Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

The outer perimeter of Broken Immortal Mountain.

The dull thud of hooves completely shattered the original tracks in the woodland.

Thirty heavily armored cavalrymen in black iron formed an extremely sharp cone-shaped formation and were forcibly advancing into the depths of the dense miasma.

The massive armored rhinoceros strides with its thick limbs.

With each thud of its massive hooves, the thorny bushes blocking its path were crushed into mud.

The perennial gray miasma surrounding them was forcefully pushed aside by this violent surge of air, making it impossible for it to close up again.

The rotten leaves that had accumulated on the ground for hundreds of years, along with the silt underneath, were all brutally crushed and squeezed dry.

None of these knights riding on the backs of rhinoceroses were ordinary soldiers.

They were all martial artists who had achieved minor success in body refinement.

Solid muscles stretched the half-inch-thick layer of black iron armor, making it bulge.

The thick armor was engraved with blast-resistant runes to withstand magical impacts.

These thirty cavalrymen could withstand even a barrage of fireballs and wind blades from cultivators in the Qi Refining stage without sustaining a scratch.

This is the absolute trump card that the Lord of Xuanni City has kept hidden, the strongest force he usually uses to suppress the riots of monsters in the surrounding area.

Now, this trump card has been fully revealed.

Directly above the array.

A purple figure stood atop a top-grade flying sword, hovering steadily in mid-air, slowing down the entire team's advance.

Chen Yuanshan was wearing an expensive purple robe.

Three feet above their heads hung a luminous pearl emitting a cold white light.

The jewel's light pierced through the dim light in the woods.

This Foundation Establishment stage retainer from Xuanni City stood with his hands behind his back, not bothering to hide his arrogance.

Chen Yuanshan snorted coldly and flicked away a withered leaf that was stuck to the hem of his robe.

"If it weren't for the secret treasure in the hands of that severely wounded old demon, would this desolate place even deserve my filthy flying sword?"

The heavily armored cavalry below only focused on urging their mounts forward, and no one dared to respond.

Although Chen Yuanshan was full of arrogance, he remained extremely vigilant as he strode across the flying sword.

An old fox who can live to the Foundation Establishment stage in the cultivation world never completely entrusts his life to arrogance.

He held two protective golden talismans in his right hand, ready to be activated at any time.

Chen Yuanshan abruptly lowered the altitude of his flying sword.

"All energy channels are connected! All magical artifacts are unsheathed!"

The thirty martial artists immediately drew their heavy steel sabers from the sides of their saddles.

"That old dog from the Blood Demon Sect is a master of sneak attacks from the shadows, so you'd better be on your guard!"

The armored rhinoceros at the front of the formation suddenly stopped.

The giant beast at the very front snorted irritably, its huge hooves pawing restlessly in the mud.

The martial arts commander leading the group raised his right hand, and the entire cone-shaped formation instantly reined in their horses and came to a sudden stop.

Following the direction the commander was pointing.

At the edge of the foul-smelling swamp ahead lay a mutilated corpse.

The corpse had been mostly devoured by the wolves in the forest; its chest cavity was completely empty, and its intestines and internal organs were dragged all over the ground.

On the few tattered pieces of cloth remaining on the corpse, the cloud patterns of the outer disciples of the Qingxiao Sword Sect could still be clearly identified.

Chen Yuanshan controlled the flying sword and quickly descended to a point less than three feet above the swamp.

He didn't land directly, but instead released his immense divine sense from a distance with disdain, sweeping it over the mutilated corpse.

The divine sense swept over the broken torso, finally locking onto the deceased's head, which was twisted at an extremely bizarre angle.

Chen Yuanshan's cloudy eyes suddenly widened.

His pupils suddenly contracted to their maximum size.

He completely ignored the bite marks left by the monsters, focusing all his attention on the pale, broken cervical vertebra.

The broken bone was extremely smooth, yet it exuded an extremely brutal and violent aura.

This kind of break was definitely not made by a sharp flying sword, nor was it a mark left by wind blade magic.

