Seeing the golden-armored martial general look down at the tiny wound on its calf, its giant face showing only unrestrained fury and not a hint of a daze, Li Yan concluded that this being, condensed from the purest and cleanest earth spiritual energy, likely had no soul.
This rendered Li Yan's preconceived plan void. His Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes could only inflict physical damage on the opponent; they couldn't display their true function of pinning its soul!
Moreover, the golden-armored martial general's strength far surpassed Li Yan's. Even though Li Yan had cultivated the Qiongqi Purgatory Art to the peak of the third layer, his strength was no match for it. In this situation, Li Yan was suddenly deprived of two of his methods for subduing the enemy, both of which were his most powerful trump cards!
'The defensive and offensive power of the earth element is the most vigorous. If I fight it head-on like this, I'm afraid I won't be able to break its defense. And with my body in its current injured state, I can't sustain the "Phoenix Soars to the Heavens" attack speed for much longer!'
Li Yan glanced at his own battered body. The wounds had burst open again from his two consecutive uses of the movement skill, resembling gaping infant mouths from which streams of blood gushed out.
In the last strike, even with the sharpness of the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes, he had only managed to break through the opponent's surface golden light armor and pierce a little. Li Yan had simultaneously infused the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes with several types of potent poison, yet the golden-armored martial general now strode towards him, showing no signs of being poisoned at all.
Li Yan suddenly vanished again. The golden light in the golden-armored martial general's eyes flickered repeatedly.
Almost at the instant Li Yan's figure disappeared, a circle of soaring golden light lit up the thousand-zhang area around them. With a dong, Li Yan's figure appeared several hundred zhang away, having crashed headfirst into the suddenly appearing golden light. He was immediately bounced out of his ethereal state.
"This is the Heaven and Earth Prison!"
Li Yan found himself confined to a specific area, and his Divine Sense was simultaneously trapped within this range. At the same time, a huge axe blade descended upon his head. In his haste, Li Yan quickly raised his arms to block.
With a loud clang, Li Yan was sent stumbling back, his feet creating deep pits in the rock with each step, sending crushed stone flying. His body was shaken like a lion shaking off water, and blood shot out from his wounds like a rain of arrows. He felt his qi and blood churning within him, and a sweet taste appeared in his throat.
The power of heaven and earth was not something he could withstand head-on. If not for the two Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes protecting his forearms, the opponent's axe blow might have severed both his arms.
Li Yan hurriedly suppressed the turmoil in his chest, forcing himself to swallow the mouthful of blood, but his mouth was already filled with a metallic taste. Yet he remained calm and composed in the face of danger. While staring at the golden-armored martial general, he quickly scanned his surroundings with his Divine Sense.
A circle of light pillars trapped him and the golden-armored martial general firmly inside. However, he also noticed that the golden light on the golden-armored martial general's body had dimmed considerably.
'This is the consequence of casting the Heaven and Earth Prison!'
Li Yan had seen descriptions of some of the phenomena that would appear during the Earth Tribulation in certain texts, and this "Heaven and Earth Prison" was one of them. It could block a cultivator's Divine Sense and movement space, but it also consumed a great deal of the tribulation's power with every breath. It was just that very few could hold on until the tribulation's power was completely exhausted before their Dao dissipated and their bodies perished.
At this, a smile actually appeared on Li Yan's face. He was not alarmed, but delighted.
When he had carefully studied the Heavenly Tribulation, he had come up with an idea to break the Earth Tribulation of the Heaven and Earth Tribulation, but doing so would undoubtedly expose some of his secrets. He had deliberated for a long time before finally settling on some plans!
In the sky, Wei Zhongran and Mo Qing's expressions were solemn. They stared intently at the golden area, but their Divine Sense could no longer penetrate the golden light to see what was happening inside.
"His escape speed just now angered the Earth Tribulation, so it used the 'Heaven and Earth Prison' technique! Now Li Yan's advantage is completely gone…" Mo Qing said with a frown.
With their current cultivation, they could naturally force their Divine Sense through the "Heaven and Earth Prison," but doing so would mean they were no longer observers but participants. It would immediately attract a more powerful Heavenly Tribulation, pulling them into it as well. In that case, Li Yan would almost certainly die.
Inside the pillar of light, Li Yan's heart finally relaxed. His series of attacks before were, one, to test if the golden-armored martial general was afraid of poison attacks and whether it had a soul. Two, it was to make it use this "Heaven and Earth Prison" divine ability, so that he could use his countermeasures and minimize the exposure of his secrets as much as possible.
Of course, if the Earth Tribulation didn't use this divine ability, and Li Yan had no other means to break it, he might have had to risk exposing his secrets to save his own life. He couldn't just wait to perish.
Fortunately, everything went according to Li Yan's plan. The golden-armored martial general, seeing Li Yan's body continuously retreating, did not pursue him again, but the handle of the giant axe in its hand suddenly grew several hundred zhang long. The massive axe head shot directly towards Li Yan's chest. To say it was his chest was an understatement; the entire axe head was like a small mountain "stabbing" towards Li Yan's entire body.
With a loud thud, the giant axe head struck the golden pillar of light. Li Yan's body vanished once again.
"Hmph, so what if you can dodge! Let's see how long you can hide in here!" As it spoke, the surrounding golden circle of light suddenly began to shrink inwards.
At the same time, the golden-armored martial general suddenly threw a punch into the void at its side. Li Yan was actually using the same trick he had used against it before. But having been alerted to the opponent's unpredictable speed, it was now on guard. Its senses were firmly locked onto the surrounding space, while it continuously compressed it. Within this "Heaven and Earth Prison," the earth-attribute spiritual energy was incredibly active, and any slight fluctuation in the space was immediately fed back to it. So, even if Li Yan didn't make a move, it could quickly sense the trajectory of the spiritual energy fluctuations and find Li Yan's hiding place.
