At the same time, Li Yan's Divine Sense was fully extended, covering every inch within ten zhang of his body. He did not want any sudden accidents to occur, leaving him with no room to react.
After the time it takes for half a stick of incense to burn, Li Yan, now almost completely naked, arrived at the edge of the white light. He had long since moved his Storage Pouch into the "Earthen Patch."
The white light before him was about thirty zhang wide and seven zhang high, like a slanted eye suspended in the void, with hazy edges, emitting a somewhat dazzling white glow.
At this moment, Li Yan stood at the edge of the white light, his hands on his knees, panting heavily. Sweat trickled down his dark skin like winding rivers, and the veins on his forehead throbbed.
The force emanating from the white light had already materialized. Streams of white airflow constantly struck his body, making him sway with each impact.
It was as if he would be smashed into the distant dark void in the next moment, turning into a speck of dust in the darkness.
After a few heavy breaths, Li Yan quickly extended his Divine Sense into the white light. But to his frustration, his Divine Sense was once again swiftly pushed out.
At this point, a fierce glint flashed in Li Yan's eyes. Since this was the case, he could only throw caution to the wind and venture in.
Right now, he didn't have a single defensive talisman left, neither in his Storage Pouch nor in the "Earthen Patch." They had all been consumed in the seven-colored light.
Those talismans had bought them a little time back then; otherwise, the "Great Dragon-Elephant Formation" would have had to endure for another breath or two, buying precious time for the purple-red cord to activate.
The Spirit Power shield around Li Yan's body buzzed loudly, a sign of his Spirit Power operating at its absolute maximum.
In the next moment, his hands, like two sharp daggers, plunged directly into the white light. Li Yan felt countless immense forces bombarding his hands, shaking them so violently that he almost pulled them out.
With his Divine Sense unable to perceive the situation within the white light, this was the only way. At worst, he would lose a pair of hands, but he could still retain a significant amount of his combat power.
Li Yan took a deep breath, and his entire body, shrouded in a cloud of black qi, finally forced its way into the white light.
Upon entering the white light, Li Yan's vision was filled with brightness. He squinted slightly and immediately looked around. It was a vast expanse of white, but in one direction, a much stronger white light was shining.
"The exit!"
This was Li Yan's first reaction. Without hesitation, he intended to turn and walk towards the intense white light.
Although Li Yan's judgment was extremely fast, the changes within the white light were even faster.
In the instant before Li Yan could turn, the initially calm white light suddenly erupted as if in a storm. Numerous white specks suddenly transformed into streaks of white light and pounced towards Li Yan's body.
Li Yan had already felt the invisible, immense force within the white light constantly bombarding his body, which was already extremely taxing for him.
But when these white lights surged onto his body, the Spirit Power shield around him shattered with a roar before his horrified eyes.
That was a defense he had summoned by erupting with his full cultivation, comparable to the Spirit Power defense of an ordinary initial-stage Golden Core cultivator.
The moment the Spirit Power shield shattered, the white lights surged onto Li Yan's skin. His entire body felt as if it had been struck by lightning, and a pain originating from his very soul made him roar out in agony.
This was a pain that could not be compared to the agony of broken bones and torn tendons.
Li Yan had endured inhuman pain when cultivating the Qiongqi Purgatory Art and refining the essence blood of the "Undead Nether Phoenix," but at this moment, he still cried out in pain.
The surrounding white light was like a hundred thousand great mountains pressing in on him from all directions. In just a moment, long, bloody gashes had already split open on Li Yan's skin and flesh.
The stark white bones and green meridians within were exposed. This mountain-like pressure had caused even Li Yan's formidable physical body to split open in an instant.
In less than a breath, Li Yan looked like a man made of blood, completely crimson.
And the endless pressure from all directions was still constantly squeezing him inwards, trying to crush him into a pile of meat paste.
Seeing that things were not looking good, Li Yan's body pulsed with power, and in an instant, a layer of silver-white luster emerged. His body instantly regained some freedom of movement.
Li Yan seized this fleeting opportunity and walked towards the dazzling white light with reckless abandon.
But with every step he took, it was as if he were a mortal caught in a rock crevice. As he moved forward, the flesh on his body was constantly being squeezed and scraped off.
Yet, a greater amount of silver-white luster would surge from his body. When this silver-white luster emerged, the bones that had been stripped of flesh would rapidly grow new flesh again.
And this new flesh was constantly writhing, as if trying to grow even more.
But in the next moment, as Li Yan took another step, the newly grown flesh was once again scraped off by the invisible pressure from all around.
The silver-white luster on his body erupted once more, and flesh regenerated. This cycle repeated itself, a scene so bizarre it was horrifying.
Li Yan's entire body trembled in pain. He knew that he couldn't last long like this.
The silver-white luster was the essence blood of the "Undead Nether Phoenix" erupting time and time again, constantly restoring his physical body.
But he hadn't even finished refining a single drop of the essence blood, so there was a limit to his body's regenerative ability.
At the same time, if not for the Qiongqi Purgatory Art, his flesh might not have even had a chance to grow back before his bones were crushed to dust by the surrounding pressure.
Li Yan didn't know what kind of power was being generated in this white light, or why it was so domineering. At this moment, the pain was making his mind dizzy, as if he could pass out at any moment, leaving him no time to think about anything else.
This white light was precisely the barrier between the two realms. Although it was a newly reorganized barrier that had not yet truly formed, it was completely different from the Devil's Cliff Crevice.