There were no remnants of spiritual energy cutting at the edges.

It was snapped in two by a pure, incomprehensible external force.

Chen Yuanshan's fingers unconsciously clenched his sleeves.

My gaze shifted from the broken cervical vertebrae to the layer of muddy water next to the corpse.

There was a pile of blackened paper ash.

Those were remnants left behind by a high-level defensive talisman issued by the Azure Sky Sword Sect.

Chen Yuanshan raised his right hand and made a grabbing motion in the air.

A wisp of true essence enveloped the pile of paper ash and flew into his palm.

With a forceful pinch of two fingers, the ashes scattered directly.

Chen Yuanshan's arrogance vanished instantly, replaced by a chilling aura.

"Even the remnants of spiritual energy from a high-level defensive talisman haven't been completely burned off..."

Even if a high-level defensive talisman is forcibly shattered by a more advanced spell, the spiritual energy contained within it will inevitably be burned up completely.

But now, the spiritual energy in this talisman ash was forcibly extinguished the moment it erupted by an absolute gravity or an unreasonable brute force.

For the first time, Chen Yuanshan felt an indescribable chill.

The common sense of cultivators was smashed open by this broken cervical vertebra and this handful of talisman ash.

He suddenly flicked his sleeve, throwing all the ashes into the muddy water.

"Keep pushing forward!"

The heavy cavalry formation set off again.

After bypassing the foul-smelling swamp, the main force had only advanced less than two hundred paces.

The terrain ahead had completely changed.

An extremely exaggerated, perfectly flat ravine, completely out of character for this mountain forest, abruptly stretches across everyone's line of sight.

This is not a wild path trodden out by a few people.

This is a huge passage that is more than two zhang wide and sunken more than half a foot into the ground.

The weathered rock layers at the bottom of the passage were all ground into extremely fine stone powder.

All the thorny shrubs, hard old tree roots, and even the large rocks blocking the way were crushed to pieces by an irresistible pressure and directly rammed into the soil.

This ravine was carved out of Duanxian Mountain last night by Lu Chen dragging that 30,000-jin town road stele.

Thirty heavy cavalrymen who had achieved minor body refinement stopped in front of the ravine.

His thick Adam's apple bobbed laboriously up and down through the gaps in his black iron armor.

A series of synchronized swallowing sounds echoed through the woods.

These rough men, who were used to seeing monsters tearing each other apart, felt their throats go dry as they looked at the rocks crushed into powder at their feet.

Even the armored rhinoceros dared not easily step onto the compacted passage, its hooves constantly slipping on the edge.

Chen Yuanshan jumped off the flying sword.

His feet were firmly planted on the stone dust at the bottom of the ravine.

There was no activation of true energy to protect the body.

He squatted down, his withered palms pressed directly onto the rammed earth of the ground.

It was extremely hard to the touch, even more solid than the bluestone slabs in the inner city.

Chen Yuanshan closed his eyes and opened his mind.

The surroundings were clean and tidy.

There were no remnants of magical bombardment in the soil, nor any burnt smell from the detonation array.

Chen Yuanshan's breathing began to become heavy.

An extremely wild guess quickly took shape in his mind.

Great Demonic Cultivator!

He's definitely the kind of powerful demonic cultivator who can shake mountains with his bare hands!

This was achieved using an extremely rare mountain-moving technique, deliberately concealing the fluctuations of true essence, and relying on the immense pressure of the secret treasure to crush it.

He never even considered the possibility that it was a shirtless mortal.

In his mind, no matter how strong a mortal was, it was absolutely impossible to crush the rocks over these dozens of miles into this state.

The fear lingered in my heart for only two extremely brief breaths.

Immediately afterwards, an even more fervent emotion completely overwhelmed this fear.

Chen Yuanshan suddenly stood up.

"Such terrifying crushing marks...that treasure must be extraordinary!"

His eyes gleamed with extreme greed, and even the old skin on his face trembled with excitement.

