After the college entrance examination, my identity as a Mahayana Immortal Venerable could no longer

The cracks in the asphalt road tore along Lu Yuan's toes.

The ground was uprooted. Gravel, as if squeezed by an invisible hydraulic press, flew to both sides with a piercing shriek.

Inside the two armored vehicles blocking the road, the mercenary squad leader felt his scalp tingle.

"Fire!"

Two 12.7 mm heavy machine guns simultaneously spewed out tongues of fire half a meter long.

The bright yellow shell casings cascaded down the ejection port and slammed onto the roof of the vehicle like a waterfall. This heavy firepower, equipped with tungsten steel armor-piercing rounds, could even tear through the frontal armor of a light tank under normal circumstances.

A dense hail of bullets sealed off all the space in front of Lu Yuan.

Lu Yuan did not dodge.

After losing the support of true essence, his physical body, which was at the Mahayana stage, could no longer even use the most basic technique of shrinking the earth to an inch. He was now a purely physical humanoid monster weighing five tons and with a density comparable to a white dwarf star.

Bang bang bang bang!

Hundreds of armor-piercing shells pounded into Lu Yuan's down jacket like a machine gun.

The pure black waterproof fabric was instantly riddled with holes. Shreds of fabric flew wildly in the wind.

The clothes were torn, revealing the skin and flesh underneath.

The blond mercenary gripped the trigger tightly, his eyes fixed on the scene through the scope, when a sudden nausea rose in his stomach.

I can't get through.

Those tungsten steel bullets, powerful enough to tear through steel plates, struck the young man's chest, neck, and even face, producing not the sound of flesh shattering, but rather an extremely dull clanging sound.

The moment the bullet made contact with the skin, its enormous kinetic energy had nowhere to go, and it directly compressed itself into irregular, flat copper discs.

Splash!

The deformed bullet heads fell like rain at Lu Yuan's feet. He didn't even blink, and his pace didn't change at all.

"What the hell is that monster...?! RPG! Get me a rocket launcher!"

The squad leader slammed the walkie-talkie onto the control panel, his voice cracking as if it had been sanded.

Before the mercenaries in the back could even pick up their rocket launchers, Lu Yuan had already walked to the front of the first armored vehicle.

He stopped in his tracks.

Looking at the composite armor plate in front of me, which is 70 millimeters thick.

Lu Yuan extended his right hand. His five fingers were spread open.

He didn't gather any strength, nor did he adopt any ancient martial arts stance. He simply pushed forward.

puff.

Five fingers pierced through the composite armor without any resistance, like cutting a piece of over-fermented butter.

Before the mercenaries in the carriage could react, they saw five fingers covered in iron filings protruding from the metal wall.

Lu Yuan flipped his wrist and grabbed the edge of the armor plate.

During the Mahayana stage, the leg muscle groups contract instantly.

creak-

The piercing metallic creaking drowned out the roar of the heavy machine gun.

The armored vehicle, weighing over ten tons, had all four wheels off the ground at the same time. With a single arm's effort, Lu Yuan uprooted the metal lump from the ground and slammed it down on the armored vehicle behind it like a brick.

boom!

The two armored vehicles collided. The fuel tanks ruptured, and flames shot into the sky. More than a dozen mercenaries were crushed into a bloody pulp before they could even scream.

Lu Yuan pulled his left hand out of his pocket and patted the black ash off his right hand.

"The first dish."

He stepped over the burning wreckage of armor and continued walking towards the martial arts arena in the center of the basin.

Behind the martial arts arena, in an underground temporary command post.

Steve tilted the coffee cup in his hand at an angle. A few drops of scalding, brownish-red liquid spilled onto his silk handkerchief, but he didn't even glance at them.

On the big screen, footage of the outer defense line being torn apart by a single person with one hand was playing on a loop.

Wang Hai, the second master of the Wang family, clenched his molars so hard they made a grinding sound.