The Devil's Cliff Crevice was a passage formed by the gaps in the shattered barrier, which was how demonic cultivators could pass through by navigating those gaps.
Even so, the white compressive force of the barrier that roamed within those gaps would cause the vast majority of demonic cultivators to lose their lives, let alone the pure force of the barrier itself.
Li Yan's luck could only be considered somewhere between good and bad. If it had been a few hours later, the reorganized barrier here would have completely stabilized.
At that time, even a Nascent Soul cultivator would have been crushed to death, let alone him. Perhaps only a few Spirit Transformation cultivators who had comprehended the laws of space and time could have forcibly broken through with their own cultivation, but even then, a single misstep would leave them severely injured.
The most difficult laws of heaven and earth to comprehend were the laws of time and space. Cultivators who could comprehend these two laws were few and far between.
Otherwise, Chimei Emissaries like Gu Jiuqi, with their profound magical power and Daoist rhythm, would have been able to find a way to seal the Devil's Cliff Crevice, yet very few could.
Even among the native cultivators of the Immortal Spirit Realm with their deep heritage, it would be considered good if one or two out of a hundred Spirit Transformation cultivators could comprehend the laws of time and space.
Ascended cultivators like Gu Jiuqi, who had also comprehended some spatial laws, were existences that many in the Immortal Spirit Realm were unwilling to provoke.
Li Yan knew he didn't have much time. He might lose consciousness and collapse, and if he did, he would never wake up again.
He charged forward with all his might. He didn't know how long he had walked, or how far. His consciousness was already blurry, but his eyes were fixed on that dazzling white light.
Step by step, amidst the falling flesh and flying blood, he moved forward...
Time passed bit by bit. When the silver-white luster around Li Yan's body had almost vanished, he felt his entire field of vision fill with a dazzling white light, and nothing else.
The dazzling white light made him subconsciously close his eyes, yet his feet still unconsciously took another step forward.
Then, the crushing pressure around him suddenly disappeared completely.
Li Yan's entire body then fell heavily onto the hard ground, like a pool of blood splattering, sending blood flying everywhere.
'Did I escape?'
Before his consciousness faded, a forest of tall trees appeared before Li Yan's eyes. In the groves, many blood-red points of light flickered before him.
Li Yan knew he no longer had the strength to stand up. He used all his might to release one final shred of Divine Sense. In the next moment, with a flash of white light, Zhao Min's beautiful figure appeared.
Endless darkness appeared before Li Yan's eyes, and he lay motionless on the ground.
The moment Zhao Min appeared, she looked around with a wary expression. Just now, she had been in that paradise-like space, refining the power of her medicinal pills.
She had sat there for about two hours, and her aura had begun to stabilize.
Suddenly, an extremely weak Divine Sense appeared in the air. The fluctuation of the Divine Sense was exceptionally faint. Before Zhao Min could react, she was swept out by its power.
...
What greeted her eyes was a vast mountain forest. Zhao Min had never seen the trees before her; they were stout and tall, each one like a giant pillar, shooting straight into the somewhat dim sky.
Zhao Min had seen trees much stouter than these, but the form of the trees here was different from any she had seen before.
The bark on the tall trees was rougher, its surface a crisscrossing network of deep, dry gullies.
In the dim environment, they looked like giant, gaping mouths that had been split open, ready to devour people and things at any moment, looking ferocious and terrifying.
Their leaves were so wide and thick it was astonishing. The smallest of them was at least two feet in size, heavy like slabs of thick rock, hanging from the sturdy branches.
They looked more like giant, rugged stone carvings of trees.
The leaves here were mostly dark gray and black, with very little of the pleasingly fresh emerald green color.
Zhao Min quickly scanned her surroundings and took it all in.
She did not see Li Yan's figure. Sensing an aura, she subconsciously looked down, and the scene before her eyes made her gasp in shock.
On the dense grass lay a naked man, covered in blood, with stark white bones exposed and most of his flesh gone.
The man was lying prone in a pool of blood, blood still gushing from his back, where several sections of his white, blood-streaked spine were visible.
When Zhao Min's Divine Sense swept over him, the man's aura was already extremely weak. Even with her Divine Sense, she could only sense a little bit of life force.
From his aura, she could immediately determine that this person was Li Yan.
At that moment, the glowing dots in the surrounding darkness were getting closer and closer. Zhao Min knew that the scent of blood here had attracted demonic beasts one by one.
If she hadn't appeared, one could imagine Li Yan's fate. He would have been devoured completely. The flesh and blood of a cultivator, nourished by Spirit Power over many years, was undoubtedly a pure cultivation pill for a demonic beast.
This was probably why Li Yan hadn't taken out any pills to heal himself before losing consciousness, but had brought her out instead.
With such injuries, even if he took high-grade pills, he would still need a recovery process, during which he could only be at the mercy of his enemies.
Sensing the auras of the surrounding demonic beasts, Zhao Min relaxed slightly. Most of the ones before her were first-rank demonic beasts, but in three different directions, there were still three second-rank demonic beasts.
The strength of these three demonic beasts was still a bit weaker than hers. One looked like a member of the leopard family, but it was a strange demonic beast with two extra limbs growing from its sides.
The two limbs were about the length of an adult's arm, with only one toe on each, the tip of which was curved and sharp, glinting with a faint green light.
In another direction was a giant spider, its body a riot of five colors. Even in such dim light, its colors were dazzlingly bright.
A pair of short front limbs occasionally rubbed its two white jade fangs, and sticky fluid dripped continuously from its mouth.
Its pair of eyes darted around, greedily staring at Li Yan on the ground.