Li Yan retreated several steps and studied the movement patterns of the eighteen monks. The monks kept circling and wandering within an area less than seven zhang across. This was why Li Yan had been unable to use the Divine Sense-triggered poison of Shattered Twelve before: those people needed to move into the locations where he had laid the poison. Yet these monks had remained tightly clustered in one spot and never ventured elsewhere. Now that the Pure Land Sect monks' spiritual power was nearly depleted, their range of movement had shrunk even further. Li Yan's attempt to trigger the poison with his Divine Sense had thus come to nothing.
The eighteen monks had long been on guard against the Phantom Sect's methods. They had already shut off their six senses and sealed their breathing against the red vapors and green mist in the air; even injuring their eyes was exceedingly difficult. Low-level Qi Condensation Realm cultivators could hold their breath for half an hour with ease. So long as their spiritual power was not being violently expended, they had no need to breathe in spiritual energy at all.
Most of the poison affecting the eighteen monks now possessed extremely strong adhesion and corrosive properties. But directly getting such poison onto their bodies was easier said than done. They had long since erected a protective barrier. Of the thirty-six cultivators' attacks over these dozen-odd breaths, only a very small amount of poison had entered the formation, poisoning merely five of them.
If not for the time limit, Li Yan and the others only needed to continue attacking slowly like this. Once the monks needed to catch their breath and absorb spiritual energy half an hour later, even more deadly poison would flare up. The monks already poisoned inside the formation