Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

In the seventh mining area at night, the fire crackled and popped.

After the old woman administered those pots of potent medicine, the effects were immediate. The thousands of young men and children who had been rolling on the ground coughing up blood during the day had now completely recovered from their internal heat and were all fast asleep in the abandoned mine pit.

Even the sounds of the people of the Great Wilderness sleeping have a rough quality to them; their snoring, as coarse as a broken bellows, rises and falls, forming a continuous chorus throughout the camp.

These men, who had been exploited like disposable materials for half their lives, managed to carve out a night of peace from a pile of corpses.

At the windy spot at the very front of the camp.

Lu Chen sat imposingly on the cold, muddy ground. The 110,000-jin (approximately 65,000 kg) Primordial Bone Stele of the Heaven-Suppressing Wilderness stood upright in the pile of rubble beside him.

Lu Chen's current condition is extremely poor.

He breathed very softly, deliberately suppressing even the rise and fall of his chest. Deep within his left lung, the turbid bone stone formed from the poisonous smoke he had inhaled was rebelling wildly.

Green, corrosive venom seeped out little by little from the cracks in the bone, relentlessly eroding the muscles at the edge of his left lung like strong acid. Each extremely restrained breath felt like a barbed file tearing at his lungs.

The veins on Lu Chen's forehead throbbed like thick earthworms.

A sweet taste rose in my throat, and foul-smelling black blood mixed with corrosive green foam was pressing against the back of my throat.

But he gritted his teeth, his cheek muscles hard as stone. With a gulp, Lu Chen swallowed the mouthful of toxic blood that was rotting in his lungs.

His broad back shielded him from the biting wind, and he stood ramrod straight, listening to the snores coming from the camp behind him. He refused to show the slightest sign of weakness or fatigue in front of these survivors who were finally getting a good night's sleep.

In the far distance, amidst the wild grass.

The head of the Immortal Alliance's Enforcement Hall squatted behind a pile of withered yellow grass, tightly clutching a "Blood Vein Mirror" engraved with intricate runes in his hand. The mirror surface gleamed with a faint red light, illuminating Lu Chen's silhouette sitting in the wind.

The hall master's gaze was fixed on Lu Chen's left arm.

There, the once indestructible, dark golden membrane now exuded a withered, grayish aura of death.

"Hahaha! Good! Very good!" The hall master was so excited that his face was contorted, and he let out a sinister laugh in a low voice.

His shameless tactic of keeping the eagle in its perpetual motion worked. The toxic fumes and foul air that the demon from the lower realm had inhaled during the day in the immortal city had indeed taken effect!

The hall master dared not bring his men too close. The tenfold force field of that black monument was no joke; he wasn't going to risk his life to save it.

He reached down and pulled off a dark red beast-taming pouch hanging from his waist. He yanked the opening of the pouch open sharply.

A foul-smelling black wind swept out. Tens of thousands of flying insects, as large as walnuts and with a metallic rust-colored sheen, buzzed as they rose into the night sky.

This is a "bloodthirsty iron wire bee" specially catalyzed by the spiritual energy of the grand formation by the Immortal Alliance.

This thing is extremely vicious; its venomous stingers can ignore any protective true energy and specifically bite into the flesh and blood at the bottom layer by going through the pores.

"Go." The hall master pointed towards the Seventh Mine, his smile cruel. "Go and bleed this Great Wilderness Asura. I want to see if you'll forcefully start the blood furnace and have your internal organs blown to pieces by the poison gas, or if you'll be sucked dry by these bees!"

He intended to use this intense consumption to force Lu Chen to use a large amount of his vital energy, thus accelerating the onset of poison in his heart meridian.

The swarm of bees, propelled by the wind, rushed toward the mining area like a dark cloud.

The piercing buzzing sound instantly shattered the silence around the camp.

Lu Chen sat in the wind and suddenly looked up. Looking at the swarms of wire bees pressing down from the sky, the Supreme Blood Furnace in his chest instinctively roared, and the dark golden pure yang blood fire was about to ignite on his body.

A sudden, excruciating pain, like flesh being ripped out of my bones, shot through the depths of my left lung!

"Sizzle—"

A mouthful of greenish-black blood burst through the obstruction in his throat and overflowed his mouth.

Lu Chen's eyes twitched violently. He knew very well that if he forcibly released his pure yang blood at this moment, the turbid qi bone stone that had been compressed to the extreme in his lungs would shatter on the spot. Once the venom filled all the alveoli, even a Great Luo Golden Immortal couldn't save him.

At the critical moment.

Lu Chen decisively severed all circulation of qi and blood. He forcibly withdrew the Supreme Blood into his bone marrow.

