Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

at night.

Outside the city of Xuanni, in the muddy alley.

There was no moonlight in the sky, and the towering array of light from the inner city stretched straight into the heavens, illuminating this dilapidated and smelly alleyway in a stark white light.

The boundary between immortals and mortals is clearly defined.

The light screen contains an ever-present spiritual energy.

Outside the light curtain were flowing sewage and starving bones.

The cellar in the backyard was stuffy and smelly, with the yellow mud mixed with the stench of blood wafting into my nose.

Old Zhang and his neighbor, Old Li, squatted at the bottom of the pit, both covered in mud.

The body of the Immortal City Guardian lay on the ground nearby.

His throat had been smashed to pieces by farm tools.

Li Laosi's hands were shaking so badly that he couldn't stop. The broken shovel he was using to dig the soil slipped from his hands, fell down, and hit the rocks with a dull thud.

He hurriedly bent down to pick it up, but his knees buckled and he collapsed into the mud.

"Master Zhang... he's dying."

Li Laosi was panting heavily, his chest heaving violently.

"Let's not bury it! The smell can't be masked at all. They have a spirit-finding compass; they'll find out sooner or later!"

Li Laosi pulled at his hair with both hands.

"Let's run while it's dark! Let's get out of the city and try our luck at Broken Immortal Mountain. It's better than waiting to die here!"

Old Zhang hid half of his body in the shadows.

Without saying a word, his withered, mud-covered fingers reached out and grabbed Li Laosi's wrist.

The old man was incredibly strong; his joints were bluish-white from excessive exertion.

Li Laosi couldn't break free.

Old Zhang let go and pulled the black stone out of his tattered cotton-padded coat.

This is the debris that fell from the town's main road monument during the day.

The broken stone was still stained with the blood that had spurted from the guard's neck.

Thick blood covered the stone surface.

Right before their eyes, the blood had not dried and scabbed over.

Fresh blood was rapidly seeping into the stone surface.

Dark blood was swallowed up by the stone in large gulps.

In just a few breaths, the liquid on the surface of the stone disappeared completely.

Old Zhang's wrist suddenly sank.

After absorbing blood, the wreckage suddenly increased in weight by several kilograms, causing a noticeable feeling of heaviness.

On the rough stone surface, several very faint dark red streaks appeared.

As the barren patterns lit up, the cold, broken monument began to radiate a distinct warmth.

The heat penetrated the calluses on Old Zhang's hands.

Old Zhang lifted his tattered cotton-padded coat and pressed the still-warm wreckage directly onto his withered chest.

Stones stuck to the flesh.

A surge of wild, untamed vitality rushed straight into his rough, calloused skin.

Old Zhang's back, which had been broken by a sorcerer in the mine years ago, had been hunched over for decades.

At that moment, a series of crisp cracking sounds erupted from the broken and deformed joints.

I felt a real, intense heat in my spine.

The scalding heat melted away decades-old wounds and bruises.

The broken bones were forcibly pried open and straightened by this savage force.

The old man's severely bent back gradually rose, accompanied by the sound of bones grinding together.

Old Zhang straightened his back.

His broad shoulders were fully relaxed, and the gaps between his gaunt muscles were brimming with power.

Li Laosi squatted to the side, his mouth slightly open, and he even stopped breathing.

No spiritual root.

It did not absorb or exhale spiritual energy.

An old peasant, half-buried in the ground, miraculously healed his broken back in the blink of an eye by relying on a broken stone, and regained the physique of a strong man.

Li Laosi stared at Zhang Laozhang's straight back.

The numbness and submissiveness that had lingered in his eyes for half his life had completely vanished.

Instead, there was a naked, intense desire.

"Bang!"

A loud commotion suddenly came from outside the alley.

The heavy black iron boots pounded on the bluestone slabs, the synchronized footsteps causing the ground to tremble slightly.

Five guardians of the immortal city carried dazzling torches of spiritual energy, illuminating the narrow, muddy alley.

The head of the guards raised his foot and violently kicked open the broken wooden door of a neighboring house.

The door panel broke and crashed into the house.

"A bunch of lowly creatures, moving so slowly!"

The guard captain's shouts and curses echoed through the alley.

Immediately afterwards, a sharp whistling sound ripped through the night sky.

The long, barbed whip lashed down hard.

The old woman's screams from next door instantly pierced through the wall.

The dull thuds of flesh being torn came one after another.

The sound of the whip cracking continued.

The old woman's screams gradually weakened and eventually fell silent, leaving only a strong smell of blood drifting down the wall into the Zhang family's courtyard.

In the cellar.

Old Zhang reacted extremely quickly, grabbing two large handfuls of yellow mud and smearing it all over the face of the guard's corpse, covering up its original appearance.

He grabbed Li Laosi by the collar and dragged him out of the cellar.

The two frantically covered the wooden board with their hands.

Old Zhang strode back to the dilapidated house.

The seven-year-old grandson was huddled in the corner of the bed, trembling.

Old Zhang pulled his grandson over and shielded him tightly behind his back.

"Bang!"

The Zhang family's dilapidated courtyard gate was kicked down by the roots, sending wood chips flying everywhere.

The captain of the guard strode into the courtyard.

He glanced at the excrement on the ground, frowned in utter disgust, turned aside to avoid the filth, and his black iron boots landed precisely on the clean steps.

The captain flipped his wrist.

A long spear made of black iron, gleaming with cold light, pierced through the curtain and thrust its tip forward, pressing firmly against Old Man Zhang's throat.

Old Zhang didn't move.

The captain took out a jade slip that glowed with a bluish light from his waist and raised it high with one hand.

Driven by true essence, the jade slip emitted a bright light.

The captain didn't even look at the people in the yard, and loudly read the instructions to himself.

"City Lord, have mercy!"

"Today, we are specially selecting young children from the outer city whose spiritual senses have not yet been awakened to enter the inner city!"

"Bathe in divine grace, cleanse yourselves of impurities!"

The sound echoed throughout the muddy alley.

Everyone in the mud alley knew the truth.

The inner city's array walls had just been breached during the day, so where would any divine grace come from in the middle of the night?

This is clearly an attempt to capture people alive.

The blood of young boys and girls was used as consumables for the formation, forcibly filling the cracks in the great formation.

The little boy behind Old Zhang was so frightened that he cried loudly, clutching the hem of his grandfather's clothes tightly with both hands.

The captain looked impatient and cursed under his breath.

The spear he was holding shifted, and the tip left Old Man Zhang's throat.

His free left hand went straight over Old Zhang's shoulder and grabbed the little boy's hair.

Li Laosi hid in the shadows behind the door.

He gripped the boning knife used for butchering pigs tightly with both hands.

Large beads of cold sweat rolled down my forehead and stung my eyes.

Li Laosi moved his foot forward half an inch.

Immediately afterwards, he gasped for breath, his shoulders slumped down, and he pulled his foot back.

The blade rubbed against the coarse cloth trouser leg.

He was torn between cowardice and courage, his mind undergoing a violent struggle.

Old Zhang lowered his head slightly.

The tip of the spear had just grazed his skin, and beads of blood were rolling down his neck.

The old man's left hand was always hidden inside the cuff of his coarse cloth sleeve.

He gripped the scorching hot remnant of the Dao stele tightly in his hand.

The veins on the back of his hand bulged out one by one.

The rough texture on the stone surface became increasingly hot to the touch.

Old Zhang suddenly raised his head.

He stared at the hand that was being reached for his grandson.

The resentment that had been building up in the old man's eyes for half his life had completely faded away.

All that remains is pure madness.