchemy and artifact refining grandmasters dreamed of. Yet, Zhao Min had used it to directly refine it into her magical treasure.
But considering the power behind her, besides her highly influential father, Wei Zhongran, the Wei Cultivation Family behind her was said to be a colossal power. All of this made perfect sense.
Li Yan only saw Li Changting gently tap him with her jade finger, then point at the ice-cold face of the white-robed girl, and then a strange smile appeared on her face. Then, with Zhao Min's indifferent expression, the two women flew down from another part of the cliff.
All gatherings are brief. Even with Gong Chenying right beside him, they didn't have much time to talk. Everything was communicated in a very short period of time. Ahead, Wei Chituo let out a low shout. "Little Junior Brother, let's go down!"
With that, he was the first to fly down. Behind him, Gong Chenying, Lin Daqiao, and Li Yan followed without hesitation, leaping off the cliff.
As for Li Wuyi, he had already disappeared. He was a Golden Core cultivator and didn't want to get mixed up with Li Yan and the others, fearing he would attract a Demon Lord-level enemy to his junior brothers.
The moment Li Yan entered the space below the cliff, he felt as if he had passed through a membrane. A crisp "pop" sounded by his ear, and his entire being was submerged in the ink-like mist.
As soon as the mist touched Li Yan's body, he felt his heart instantly fill with bloodlust and violent urges. All sorts of negative suspicions flooded his mind.
Li Yan was alarmed. He quickly held his breath and focused his mind, circulating the Spirit Power in his body through his acupoints. Only then did his mind clear up.
'Such dense Demonic Qi. A Foundation Establishment cultivator fighting here would have to end the battle quickly. An hour would be a remarkable feat of endurance.'
Li Yan thought to himself. At the same time, he recalled Ancestor Zhu Luan's words and couldn't be sure if the Demonic Qi was so dense today because of the upheaval in the Demon Realm, or if the Devil's Cliff Crevice was always like this.
The next moment, Li Yan released his Divine Sense. To his slight relief, his Divine Sense passed through the dense fog, which seemed capable of obscuring everything, without any obstruction. In this way, whether a cultivator could see their surroundings with their eyes made no difference at all.
However, Li Yan didn't notice that as he entered the area below the cliff, on another cliff edge about sixty li away from him, a beautiful woman was scanning his direction with her Divine Sense.
With so many cultivators present here, no one would pay any mind to a passing Divine Sense scan unless their heart gave them a warning. Li Yan was no exception, so when he sensed a Divine Sense nearby earlier, he just assumed others were surveying the surroundings.
The beautiful woman had a voluptuous, water-like figure. Her skin was as white as snow, and her jade-like face looked so delicate it might break at a touch. When her Divine Sense swept over Li Yan, a complicated expression appeared on her face, and a blush soon rose to her cheeks. The next moment, she couldn't help but curse herself silently, her blush deepening.
In her storage pouch, there was a green shirt. She had kept it in the pouch ever since she changed out of it that time. She had never taken it out, nor had she thrown it away.
It was one of Li Yan's green shirts. She dared not take it out, because once she did, it would remind her of that shamefully embarrassing scene—her on her own initiative entangling herself around Li Yan's body, and on her own initiative extending her tongue to ask for a kiss.
That was something she had only ever done with her former Dao Companion. After her Dao Companion's accidental death, she had only wanted to raise their young son, never thinking she would take the initiative to seek such a thing again.
The young man's composure, and his final act of help, all seemed to have brought the episode to a perfect conclusion.
But, after all this time, it seemed as if the man's scent still lingered on the green shirt, preventing her from destroying it. Instead, she had placed it in a separate storage pouch.
"Hongyu, we should go down!"
A companion's urging voice came from beside her. The beautiful woman suddenly smiled silently, thinking to herself. 'Young Master Jiang, so you are a cultivator from the Malevolent Spirit Sect, not one of my Jingtu Sect. May you be safe and sound…'
At this moment, she still did not know Li Yan's real name. She was none other than Mei Hongyu, who had been poisoned by the Rhino-Horned Green Python's aphrodisiac on the second floor of the "Northern Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda."
Because she cultivated the "Wind Brightness Manual," that incident had created a crack in her mind-nature, just like the Devil's Cliff before her. Once opened, the Demonic Qi would come flooding in…
None of this was what she wanted. Now, she only hoped that "Young Master Jiang" was blessed by heaven and would pass through this great battle safely.
Tidying the hair by her ear, Mei Hongyu, her eyes like autumn pools, glanced one more time in a certain direction. Spirit Power surged from her body, her Golden Core cultivation erupting as she threw herself into the chasm…
Li Yan, of course, knew nothing of this. Even if he did, he would at most have nodded and greeted her. For him, all of this had long been erased from his memory.
Just as Li Yan withdrew his probing Divine Sense, Gong Chenying's voice came from his side. "This mist is filled with a large amount of Demonic Qi. It will make one feel the urge to kill everything, but as long as you guard your mind, it won't affect us much in the short term. However, we need to constantly be mindful of replenishing our Spirit Power with Spirit Stones. Although there is Spiritual Energy here too, we must not absorb too much of it. Otherwise, if our minds fall, there is only one consequence: becoming a puppet that has lost its sanity and only knows how to kill."
At the same time, all the Malevolent Spirit Sect disciples who had come down for the first time received reminders from their companions. Almost every first-timer like Li Yan was silently followed by a reminding cultivator.