"Didn't you say he'd run out of tricks?! He withstood an armor-piercing bullet with his bare body—even a peak-level martial artist in the ancient martial arts world couldn't do that! What kind of martial arts is this kid?!"

Wang Hai's hand rested on the hilt of the knife at his waist, his palms sweating profusely.

Steve took out a handkerchief and slowly wiped the coffee stains off his fingers.

"Second Master Wang, what's the panic?"

Steve stared at Lu Yuan's figure getting closer and closer on the screen.

"There are no energy fluctuations. The probe data from the Celestial Surveillance Bureau doesn't lie. He overturned the armored vehicle just now entirely with pure physical muscle strength. This proves that our intelligence was correct; he doesn't even have a drop of cultivation essence in his body right now."

Steve pressed a red button on the control panel.

"For anything purely physical, the conglomerate's labs can provide a perfect solution. He's strong? Let's see if his bones are harder, or if his astral metal is harder."

The outer perimeter of the martial arts arena.

Lu Yuan walked to the base of the twelve black metal towers, each fifty meters tall.

The purple arcs of electricity overhead had intertwined into a massive web of lightning. The ozone in the air was thick and pungent.

Directly in front of this huge stone platform, which covers several thousand square meters, is a spacious plaza.

Gara-la-la.

The twelve alloy grid panels on the plaza floor slid open to both sides simultaneously.

Heavy breathing sounds came from underground.

With a snapping sound of breaking chains, twelve enormous creatures crawled out of the underground passage.

These monsters were over three meters tall. Not an inch of their skin was intact; the exposed muscle fibers had a sickly dark red color. Most striking were their bones; through the gaps in their flesh, one could see that the surface of their bones shimmered with fine silver specks.

Steve's voice blared from the loudspeakers around the square, carrying a condescending and mocking tone.

"Lu Yuan, welcome to the grave that the conglomerate has tailored for you."

"You've lost that magical ability to extract souls from the sky; now you're just a savage who only knows how to use brute force. These twelve S-class mutants have had their bones filled with powdered star-refined meteorite. Their bone density is fifty times that of high-carbon steel."

The sound from the loudspeaker paused for a moment.

"It cost 12 billion US dollars to build. If you die at their hands, your trip won't have been in vain."

Lu Yuan stood still.

He looked at the muscular monsters, drooling and pawing the ground like mad bulls. His gaze fell on the silver specks shimmering on their bones.

"Starry Gold".

Lu Yuan twitched the corner of his mouth.

"Take the top-grade materials used to repair high-level magic weapons and feed them to a few low-level zombies that haven't evolved yet."

He looked up at the surveillance camera not far away.

"You bunch of foreign trash really don't understand what it means to waste resources."

Roar!

The mutant closest to Lu Yuan launched the first attack.

The massive, three-meter-tall body brought with it a gust of foul wind. Its fist, larger than a clay pot, whistled through the air as it hurtled straight down towards Lu Yuan's head. The force of that punch would have flattened even a heavy truck on the spot.

Lu Yuan didn't even try to dodge.

He even put his hands back into the pockets of his jacket.

boom!

The mutant's heavy punch landed squarely on Lu Yuan's forehead.

No brain matter splattered. No bones were broken.

in contrast.

A crisp snapping sound.

The mutant's thick arm, infused with star-gold powder, twisted into a contorted Z-shape from the wrist. Broken, dark red muscle, mixed with silver bone spurs, pierced its own shoulder with a sickening thud.

The monster let out a piercing scream and retreated repeatedly.

Lu Yuan touched his forehead where he had been hit. There wasn't even a red mark left.

The bone density of a Mahayana stage cultivator is something that has withstood the baptism of ninefold lightning tribulation. Let alone mutated bones mixed with a little star essence powder, even a whole piece of pure star essence ore would be smashed by this body.

"12 billion US dollars."

Lu Yuan stepped forward.

The weight of the Great Vehicle stage cultivator pressed down on the ground. His footsteps left a half-meter-deep imprint on the granite plaza.

