Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

The rain was torrential.

The mud alleys outside Xuanni City were completely submerged in murky mud.

The severed limbs left from the daytime turmoil had been washed white and swollen by the rain. The dark red blood on the ground flowed along the uneven brick seams into the stinking ditches on both sides of the muddy alley, mixing with swill and flowing out of the city.

Apart from the dull thud of raindrops hitting the ground, the only other sound in the muddy alley was the suppressed sobbing.

Those ordinary people huddled under the leaky thatched eaves, not even daring to cry out loud.

A group of immortal city guards, clad in heavy black iron armor, waded through the puddles and strode into the muddy alley.

The heavy armor plates rubbed against each other with each step, making a harsh, metallic clanging sound.

The guards at the front were utterly impolite.

He raised his iron-plated combat boots and kicked hard at a dilapidated wooden door by the roadside.

The door collapsed with a crash, sending splinters flying everywhere.

The guard stepped over the threshold and drew his standard long sword from his waist.

He didn't use the sharp blade at all; instead, he swung the broad back of the blade and smashed it hard down on the back of the gaunt mortal who was walking towards him from inside the house.

The crisp sound of bones breaking followed.

Before the mortal could even utter a single word of pleading, he screamed and collapsed into the mud, rolling twice.

The guard stepped forward, stomped on his head, and shoved it into the mud.

"Pay the money."

"Tomorrow is the Festival for Offering Sacrifices to the Immortals, so hand over all the taxes now."

"If you're short even a single copper coin, I'll tear you to pieces right now and throw you outside the city to feed the wild dogs."

The mortal wept bitterly, half his face was stomped into the mud, and he struggled desperately to raise one hand.

"Sir! Sir, please have mercy!"

"My wife has been sick for half a month, and we really don't have a single penny left..."

The guard snorted coldly and suddenly increased the force of his foot.

"Stop trying to fool me with this nonsense."

Another guard rushed into the inner room, and a series of sounds of ransacking and smashing followed.

A moment later, the guard came out carrying a few shriveled, coarse flatbreads and a few pieces of blackened silver.

"Boss, that's all we found."

The guard, who was standing on the mortal's head, snatched the silver from the mortal, weighed it, and looked disgusted.

"You cheapskate."

He kicked the mortal on the ground away and turned to walk towards the next house.

Throughout the entire muddy alley, the sounds of kicking doors and smashing echoed continuously.

In the stinking ditch at the end of the muddy alley.

A fat body was soaking in blackened swill.

This is Deacon Zhao, whose legs were broken during the day.

His once-shiny clothes were now tattered into strips, covered in green moss and mud.

That terrifying kick during the day crushed his kneecap into powder.

Now, the broken kneecap stands pale and protruding from the skin and flesh, inflamed from being soaked in dirty water, the surrounding flesh rolled up, emitting a foul stench.

The guards swaggered past him.

Some people even deliberately took large strides, kicking up mud from the ditch with their boots, splashing it directly onto Deacon Zhao's face.

These low-ranking guards, who usually bowed and scraped and smiled obsequiously at him, didn't even give him a second glance.

In this city ruled by the immortal sect, only their utilitarian value matters.

A cripple with broken legs and no status is not even as good as a stray dog ​​barking on the roadside.

Deacon Zhao was in so much pain that his whole body was convulsing, and his teeth were grinding together.

He struggled to turn over in the stinking ditch and just then saw the guard commander leading the team walking along the main street.

A sudden gleam burst from Deacon Zhao's sunken eyes.

He frantically waved his fat hands, which were covered in stinking mud and had black grime under his fingernails.

"My lord!"

"Commander Zhang! Help! Take me back to the inner city!"

He shouted at the top of his lungs, his voice completely hoarse and filled with sobs.

"I also have two low-grade spirit stones buried underground near the City Lord's Mansion! They're all yours!"

"Just pull me out of this quagmire!"

The guard commander stopped in his tracks.

He turned his head and looked down at the writhing lump of fat in the stinking ditch.

A screeching sound of extreme disgust came from his throat.

"Pooh."

A mouthful of thick, yellow phlegm was spat out of the commander's mouth, landing precisely on Deacon Zhao's face and trickling down his nose.

The commander's face was full of disdain.

"Who do you think you are?"

"The breach in the inner city needs to be filled. The city lord just lost his temper and is worried about not being able to find a scapegoat."

"You crippled dog with a broken leg, stay in the outer city and wait to feed those monsters attracted by the blood energy."

The commander started walking again, stepping through puddles as he strode away.

Deacon Zhao wiped the thick phlegm and mud off his face.

A desperate howl exploded in the rainy night, the mournful cry echoing back and forth in the muddy alley, but no one paid any attention to him.

Behind the neighboring courtyard wall, which had collapsed halfway.

Old Zhang huddled tightly in the corner.

He held his seven-year-old grandson tightly in his arms.

The sounds of kicking the door, screams, and Deacon Zhao's wails mingled with the piercing sound of the rain outside, all pouring into the dilapidated courtyard.

The grandson was so frightened that he trembled all over.

Tears and snot covered her face, and her little mouth was open, about to burst into tears.

Old Zhang's calloused hand suddenly reached out and covered his grandson's mouth.

