Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

Sparks flew everywhere outside the city lord's mansion square.

Suddenly, crimson light illuminated the long street from all directions. Those rogue cultivators who had been hiding in the dark alleys trying to escape had their chests cleanly ripped open, a blinding line of fire branding the center of their sternums. This line of fire was connected to their heart meridians; if even the slightest thought of retreat crossed their minds, their hearts would convulse violently.

Screams erupted simultaneously in dozens of streets and alleys.

A large number of low-level rogue cultivators couldn't control their legs and scrambled onto the main street. They clutched tattered magical artifacts, tears streaming down their faces. This was the Immortal Alliance's method of establishing rules. The bounty was merely bait; once accepted, their lives were no longer their own. If they didn't strive for advancement, the contract would immediately sever their will.

A huge, dense crowd blocked Lu Chen's way out.

Lu Chen stood still. He leaned on the 110,000-jin (approximately 65,000 kg) Primordial Fiend Tablet of the Heaven-Suppressing Desolate Bone with one hand on the bluestone slab. The Heavy Abyss Force Field was activated, only the outermost ring. The violent weight swept across the ground.

thump! thump!

The first row of rogue cultivators rushed to their knees, the cracking of their kneecaps echoing throughout the room. Lu Chen didn't go all out and crush them into a pulp. His senses, as a cultivator of the Ultimate Body Cultivation, were extremely sharp; he saw everything clearly. Among these people, some had faces full of scars, while others wore old, patched-up Daoist robes, their flying swords inferior even to ordinary iron—a bunch of penniless wretch who had been coerced into using them as shields.

One of the gaunt, rogue cultivators kneeling at the front couldn't withstand the immense pressure. He threw down the broken piece of iron in his hand, collapsed onto the muddy ground, and wailed loudly.

"Great Wilderness Lord! Stop pressing!" The gaunt, rogue cultivator banged his head against the ground repeatedly. "The Immortal Master forced us to borrow the sect's 'Foundation Establishment Spiritual Breath Loan'! The interest keeps compounding, we'll never be able to pay it off in several lifetimes! If we can't pay it off, our whole family will be sent to the City Lord's mansion's corpse-refining furnace to have their oil extracted!"

The gaunt, rogue cultivator pointed to the fire line on his chest, his face filled with despair.

"They said that as long as we accept this bounty, no matter what, the interest next month will be wiped out! We're being forced into this mess! We really have no other way to survive!"

Lu Chen grinned, letting out a short, cold laugh. His large black iron boots creaked as they trod on the gravel. He carried the monument, looking down at the herd of immortal beasts.

"Forced into it?" A rough voice echoed through the street, shaking the windows of the shops on both sides. "Then you'll have to pay for it yourself."

Lu Chen raised his right hand, his thick fingers pointing at the group of people on the ground.

"Who has killed the merchants of Xiatu? Who has set fire to the trucks transporting medicine? Step forward yourselves." Lu Chen's jawline bulged with a muscular clench. "If you utter even half a wrong word, I'll crush your collarbones and cripple your sword-wielding hands."

At the back of the crowd, several neatly dressed cultivators hunched their shoulders and desperately tried to squeeze into the throng. They wanted to take advantage of the poor ghosts in front drawing attention and slip out of the range of the Heavy Abyss Force Field.

The old merchant following behind Lu Chen had sharp eyes and immediately spotted one of the men with a scar on his face. The old merchant pointed at the man, trembling with anger, his voice cracking.

"Master Lu! It's that scarred-face guy! Yesterday at Black Sand Pass outside the city, he's the one who severed the Achilles tendons of more than a dozen of our caravan members with a single sword strike! He was also the one who led the men to burn those foxtail grasses!"

Seeing that things were not going well, Scarface threw out two earth-遁 (earth-遁) talismans and tried to run away.

The talisman had just begun to glow when Lu Chen strode forward, his heavy black iron boots slamming into the ground. The entire street's bluestone slabs buckled and sprang up. Scarface was sent flying into the air by the shockwave, instantly captured by the Heavy Abyss Force Field. With a muffled thud, the thugs were slammed heavily at Lu Chen's feet.

Scarface was terrified and lay on the ground frantically kowtowing, begging for mercy.

Without uttering a single unnecessary word, Lu Chen raised his large foot and stomped down hard.

With a few cracking sounds, Scarface and his accomplice's kneecaps shattered instantly. Before they could even finish their screams, Lu Chen's large hand slammed into their dantian. A surge of dark gold blood energy rippled through them, shattering their true energy seas and rendering them completely useless.

Lu Chen flicked his toe, kicking the crippled men, who were writhing on the ground in pain, in front of the old merchant and a few porters.

"The grudges of the Great Wilderness are beyond the judgment of the immortals." Lu Chen released his grip on the giant monument. "Take a pickaxe and avenge them yourself."

The old merchant and several porters had bloodshot eyes and heaving chests. Normally, they were trampled underfoot by these cultivators, never daring to lift their heads. Now, seeing their enemies lying in the mud, the porters roared. They raised their modified flying swords and pickaxes, using no magical magic, only the sheer force of their arms. The pickaxes slammed down, blood splattering, releasing the pent-up hatred of half a lifetime.

Lu Chen turned around and looked at the remaining rogue cultivators huddled together, tormented by the contractual fire. The Supreme Blood Furnace in his chest roared loudly.

The large black iron boots slammed heavily on the ground once more.