He reached out his right hand and grabbed the neck of the mutant whose arm had been severed.

Five fingers dug directly into the monster's cervical vertebrae.

"All they produced was this pile of scrap metal."

Lu Yuan exerted force with his wrist and pulled it outwards.

puff!

He forcefully pulled a meter-long silver spine, stained with black blood and bits of flesh, from the monster's back.

The mutant, stripped of its spine, collapsed to the ground like a lump of mud, twitched twice, and then fell completely still.

Inside the underground command post.

The coffee cup in Steve's hand fell to the ground with a crash and shattered into pieces.

His meticulously groomed face was now completely contorted. His eyes, behind his gold-rimmed glasses, nearly popped out of their sockets.

"This is impossible..."

Steve gripped the edge of the console tightly. His fingernails were so hard they curled up and bled.

"A billion-dollar cost... a skeleton made of Star Essence Gold... and he pulled it out with his bare hands? What kind of hydraulic equipment did he use? This is definitely not the kind of force that human muscles can achieve!"

Wang Hai was completely dumbfounded.

His pride in his knowledge of ancient martial arts was utterly crushed at that moment. He clearly saw that Lu Yuan hadn't used any internal energy or qi at all; it was purely a brutal physical pull.

"This is no useless person who has exhausted all his trump cards."

Wang Hai's voice was trembling.

"This is a fucking ancient beast in human skin! Quick! Get the remaining eleven of them together! Tear him to pieces!"

on the square.

The remaining eleven mutants, smelling the blood of their companions, went completely berserk. They pounced on Lu Yuan from all directions.

Lu Yuan weighed the silver spine in his hand.

It's too light.

However, it's good enough to be used as a dog-beating stick.

He gripped one end of his spine with his other hand. Facing the oncoming horde of monsters, he swung it around and smashed it down.

boom!

The mutant running at the front had its chest caved in by the blow. Its ribs, infused with refined gold, snapped one by one, the broken bones piercing its heart. Its massive body flew dozens of meters like a tattered sack, crashing heavily onto the edge of the martial arts platform.

Lu Yuan exerted force with his feet.

His entire body transformed into a black afterimage.

There are no fancy moves.

It's the purest form of physical violence.

A single blow can break a thigh. A single slap can shatter a skull. Fingers can be turned into claws, tearing open the opponent's chest, skin and bone intact.

These monsters, revered as ultimate weapons in the conglomerate's laboratories, were barely more than paper targets in Lu Yuan's hands. Those star-gold skeletons, touted as being on a pedestal, were as brittle as decades-old rotten wood under the crushing power of Lu Yuan's Mahayana stage.

Less than two minutes.

The square fell silent.

The floor was littered with dark red bits of flesh and broken silver bones. Black blood seeped into the sewers through the cracks in the granite.

Lu Yuan stood amidst the pile of corpses.

The spine in his hand was completely deformed from the beating.

He casually tossed the scrap metal on the ground. Stepping over clumps of mangled flesh, he walked to the very bottom of the martial arts platform.

The lightning bolts overhead grew increasingly violent. The purple flashes of electricity turned the basin a ghastly white.

Lu Yuan raised his head.

In the very center of the martial arts stage, a disheveled figure was tied to a thick bronze pillar.

The person had their head down and was wearing a tattered white robe. It looked exactly like the clothes Ye Qingcheng usually wore.

"Lu Yuan!"

A voice came from the loudspeaker again. This time it wasn't Steve, but Wang Hai.

Wang Hai's voice carried a sense of desperate madness.

"So what if you're physically invincible! Look who's tied up on this platform! If you dare take one step onto the martial arts stage, twelve lightning pillars will turn that woman and you into charred remains!"

"This Heavenly Thunder Array connects to the underground dragon veins of the capital, its power comparable to a tactical nuclear bomb. Without any protective magic weapon, let's see what you can withstand it!"

Lu Yuan looked at the figure on the platform.

His eyesight allows him to see the patterns on a mosquito's wings from a kilometer away.