It was covered up very tightly.

I could barely breathe.

Be quiet.

Don't make a sound.

The old man's eyes bulged out due to extreme tension, and the veins on his forehead throbbed.

He was holding his breath, his breath stuck in his throat.

In this world, even the slightest cry from an ordinary person can lead to their death.

The guard commander's combat boots crushed the broken tiles at the courtyard gate.

The commander stood in the rain, not in a hurry to go into the courtyard.

His voice, imbued with the true energy from his dantian, pierced through the rain and echoed in every corner of the muddy alley.

"The City Lord has given an order!"

"Today, demonic cultivators instigated chaos and destroyed the inner city walls!"

"The taxes for all mortals in the outer city will be tripled tomorrow!"

"Those who can't hand it over will have their entire families' lives used to fill the formation's foundation!"

These words were spoken.

The sobbing in the alley instantly turned into desperate wails.

Some people banged their heads against the mud wall, while others collapsed to the ground unconscious.

Triple the price?

The original double offerings were enough to force them to sell their children.

This is now cutting off everyone's chance of survival.

The commander strode into Old Zhang's courtyard, which was half collapsed.

He held the several money bags he had just looted from other people's houses in his hand, the coins clinking together with a clattering sound.

He walked to the corner.

"Old man, give me the money."

If this had happened yesterday, or in previous decades...

Old Zhang's knees had already gone weak, and he collapsed directly into the muddy water.

He would bang his forehead until it bled while crying and begging the immortals to grant him a few more days' grace.

But today.

Old Zhang sat in that pile of mud.

It leans against the dilapidated earthen wall.

He did not kneel down.

Those cloudy eyes stared straight at the fully armed commander in front of him.

His legs were not bent.

Even his back didn't hunch over as he usually did.

He just sat there quietly, holding his grandson in his arms, letting the rain wash over his wrinkled old face.

The commander was taken aback.

He clearly hadn't expected that a country bumpkin from the outer city would dare to look him directly in the eye.

However, he had made enough money tonight that he was too lazy to even bother cursing.

The commander snorted and kicked over the chipped, broken pottery jar next to him.

The earthenware jar was broken into several pieces.

"Give me the money, or I'll have to take action."

Old Zhang remained silent.

With trembling hands, he took out all the loose silver coins he had prepared beforehand from his tattered pocket.

The commander grabbed the silver coins, put them in his money bag, and weighed them.

"You old bones know what's good for you."

"There will be double the share tomorrow."

"If I can't raise enough money, I'll personally throw you, you son of a bitch, into the furnace."

The commander cursed a couple of times, then turned and stepped out of the courtyard gate, heading towards the next house.

The footsteps faded into the distance.

Old Zhang's tense muscles instantly relaxed.

He released his hand from his grandson's mouth.

He collapsed into the mud, panting heavily.

His chest heaved violently.

All I could breathe in was the smell of cold rain and the earthy stench of soil.

He lived for over sixty years.

Never before had I felt that the guardians of the immortal city standing in front of me were not so scary.

Old Zhang's hands trembled as he reached into the deepest part of his soaked clothes.

He carefully pulled something out.

It was an object wrapped in three layers of rags.

He moved very gently, afraid of damaging the contents.

The rag was untied layer by layer.

A piece of black stone, about the size of an adult's fist, lay quietly in my palm.

There was also a dried, dark red bloodstain on it.

During the day, the boy named Lu Chen forcefully uprooted the 30,000-jin town road monument.

The foundation stone at the bottom has cracked open.

This is a piece of debris that fell from the very bottom of the stele.

After the huge road stele was dragged away during the day.

The mortals within a few hundred feet were so frightened that they lay prostrate on the ground, not daring to even lift their heads.

Only Old Zhang.

He was in the pouring rain, using all four limbs.

He crawled on his knees along the muddy main street to the deep pit that had been forcibly dug out.

The pit was filled with overflowing water and broken bricks.

Old Zhang frantically dug in the mud.

He was completely unaware that all ten of his fingernails were curled up and that blood had mixed with the mud.

He disregarded everything and desperately searched through the ruins at the very bottom.

at last.

He dug out the fragment of the monument, stained with Lu Chen's extreme Dao blood and qi, from the deepest mud.

At this moment.

Rough, stiff fingers gently caressed the wild rock patterns on the stone's surface.

The numbness and fear that had seeped into Zhang Laozhang's bones were no longer there.

Those immortals who usually reside high in the inner city and frequently unleash heavenly punishments.

The array walls they used to defend against demonic beasts were knocked down by a mortal.

The town's protective stele, which they had used to oppress mortals for a hundred years, was torn down by a shirtless mortal.

So these things can be destroyed too.

The old man lowered his head.

Looking at her grandson who was still sobbing in her arms.

He forcefully shoved the blood-stained black gravel into his grandson's muddy little hand.

Two large, calloused hands tightly enveloped their grandson's small, tender hands.

He held it very tightly.

The old man lowered his head, his face close to his grandson's ear.

The voice was kept extremely low.

Yet it possessed a power never before seen.

"grandson."

"Remember this for Grandpa."

Even the bones of immortals can be broken.