Relying solely on his physical strength, he yanked forward with his large, black, iron hands, grabbing the tattered burlap cloak stained with blood and mud from the ground. He swung his two thick arms in a wide arc, using the cloak as a whip, lashing it wildly in front of him.

Without any true essence or blood fire enhancement, he relied solely on his brute strength.

The tattered cloak was pulled out in mid-air with a sonic boom that tore through the air.

Snapped!Snapped!Snapped!

Large swarms of wire wasps were violently whipped to pieces, their green larvae exploding in mid-air.

But there were simply too many of these venomous insects. The swarm was relentless, frantically squeezing into the gaps in the cloak as it was being waved. Without the protection of his pure Yang blood essence, Lu Chen's bare, broad upper body instantly became an easy target.

Hundreds of sharp, poisonous thorns pierced his dark skin.

The skin of a cultivator skilled in extreme body techniques is indeed tough; even a poisonous stinger cannot penetrate bone. However, the venom of this bloodthirsty iron-wire bee possesses extremely strong paralyzing properties.

Hundreds of poisonous stingers were injected simultaneously. Lu Chen's massive and powerful body suddenly stiffened. His incomparably strong muscles uncontrollably experienced a very brief moment of stagnation and rigidity.

The rhythm of the cloak waving was off by half a beat.

Just a dozen steps behind Lu Chen.

The old man with the missing arm and seven other veterans were dozing off beside a scrap metal cart. The sound of the swarm of bees startled them awake.

The newly grown, deformed bony armor on their bodies still emitted a dark red residual warmth.

The old man grabbed a pickaxe, about to charge forward, but abruptly stopped in his tracks.

Not right.

Normally, Master Lu is the type to slice through flying swords with one hand and smash city gates with a black monument. Why is he cowering in the wind today, using a rag to swat insects? Not even a hint of bloodshed?

The old man craned his neck, using the flickering firelight in the camp to stare at Lu Chen's profile.

Just then, a cold wind blew by.

The old man, with his sharp eyes, clearly saw a trickle of pale green blood flowing from the corner of Lu Chen's mouth on his taut, rugged face. The blood dripped onto the muddy ground, corroding even the broken stones until they foamed white.

The old man's mind went blank. He understood everything.

This fiend of the Great Wilderness exhausted himself during the day to keep those eight crippled men alive, and then went to the Immortal City to steal medicine and inhale the poisonous smoke. Now, risking his own lungs to rot, he's forcibly conserving his life force, using his own body to shield the entire camp from this wave of poisonous insects!

"Damn those celestial lackeys!"

The old man with the missing arm instantly turned red in the eyes, and with his remaining arm, he slammed the pickaxe hard into the ground, letting out a mournful roar like the cry of a cuckoo.

"Master Lu is injured! Old buddies! Let's get him!"

The old man didn't need to say much. The remaining seven physically disabled old miners, who had just crawled back from the brink of death, didn't even hesitate for a moment.

Dragging their severed limbs and sporting their twisted, ugly, and deformed bony armor, they charged towards the wind like eight mad bulls.

Eight old men, whose combined age was several hundred years, huddled together in front of Lu Chen, their hot, pitted, and deformed bone-like backs pressed tightly together.

They used their own flesh and blood to build an impenetrable wall of flesh!

"Buzzing!"

Unable to find an opening in Lu Chen's path, the frenzied wire bees pounced on the eight veterans. Their venomous stings relentlessly pierced through their still-healing flesh.

The old man was in so much pain that he was trembling all over, but he gritted his teeth and stood in front of him, refusing to take a single step back.

"Get the hell out of my way!"

Lu Chen stared at the wall of flesh blocking his way, his eyes turning red. These old bones were already too weak to handle strong tonics; a hit from this poisonous sting would kill them on the spot.

He roared, his large hands reaching out to forcibly pull the old man and the others behind him.

Just then.

Inside the wolfskin pouch hanging on Lu Chen's chest.

Little A-Nan, who had been sleeping soundly, suddenly shifted her small body restlessly. She let out a very faint murmur in her sleep, as if she was afraid of something noisy.

Immediately afterwards, a strange ripple appeared on the surface of the dark golden jade cocoon that enveloped her small body.

Several tiny vortexes appeared on the surface of the jade cocoon. These vortexes carried an extremely savage and devouring power, directly locking onto the chilling poisonous gas brought by the iron wire bees in the air.

Snap. Snap.

The first group of wire bees to land on the ground were immediately exposed to the vortex aura emanating from the jade cocoon.

It was as if they had encountered a natural enemy from the deepest recesses of their primordial bloodline. These spirit insects, which had been raised by the Immortal Alliance to be incredibly ferocious, were now trembling like leaves on the muddy ground. Their wings were completely stiff, and they dared not even take flight.