You're trapped! Yue Qingyao, you can't escape!

Kill? A thought emerged frantically. Kill her, and everything would be settled, ending all future troubles. With his current means, taking advantage of her inability to move to behead her with a single sword strike would be effortless.

But... another even crazier thought coiled around his heart like a venomous snake.

A single face-to-face hard Cultivation session is worth a thousand attribute points! This is a supreme grade cauldron at the Nascent Soul Stage! Killing her would yield zero returns. But if he could control her... the returns would be endless!

Do it! High risk, high reward!

But how to do it is a technical skill.

Planting a Restriction on her? Don't joke around. He is only at the Foundation Establishment Mid Stage; wanting to plant a soul-restricting technique on a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator is no different from an ant trying to put a collar on an elephant. With a casual tremor of her Divine Soul, she could crush his Restriction into powder and, while she was at it, cause a backlash that would turn him into an idiot.

He must think of a foolproof plan.

Lin Yuan's mind raced, his gaze sweeping across the Immortal Cave. A bold and meticulous plan quickly took shape in his mind.

He pondered for a moment, then flipped his palm, taking out the Materials for setting up a Formation from his Storage Pouch, along with the Little Nine Nether Soul-Bewitching Formation set.

"The Little Nine Nether Soul-Bewitching Formation alone cannot trap a Nascent Soul. But I can use this as a base, and with my attainments as a third-grade Formation Master, add the three variations of Spirit Trapping, Soul Suppressing, and Sealing to set up a composite chain Formation!"

"This way, I can easily trap an Early Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator; furthermore, she is a living target who cannot move!"

Time ticked away second by second. Sweat beaded on Lin Yuan's forehead as his focus reached its Peak. His fingers flew, and complex Formation patterns were precisely carved onto the stone walls and floor of the Immortal Cave. Then, he used threads of spiritual power to perfectly connect the Formation Plate with dozens of Formation Flags.

An hour later, when Lin Yuan carved the final stroke of the Formation pattern, a barely perceptible dark luster flashed across the floor of the entire Immortal Cave, then vanished without a trace.

It was done.

He clapped his hands in satisfaction, found a corner, and pushed his Illusion Transformation Art to the limit. His entire being merged with the shadows, even his heartbeat dropping to its lowest level.

Almost the moment he had hidden himself away, "Crack..." A crisp cracking sound came from the light cocoon in the center of the Immortal Cave.

"Boom!" The light cocoon exploded, turning into dots of light filling the sky.

Yue Qingyao's figure reappeared in the center of the Immortal Cave.

She slowly opened her beautiful eyes, feeling the unprecedentedly abundant mana in her body and the powerful sensation of her injuries being fully healed and returning to her Peak. A look of genuine joy could not help but appear on her cold face.

The poison of Ye Youmeng was indeed overbearing. If not for this nirvana pill refined by Lin Yuan, she would have had to expend a great deal of effort to completely purge the toxin.

As for the nirvana pills, Lin Yuan had refined nine in total back in the Demon Falling Valley; Lin Yuan took three, Yue Qingyao took three, and Su Qinghan took three.

Now, having turned misfortune into a blessing, not only were her injuries healed, but her Cultivation seemed to have even improved.

"Lin Yuan... you little thief, once I find you, I will definitely tear you into ten thousand pieces!"

The killing intent in her eyes surged, and just as she was about to leave, the joy on her face suddenly froze.

She discovered with horror that the mana in her body was flowing outward at an incredible speed, like a floodgate that had been opened!

What is going on? Yue Qingyao was shocked and hurriedly looked inward, only to find that her Dantian and Meridians were intact, with no problems at all.

However, the loss of mana was becoming faster and faster, as if this space itself were a huge, greedy vortex, frantically draining everything from her!

Warning signs blared in her heart. Without a second thought, she turned into a stream of light and attempted to rush out of the Immortal Cave.

"Bang!" She slammed hard into an invisible barrier, was forcibly bounced back, and felt dizzy from the impact.

"A Formation?!" Yue Qingyao's expression changed drastically. She only then realized that, at some unknown time, this small Immortal Cave had been set up with an inescapable net!

She frantically urged her mana, and sharp Sword Qi bombarded in all directions, but it was like a clay ox entering the sea; it only caused slight ripples on the invisible barrier before dissipating without a trace.

And her mana, in the midst of this futile struggle, drained even faster.

In just a quarter of an hour, the terrifying pressure of the Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator on Yue Qingyao had vanished completely.

Her delicate body went limp, and she fell weakly to the ground. All her mana had been drained to the last drop. At this moment, she was no different from a Mortal woman who had no strength to truss a chicken.

How could this happen? Her mind was blank, and her face was filled with disbelief.

Just then, a steady, unhurried sound of footsteps came from the shadows at the cave entrance.

Yue Qingyao suddenly raised her head and looked towards the sound. She saw a familiar figure, backlit, walking slowly towards her with a smiling face. A playful smile hung on his handsome face.

"Senior," Lin Yuan walked up to her, looking down at her from above, and spoke slowly, his voice filled with gratification and teasing: "Long time no see!"

"Lin... Yuan!" Yue Qingyao's teeth ground together with a clatter, her peerlessly beautiful face twisted with extreme anger and humiliation.

She wanted to pounce over and tear the man in front of her into pieces, but her body was empty, unable to mobilize even a shred of mana.

Lin Yuan's smile became even brighter. He squatted down to look at Yue Qingyao at eye level, his voice not loud, but every word was heart-piercing: "Come to think of it, Senior, your ability to recover so quickly is thanks to the nirvana pill I refined. You see, our fate is truly tangled and impossible to cut."

"You... you shameless thief!" Yue Qingyao was trembling with anger, her silver teeth nearly bitten to pieces.

She really could not understand how Lin Yuan had appeared here. The breath-concealing illusion Formation she had set up was extremely powerful; even a fourth-grade Formation Master would find it extremely difficult to infiltrate silently. And as for third-grade Formation Masters, there was only one in the entire Eastern Region, who was usually elusive and rarely seen.

And for a Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator to break the Formation by brute force would also take several days, yet now it had just happened. She, a dignified Nascent Soul Stage Cultivator, had actually been toyed with in the palm of this man's hand! This was even more unbearable than killing her!

"Shameless?" Lin Yuan sneered, "Senior wants to kill me because of everything that happened in the Demon Falling Valley, but at that time, it was Senior who forced me; it was not my wish. I am the victim here."

"Senior is hunting down me, the victim, and calling me shameless? Since the conflict between us can no longer be resolved, then..."

As he spoke, Lin Yuan flicked his hand, and the Spirit Binding Lock wrapped around his wrist turned into a flash of light and shot towards Yue Qingyao.

"How dare you!" Yue Qingyao's face instantly lost all color.

With her discernment, she could naturally see that this Magical Artifact of Lin Yuan's was refined from the dragon tendon of the Frost Bone Flood Dragon in the Demon Falling Valley. If she were trapped by it, she would be completely imprisoned. Then she would truly become a fish on the chopping block, with no possibility of resistance!

"Just watch and see if I dare." The smile on Lin Yuan's face vanished, replaced by a cold indifference.