'The human race is best at forbearance. Truly cunning!'
This was just a fleeting thought; where would he find more time to think?
One of his arms suddenly grew longer, transforming into a giant hand out of thin air that grabbed towards the still-flying Ning Ying.
But just as he extended his claw, a wave of heat that could almost melt everything suddenly rushed towards him from the side.
Xue Qianzong immediately sensed an attack no weaker than his own cultivation level rolling towards his right side. At this, Xue Qianzong was greatly alarmed.
In his haste, he could only rapidly retract his extended right hand, and the phantom giant hand instantly collided with that great force.
With a loud "boom," Xue Qianzong's body swayed.
Then, his pupils suddenly shrank. Before him appeared a giant wreathed in crimson flames.
The giant's facial features were blurry, but the monstrous heat wave from its body had already burned a large area around it fiery red.
Xue Qianzong believed that if it weren't for the protection of the formation here, not to mention this cave, even this entire mountain peak would be burned to ashes by this flame giant in a matter of breaths.
The flame giant gave Xue Qianzong no time to think. After its attack was blocked, it let out a muffled roar, and its thick legs stomped with a boom, rushing forward again with a sky full of crimson fire.
On the other side, the retreating Ning Ying had also reacted. The Spirit Power around her circulated, and she stabilized her body. With a delicate shout, she began to fight with the revealed Lin Xinghe.
Their fight was an inseparable one. Although Lin Xinghe had revealed his true strength, it was not easy for him to kill Ning Ying in his current injured state.
Even if they were both at the mid-stage Golden Core, a full-strength Lin Xinghe was confident that in a one-on-one fight, he could injure Ning Ying and knock her to the ground within a hundred breaths.
After all, his Foundation Establishment was a seventh-rank "Cauldron-Ranked Foundation Establishment." The quality of his foundation was extremely high, and his foundation was profound.
Foundation Establishment, Foundation Establishment. This was where the true foundation of cultivation was cast. A cultivator's life path began here, and from here, ninety percent of a cultivator's future path on the Great Dao was set.
The strength of the Golden Core and Nascent Soul formed later was also determined by the rank of the Foundation Establishment, unless one had another heaven-defying opportunity to change their fate and body.
When Ning Ying established her foundation, it should have been a sixth-rank Foundation Establishment. Lin Xinghe had been able to roughly determine this when they first fought.
Therefore, compared to Lin Xinghe, who was at the same realm, she was far behind.
But even if a full-strength Lin Xinghe could easily injure her, it was very difficult to kill her, unless Ning Ying's Foundation Establishment was truly below the fifth rank. Only then could he kill her more easily.
But generally, those below the fifth-rank Foundation Establishment had basically no hope of forming a core. In Lin Xinghe's current state, the final result of the fight would likely be mutual destruction. Even if he could win, it would be a costly victory.
On the other side, the flame giant was unpredictable. Its strength fluctuated, and several times Xue Qianzong almost broke through and joined forces with Ning Ying. If that happened, their situation would definitely be reversed.
Xue Qianzong also saw that this flame giant was condensed from a fire-attribute formation and did not have much spiritual intelligence. It instinctively wanted to kill the enemy before it.
It borrowed the power of the formation's restriction to continuously generate powerful, endless strength, instinctively killing everything in front of it.
Therefore, it was completely unable to achieve perfect cooperation with Lin Xinghe. This was the entry point to resolving the crisis.
In a secret underground chamber deep within Falling Star Valley, the ground in front of Tianxingzi was already stained crimson with a large patch of blood. Streams of blood were still continuously flowing from between his teeth.
Tianxingzi's eyes were wide open, and his single arm was a blur of afterimages as he struggled to maintain a continuous stream of hand seals.
Under his heavy injuries, maintaining a battle within the formation involving four Golden Core-level experts was already a desperate struggle.