This kick carried an undisguised, ferocious bloodlust. Lu Chen bit his tongue, forcing out a mouthful of pure Yang essence blood. Blood mist sprayed into the air. Lu Chen spread his arms wide, and ancient runes flashed wildly on his dark skin. The blood mist instantly transformed into hundreds of dark golden blood imprints, carrying incomparably domineering heat, directly slamming into the chests of the group of rogue cultivators in front of him.

The rogue cultivators who had borrowed money let out a scream.

But this pain lasted only a moment. The Primordial Blood Fire entered their bodies, ruthlessly crashing into the fiery line of the Immortal Alliance Contract at their hearts. That so-called unsolvable loan contract established by the immortals was completely devoured on the spot before the most primal and pure extreme blood energy.

The fire was extinguished. In its place was a dark red [Pure Yang Blood Mark], deeply branded in the center of their sternum.

The gaunt, rogue cultivator kneeling on the ground was the first to react. He not only discovered that the excruciating, skin-peeling pain had completely disappeared, but even more terrifyingly, the pure yang blood mark branded on his chest was now continuously supplying an extremely domineering warmth into his limbs and bones.

These low-level rogue cultivators practiced the lowest-quality cultivation techniques bestowed upon them by the immortal sects. Their meridians had long been frozen solid by the mottled spiritual energy they had absorbed over the years. Now, with this surge of supreme blood energy entering, it directly warmed up all their frozen meridians! The speed of their true essence circulation doubled compared to usual!

These rogue cultivators, who had been borrowing money, all stared wide-eyed, clutching the bloodstains on their chests, their faces a mixture of fear and fanaticism. They had been exploited by the Immortal Alliance for half their lives, treated like expendable resources. They never imagined that today, in the hands of a universally hated demon from the lower realms, they would experience firsthand what it truly meant to protect their essence and strengthen their foundation.

Lu Chen looked at the group of bewildered cultivators and revealed his gleaming white teeth.

"Listen up, all of you!" Lu Chen's gruff roar drowned out the noise of the entire street. "My blood isn't free!"

He pointed to the marks on their chests and continued his rant.

"This bloodstain will protect you from the backlash of the immortal contract and keep you alive! Now, all of you, get to work! After you finish this trip, I'll unseal you. If you dare to run away halfway, may your hearts be consumed by blood and fire!"

The rogue cultivators dared not complain in the slightest. This was equivalent to exchanging a day of hard labor for a life, and even having their meridians cleansed in the process. The group of people knelt down in the mud and water, completely resigned to their fate.

The problem now is how to get so much medicine out.

A dozen or so spirit wood palanquins used to transport large magical artifacts were parked in front of the shops in the inner city. These palanquins were locked with arrays and, without a special jade token from the city lord's mansion, their wheels couldn't even turn.

Lu Chen walked to a huge cargo cart, not even bothering to find the key to breaking the formation. He raised his fist, as big as a sandbag, a flash of dark golden light, and slammed it into the thick axle.

*Crack!* The incredibly hard spirit wood axle snapped in two instantly, and the array patterns shattered.

Lu Chen gripped the edge of the chassis with both hands and forcefully lifted it up. He completely removed all the obstructing side panels and wheel rims from the cargo carts, leaving only the widest and flattest section—the load-bearing undercarriage. He dismantled more than a dozen carts in succession, piecing the undercarriages together with the broken side panels. Then, he grabbed the roughest hemp rope from the street and tied dozens of knots in front of the undercarriage. A rudimentary yet enormous ground-dragging sled was thus cobbled together by him.

The old merchant, along with his porters, hurriedly piled up the several thousand catties of foxtail grass and bitter vines they had snatched from the livestock shed. The rogue cultivators who had been bound and bruised earlier were now more eager than anyone else. They automatically put hemp ropes around their shoulders, hunched over, circulating their inner energy, treating themselves as the most uncouth porters in the mortal realm.

"Start!" the gaunt rogue cultivator shouted. More than a hundred cultivators pulled forward with all their might, the huge load-bearing base scraping against the bluestone slab with a teeth-grinding sound, slowly moving the mountain full of herbs.

The thin boy whom Lu Chen had rescued earlier poked his head out from the pile of sacks. He pointed to the south of the Immortal City.

"Big guy, there's still a batch of coarse salt under the livestock shed in the south of the city that wasn't recorded in their ledger!" The boy's voice was hoarse but his words were clear. "That coarse salt is key to treating internal heat; without it, just eating cold grass won't suppress the underlying fever!"

Lu Chen nodded. He didn't follow the herb convoy. Instead, he turned around, carrying the 110,000-jin (approximately 55,000 kg) Primordial Fiend Tablet of the Heaven-Suppressing Desolate Bone upside down in one hand, and strode to the center of the main street. His large black iron boots stopped, and a thick black iron chain wrapped around his wrist several times. He intended to block this main street alone, covering the retreating troops.

Just as this convoy carrying a huge amount of supplies had moved a few blocks...

Suddenly, an extremely piercing sound came from the direction of the south gate behind the immortal city.

The first batch of Immortal Alliance Enforcers returning from the outer camp finally arrived. But this group didn't charge directly. In the Enforcers' camp, dozens of itinerant healers and soothing women, their necks chained with steel chains, were brutally kicked to the ground at the front of the street.

The leading law enforcement officer, holding a magic hand seal, placed several bloodstained flying swords against the necks of this group of mortal healers.

"Prepare the medicine!" The enforcer's face was contorted, his voice filled with a ruthless, insane cruelty. "Right here, use those poison dregs to prepare my 'Bone-Burning Powder'!"

"That scoundrel of the lower realms is so protective of his own! Today I'll make him watch helplessly as these lowly people he's protecting spread poison powder all over the street!"