For this secret treasure capable of crushing rock layers, taking a little risk is entirely worthwhile.

Once he gets his hands on it, let alone the Lord of Xuanni City, he'll have the confidence to even try his luck against an inner elder of the Qingxiao Sword Sect.

Chen Yuanshan flipped his left hand over.

He pulled out a palm-sized, dark red circular compass from his storage sleeve.

Bloodlust Compass.

This is a magical artifact specifically used in the cultivation world to track down creatures that have just committed murder and possess intense spiritual energy fluctuations.

It is a hundred times more accurate than the spirit-finding compass that can only detect fluctuations in spiritual energy.

Chen Yuanshan bit his tongue, spraying a mouthful of his Foundation Establishment stage life essence directly onto the surface of the compass.

The dark red compass suddenly burst into a blinding red light.

The bronze pointer in the very center of the compass began to spin wildly.

From the direction of the cave where the Dao Stele was located, the absolute, ancient, oppressive force completely sealed off the aura of Anan's transformation.

The Bloodthirsty Compass was completely unable to penetrate the suppression of the 30,000-jin Town-Suppressing Stele.

But this magical artifact immediately detected another fresh and extremely violent surge of energy in the forest.

The pointer suddenly stopped.

It pointed directly at the trails of pure yang energy and blood, carrying the life force of a second-tier great demon, that Lu Chen had left behind when he hunted the Rock-Splitting Bear outside the restricted area.

The trail is very clear, following the bushes all the way up to the mountainside.

Chen Yuanshan looked in the direction the pointer indicated.

At the edge of the view, one can vaguely see a cave half-hidden by rocks halfway up the mountain.

He had no idea that it was a gap left by the Dao stele blocking the gate.

He completed a whole set of deductions in his mind, following the logic of a cultivator.

Chen Yuanshan raised his head and let out an extremely grating, sinister laugh.

"You old scoundrel, hiding in your cave using mortal blood to forge evil treasures, do you really think I can't find your tracks?"

Chen Yuanshan tucked the Bloodthirsty Compass back into his sleeve.

The purple robe fluttered in the strong wind.

He leaped forward, landing firmly on the top-grade flying sword once more, and looked down at the thirty heavy cavalry below.

"The entire army forms a chevaux-de-frise!"

Chen Yuanshan's voice, imbued with the pressure of a Foundation Establishment cultivator, exploded in the eardrums of every heavy cavalryman.

"Bows and crossbows drawn, talismans pressed close!"

The thirty heavy cavalrymen immediately changed formation.

The heavy armor-piercing crossbow was mounted on the broad back of the rhinoceros, its thick arrows gleaming coldly.

Everyone stuck the life-saving golden talisman directly onto the chest protector.

"Even if it costs me my life, I will get that treasure back for me!"

The heavy cavalry responded with a thunderous roar, and the clanging of their black iron weapons shook the heavens and the earth.

The armored rhinoceros once again strides forward with its powerful limbs.

This elite force, armed to the teeth, thundered and advanced powerfully towards the cave halfway up the mountain, following the compacted gully.

The soil flew everywhere, and the fighting spirit boiled over.

They lined up in neat formation, confident that they had a sure hunt.

But no one noticed anything unusual above their heads.

At the very end of the ravine, at the top of a towering ancient tree, thick enough for several people to encircle.

High in the depths of the tree canopy and foliage.

A pair of eyes were watching all of this from above.

Lu Chen squatted on a thick tree branch.

His large right hand gripped the tree bark tightly, while half of a cold, century-old black iron chain was wrapped around his left arm.

He forcibly suppressed the pure yang energy of the eleventh layer of "Iron Shirt" under his skin, without even a trace of heat leaking out.

He watched quietly as the group of cultivators and heavy cavalrymen, lined up in neat rows, approached.

There was no emotional fluctuation in his gaze.

There is only one kind of pure, cold-bloodedness—watching prey step into one's territory for slaughter.

The joints, enveloped by muscles, begin to contract and generate force extremely slowly.