Several times, his strength had already failed him, causing the operation of the formation to fluctuate repeatedly. This, in turn, caused the strength of the flame giant inside to fluctuate as well, and Xue Qianzong almost broke through.
The intensity with which he controlled the formation also determined the strength of the flame giant. To be able to exert the formation to this extent, allowing the flame giant to display the strength of a late-stage Golden Core, was already the limit of what he could currently do.
He only hoped that Lin Xinghe could kill Ning Ying as soon as possible, so they could join forces to attack Xue Qianzong. Therefore, he was desperately squeezing the essence blood in his body, hoping to be able to delay for a little more time.
The moment they engaged, both sides had gone all out. It was just that under the shroud of the formation, the powerful forces that could have destroyed Falling Star Valley were forcefully suppressed within the formation, and the sound was also prevented from escaping.
But it could not completely hide the unusual movement here. The earth still faintly trembled with spreading aftershocks.
As they fought a battle of life and death here, neither side knew that Yu Rong had already perished on the other side.
Xue Qianzong and Ning Ying were even still hoping that Yu Rong could arrive in time for a pincer attack from both inside and out. With her cultivation, she would definitely be able to sense the abnormality here.
At this moment, Li Yan was constantly releasing his Divine Sense, searching everywhere for Tianxingzi and Lin Xinghe. He had already fulfilled their agreement.
Although the great battle was still ongoing, he didn't want to have this thing inside his body. It was better to get it out as soon as possible. As for what conditions the other party might propose again, they could talk about it then.
The reason he chose this time was also because he had the idea of "if the fish dies, the net breaks" if things went wrong. He wanted to use the pressure of the strong external enemy to prevent the red-robed youth from having a chance to deal with him with his full attention.
At the very least, he had already fulfilled the agreement. His hands were stained with the enemy's blood. They couldn't possibly think he had killed over a hundred people just to put on a show.
Although Li Yan was a human cultivator, he didn't care about the lives of others here. If his own life was in danger, why would he need to consider others?
Even if everyone here was a human cultivator, so what? He didn't have the ability to save everyone.
Soon, Li Yan sensed that the Spirit Power fluctuation in one direction, about a hundred li away, was somewhat abnormal.
The Spirit Power there was not as rampant and berserk in the air as in other places of battle. Instead, it was coming from underground, faint and intermittent, as if it was being tightly bound by some force and unable to erupt.
Li Yan sensed it carefully again, and then transformed into a faint, almost invisible shadow, speeding towards that direction. He sensed that the restrained power contained astonishing destructive force.
That was not something a Foundation Establishment cultivator could erupt with. He knew that the other side still had two Golden Core experts, so he judged that it should be the red-robed youth and Lin Xinghe fighting with the enemy.
But the power of a Golden Core cultivator's attack was too astonishing, so they had used some kind of restriction to confine the few of them to a certain area to avoid destroying Falling Star Valley.
Of course, Li Yan couldn't just go there without any scruples. Everything had to be done according to the situation. Only at the right time could the right thing be done. But at the very least, he had to know what was happening there.
Li Yan's guess couldn't be said to be wrong, but he didn't know that Tianxingzi, who should have been here, had been replaced by Lin Xinghe due to his heavy injuries, while he himself was still at the core of the formation deep within the inner valley.
Li Yan could only be said to be quick-witted, but he was definitely not an immortal who could predict the future.
In the cave, the flames blazed, and hot waves rolled. Besides the flame giant, the other three, although they had Spirit Power protecting their bodies, still felt their breathing was stuffy and unbearable.
When this killing formation was refined back then, that Nascent Soul cultivator of Falling Star Valley had borrowed the power of the underground Fire Vein. But what he considered was to trap the enemy and kill them in one fell swoop.
He had not expected that a situation would arise where Tianxingzi couldn't fully exert the power of the killing formation, nor could he let two Golden Core cultivators forcefully break through the formation.
Therefore, Lin Xinghe had no choice but to take the risk and enter. He had to entangle and kill one Golden Core.