Sure enough, Li Yan's figure suddenly appeared in the space where the golden-armored martial general had attacked. Although he was covered in blood, there was no expression on his face. The Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes in his hands spun rapidly. The two spikes shot out of his hands simultaneously and pierced towards the golden-armored martial general's fist. At the same time, Li Yan's body vanished again.
"Hmph!" The golden-armored martial general snorted contemptuously through its nose. It could see that every time Li Yan used his movement skill, his body would make a "creaking" sound as if it couldn't bear the load. Although this movement skill was strange, the opponent's battered body probably couldn't use it many more times.
A dazzling golden light emanated from the surface of its fist, and vast amounts of earth-attribute power surged out. The two Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes flashed and collided with the bowl-sized fist.
With two chi chi sounds, the expected sight of the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes being sent flying did not occur. Instead, the two spikes bizarrely passed through the fist and flew into the distance.
"Ah!" The golden-armored martial general let out a miserable cry of pain.
"You…" But before it could continue speaking, the two streaks of black light flew back again, swift as lightning!
Chi chi! With two more sounds, the golden-armored martial general's astonishingly defensive earth-attribute armor failed to block the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes. In an instant, two more small holes appeared on its body.
Seeing this, Li Yan in the distance couldn't help but rejoice. At this point, he couldn't care about anything else and continuously formed hand seals to control the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes to dart back and forth rapidly.
Under the intense pain, the "Heaven and Earth Prison," which had already shrunk by several dozen zhang, suddenly slowed its contraction. At this moment, the two Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes had already turned into two extremely fine needles, tracing barely visible paths in the air.
If one could carefully scan with their Divine Sense, they would find that the originally black Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes were now tinged with an azure hue on their black surface. That was an extremely pure wood spiritual energy.
Metal overcomes wood, wood overcomes earth, earth overcomes water, water overcomes fire, and fire overcomes metal. The five elements generate and nurture each other, but they also restrain each other. This was precisely Li Yan's idea for breaking the Earth Tribulation.
In fact, he was not the first to come up with this idea. Many people knew that this method could be used to break this Heavenly Tribulation. But because the Earth Tribulation was the purest earth-attribute power born from the rules of heaven and earth, the wood spiritual energy that could restrain it also had to be the purest in the world.
Generally speaking, there were only two ways to achieve this requirement in this world: One was a cultivator with a wood-attribute Saint Spirit Root, but such a cultivator might not appear even in tens of thousands of years. The other was to find the purest wood-attribute supreme treasure born in the world. But let alone being used by someone to resist the Heavenly Tribulation, even cultivators at the Spirit Transformation stage and above would fight over such a treasure if they saw it. It would never appear in the major markets, and even a super sect in the lower realm like the Malevolent Spirit Sect didn't have one. Thus, these methods of resisting the Earth Tribulation were merely legendary.
And when Li Yan was studying how to deal with the Earth Tribulation, he was secretly delighted when he saw some related records. After he used "The Five Elements Return to Primordial Genesis," he could instantly unify the five elements, and it would be the purest single Saint Spirit Root in the world.
However, he had hesitated for a long time about this method because doing so would very likely expose the fact that he was cultivating the secret technique of the Gui Water Immortal Sect. The secrets of the Five Immortal Sects were something not only Ping Tu had warned him about; Dong Fuyi and True Lord Qianchong had also carefully instructed him.
For this reason, Li Yan had even considered leaving the Malevolent Spirit Sect and choosing a remote place to undergo his tribulation alone. But after much consideration, he gave up this idea. The reason was simple: undergoing a tribulation without a protector was extremely dangerous, especially for a Nascent Soul tribulation, the commotion of which was impossible to hide. If he encountered someone with malicious intent, the best outcome would be to perish together with them. But the other party would have endless ways to disrupt your tribulation. If they were determined, you might not even be able to take them down with you; you might not even have a chance for revenge.
Li Yan's Golden Core Formation in the "Falling Star Valley" had been a last resort. Firstly, the Core Tribulation had come suddenly and he hadn't anticipated it. Secondly, he had no other choice.
Now, after returning to the Desolate Moon Continent, Li Yan had thought about it for a long time and ultimately gave up the idea of undergoing the tribulation alone. Even someone as proud as Wei Zhongran had chosen to undergo his tribulation within the sect, not daring to take the slightest risk.
When Li Yan saw that the Earth Tribulation might use the "Heaven and Earth Prison," his eyes suddenly lit up. The texts described this immortal art as shielding both space and Divine Sense. By pushing his body to its limits and continuously using "Phoenix Soars to the Heavens," he had indeed made the golden-armored martial general use this technique.
But even within the "Heaven and Earth Prison," Li Yan felt he still needed to conceal his actions, so he attached the wood-attribute magical power to the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes when he used them. At the same time, Li Yan's physical body couldn't directly withstand the Earth Tribulation. But using the two Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes changed the situation entirely. The Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes were a strange treasure of heaven and earth refined by the secret methods of the Five Immortal Sects.
And the Heavenly Tribulation Li Yan was facing was, in the end, only at a power level between Golden Core and Nascent Soul, not the true power of the Nascent Soul stage. With the incomparably hard material of the Gui-Yi Water-Parting Spikes, and driven by the restraining wood spiritual energy, he felt he should be able to penetrate the opponent's defense. After all, the method of using wood to overcome earth in the texts was only a legend.
After waiting for the opportunity, Li Yan finally made his move! And with one strike, it really had an unexpected effect, which put his heart at ease!