Although the person had disheveled hair, judging from the width of their frame and the degree of muscle atrophy, it was definitely not Ye Qingcheng.

Instead, it was Ye Hongyu, who had been cursed with a soul-devouring curse and was supposed to be waiting to die in the Ye family's basement.

These idiots used a discarded pawn, driven insane by the Death Curse, as bait.

Lu Yuan placed his hand on the granite railing at the edge of the martial arts platform.

The power of the Mahayana stage is slowly injected.

Click.

The entire section of railing, which was over ten meters long, was shattered into dust by Lu Yuan's hands.

"You take a few broken lightning rods and draw some static electricity from the earth's veins. You dare to call it a lightning strike array in front of me?"

Lu Yuan's voice wasn't loud, but with the support of his terrifying lung capacity at the Mahayana stage, the sound waves, like solid matter, penetrated the ground and crashed into the underground command post.

"Since you guys like playing with electricity so much..."

Lu Yuan's right leg was slightly bent.

High-density bone and muscle fibers contract to a critical point.

"I'm cutting off your internet today."

boom!

Lu Yuan stomped heavily on the load-bearing wall of the martial arts platform.

He didn't hold back with this kick. The terrifying mass of over five tons, with an initial velocity that broke the sound barrier, was all poured onto the granite pedestal.

The earth is shaking and the mountains are shaking.

The entire basin shook violently.

A massive crack, two meters wide, burst open from where Lu Yuan had landed, like a furious earth dragon, slicing straight through the base of the entire martial arts platform.

Ten meters thick high-grade cement and granite disintegrated under absolute physical force.

The twelve metal towers, having lost the support of their foundations, began to tilt violently.

The purple lightning net overhead, poised to strike, instantly lost control due to the shift in the array's focal point. The raging lightning no longer aimed at the bronze pillar in the center of the platform, but instead flowed down the tilting pillar and directly into the ground.

Inside the underground command post.

The alarms blared incessantly. Red emergency lights flashed wildly.

Large chunks of cement debris kept falling from the ceiling.

Steve and Wang Hai were thrown to the ground by the violent tremors.

"He's gone mad! He's going to tear down the entire foundation!"

Wang Hai scrambled and stumbled towards the door.

Steve clung tightly to the metal leg of the control panel, staring blankly at the black-clad man on the big screen who was breaking down a load-bearing wall with his bare hands.

Above the martial arts stage.

The crack extended all the way down, tearing through the protective layer thirty meters underground.

Lu Yuan stood at the edge of the abyss, looking down.

There are no sewers below.

There was only one black, icy pool, over five meters in diameter and seemingly bottomless. Floating on its surface were countless human bones. And in the very center of the pool, a massive fragment of a boundary stone, radiating a blood-red light, throbbed wildly with the tremors of the earth's veins.

On that boundary stone, a huge, bloodshot eye stared intently at Lu Yuan, separated by thirty meters of earth.

Interdimensional passage in the Sirius star system.

The Wang family and the S.H.I.E.L.D. were making such a big fuss not to kill anyone. They were using the energy of the Heavenly Thunder Array to forcibly power up this eye.

Lu Yuan looked at the eye in the cold pool.

Greed and fanaticism shone in its eyes. The space around it had begun to distort, and the blood-red starry sky opposite could be vaguely seen.

The passage will be opened soon.

Lu Yuan picked up a mutated thigh bone, more than two meters long and mixed with star gold, from where he was standing.

He gripped the bone with one hand, and his wrist, honed by the power of a Mahayana practitioner, suddenly exerted force.

Whoosh!

This silver bone, weighing several hundred kilograms, shot straight down into the icy pool thirty meters below, like an armor-piercing bullet.

The bone was precisely inserted three inches above the fragment of the boundary stone.

Lu Yuan patted the dust off his hands.

The tower collapsed. A torrent of lightning, flowing out of control, followed the star-refined gold bone that had served as a super lightning rod, crashing into the boundary stone at the bottom of the icy pool.