Under these circumstances, Lin Xinghe also couldn't gain any advantage here. He also needed to circulate his power to resist the high temperature from the underground Fire Vein.
Just like that, after fighting for fifty breaths, although Lin Xinghe had fully unleashed his magic power, he had already been seriously injured from luring the two into the ambush several times before and simply couldn't win in a short time.
Even if Lin Xinghe fought with all his might, he could only force Ning Ying to constantly dodge. Occasionally, a small spray of blood would erupt, only to turn into a cloud of mist and disappear in an instant. There was nothing else he could do.
Lin Xinghe had already seen the flame giant on the side almost lose control several times. Others might not know the situation, but how could he not know that this was a sign of his Martial Uncle's magic power failing?
In his urgency, Lin Xinghe's originally handsome face suddenly became ferocious. Gritting his teeth, he suddenly extended a finger and tapped several major acupoints on his body in succession.
With each tap of his finger, his aura would surge, and at the same time, a mouthful of thick, foul-smelling blood would spray from his mouth.
When the thick blood collided with the high temperature in the cave, it made a strong "hissing" sound, but it was only one sound before it turned into a cloud of foul-smelling mist. However, the brilliant light in Lin Xinghe's eyes grew brighter and brighter.
Opposite him, Ning Ying's beautiful eyes couldn't help but widen, and she cried out in alarm.
"Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art! Lin Xinghe, are you really going to do this?"
By the end of her words, she had already lost her usual charm, and her voice became extremely sharp, like the heart-tearing cry of a night hawk.
The "Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art" was a self-harming secret art of Falling Star Valley. It was executed with a total of seven finger taps. Each tap would shatter a major acupoint on one's body.
With the shattering of this acupoint, the Spirit Power at that location, due to the collapse of the acupoint, would instantly surge like a tide. At this time, by operating the "Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art," one could forcefully condense this huge force temporarily.
This would increase the caster's strength by half a level in an instant. When all seven fingers were tapped, Lin Xinghe's overall strength would be forcefully raised to the late-stage Golden Core.
Although he still couldn't compare to a true late-stage expert like Xue Qianzong, he could definitely suppress Ning Ying. With the opponent trapped by the great formation and with nowhere to escape, Lin Xinghe was fifty percent confident that he could kill Ning Ying in a very short time.
However, the effect of the "Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art" did not last long, at most twenty breaths. After twenty breaths, Lin Xinghe would completely lose all his magic power and become like a cripple.
Even if he could get out alive this time, he would not be able to recover without more than a hundred years of closed-door cultivation.
More than a hundred years, for a Golden Core cultivator with a lifespan of only five hundred years, already took up twenty percent of their time.
What's more, Lin Xinghe was already close to three hundred years old at this time. Taking away another hundred years, with his mid-stage Golden Core realm, it had basically cut off his possibility of forming a Nascent Soul.
It was precisely because Ning Ying knew the consequences of this self-harming "Spiritual Aperture Shattering Star Grand Art" that she instantly understood Lin Xinghe's intention. The opponent was determined to kill her here today.
Opposite her, Lin Xinghe's face, though pained, still carried a bizarre madness, but the words he spoke were exceptionally calm. This contrast in one person made Ning Ying feel a bit horrified.
"Really going to do this? Are we not in a fight to the death? Isn't this the result you four sects wanted?"
As he spoke, his last finger had already heavily tapped the Baihui acupoint on the top of his head.
With the fall of this finger, the Spirit Power in his Ren Mai in the front and his Du Mai in the back instantly collided at the shattered Baihui acupoint.
Like two unstoppable tides crashing into each other, Lin Xinghe's aura suddenly surged like the high crest of a wave, shooting into the sky. His long hair danced wildly in the fire.
He wouldn't waste even half a breath. Before that finger had even left the top of his head, his other hand casually waved, and the fist-sized azure "pellet" had already appeared behind Ning Ying's head.