Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

A violent sonic boom erupted high in the sky.

The thick black clouds were brutally torn in two by a terrifying impact. A cone-shaped spirit boat, a hundred feet long and covered with cyan sword patterns, was forced out of the void of the gale-force winds.

The enormous spirit ship showed no intention of slowing down or buffering; with an extremely ear-piercing roar, it plunged downwards and finally came to a violent stop directly above the city lord's mansion in the inner city of Xuanni City.

The spirit-gathering array at the bottom of the spirit boat was operating beyond its capacity, spewing out large, distorted white waves of air. A large number of white jade tiles from the city lord's mansion below were blown away by this violent airflow, crashing and shattering onto the bluestone slabs.

At the very front of the deck.

Song Que wore a spotless silver Taoist robe, with his hands behind his back.

This mission came too suddenly. He was comfortably seated in his cloud chariot, leisurely inspecting the largest low-grade spirit mine in Dongxuan Prefecture, when an urgent message from the Inner Sect's Soul Lamp Pavilion came crashing down, startling him into a cold sweat.

Chen Yuanshan's Foundation Establishment Soul Jade shattered into dust.

Song Que dared not delay at all. He immediately threw out ten mid-grade spirit stones and forcibly stuffed them into the array's core. The array operated at overload, doubling its speed, and thus they sped to the remote and impoverished Xuanni City overnight.

The immense divine sense, without any concealment, poured down directly from the deck, sweeping across the entire city lord's mansion with extreme brutality.

The main gate of the city lord's mansion was smashed open from the inside by someone tumbling and crawling.

The Lord of Xuanni City stumbled out of the gate. The moonlight overhead was completely blocked by the massive ship, shrouding him in heavy shadow.

The once-powerful city lord's knees buckled, and he obediently lay prostrate on the cold stone steps. His entire body, covered in fat, trembled uncontrollably.

Song Que stood on the high place and snorted heavily.

The weight of the divine sense suddenly increased.

The white jade steps beneath the city lord immediately emitted a series of extremely dense cracking sounds. Spiderweb-like cracks sprang outwards in a chaotic manner. The city lord was pressed tightly into the rubble by this invisible weight, his chest felt tight, and his bones ached from being crushed. He didn't even dare to utter a scream.

On the deck of the spirit boat in mid-air, several dark figures were kicked down.

"Bang! Bang bang!"

Extremely dull thuds echoed across Baiyu Square.

There were several mangled corpses, along with several suits of heavy black iron armor crumpled to pieces, which landed solidly in front of the city lord. The strong stench of blood mixed with the putrid smell of rotting entrails assaulted the city lord's nostrils.

The city lord, his hands trembling, moved forward half an inch.

Those were outer disciples of the Azure Sky Sword Sect, along with the Xuan Tie heavy cavalry he had personally dispatched. Not a single corpse was intact; their deaths were extremely gruesome.

The city lord's mind went blank for a moment, and he hurriedly kowtowed.

"Steward Song, you are wise! There are definitely remnants of the Blood Demon Sect, Core Formation stage cultivators, lurking in Broken Immortal Mountain! These demonic cultivators are ruthless and vicious..."

"Shut your stinking mouth," Song Que interrupted him directly.

Song Que leaped down from mid-air, his shoes landing firmly on the shattered white jade plaza. He took two steps closer and kicked over a mangled corpse clad in heavy black iron armor.

"Open your eyes wide and look closely at these wounds."

The city lord suppressed his nausea and went closer to rummage through the corpse.

The bone fragments at the wound were stark white and protruding, and the skin and flesh were completely rolled outwards. The entire chest cavity was collapsed beyond recognition.

"Did you find anything?" Song Que asked.

The city lord swallowed hard, his voice trembling.

"There are no traces of magical burning... nor a clean cut from a flying sword... no... no remnants of demonic energy or true essence."

"Your brain isn't completely dead yet," Song Que scoffed.

He raised his foot and shattered a piece of the deformed black iron heart-protecting mirror.

"This is all flesh that was torn and smashed apart by pure brute force. No immortal or demonic techniques were used, and not even a trace of spiritual energy can be found inside."

Song Que flipped his hand over. A smooth, round crystal for recording images appeared in his palm.

A powerful foundation-building essence was poured into the crystal. Immediately, a blurry yet extremely bloody image was projected into mid-air.

The city lord tilted his head back and stared intently at the screen.

The scene depicted a muddy, desolate forest. A mangled body lay on the ground, its lower half completely reduced to a bloody mist. Scattered in the mud beside it were a dozen or so fragments of darkened jade talismans. These were fragments of Chen Yuanshan's ever-present top-grade robe, and the remains of the legendary Qingfeng Sword Jade, renowned for its unparalleled defensive power.

Chen Yuanshan died in the mud; his fate was no better than that of a wild dog.

Song Que suddenly clenched his five fingers.

"Click."

The crystal used for taking photos shattered on the spot, and the stone chips dripped down between his fingers.

"The one who killed Chen Yuanshan was not some Core Formation Demon at all."

Song Que casually brushed away the remaining stone dust in his hand and uttered a sentence that was enough to completely shatter the city lord's worldview.

"It's just a mortal body that hasn't even opened its dantian."

The city lord collapsed onto the pile of rubble, his hands flailing aimlessly in the air.

"impossible!"

The city lord roared incoherently, his face contorted with rage.

"How could a mortal possibly tear apart a Foundation Establishment stage sword formation! That's the Azure Edge Sword Jade in Elder Chen's hand!"

"Let alone mortals, even a peak second-tier demon wouldn't be able to shatter that protective sword aura with just their physical body!"

"That old demon! It must be that old demon who used some top-tier secret treasure to conceal his aura, disguising himself as a mortal with no cultivation!"

Song Que completely ignored this incompetent rage.

He turned around, his gaze passing over the high inner city walls, staring intently at the dark, towering Broken Immortal Mountains in the distance.

Even without opening his dantian and without any fluctuation of true essence, he was able to tear apart elites in the mid-Foundation Establishment stage with his bare hands.

The intense greed in Song Que's heart surged wildly upwards along his meridians.

What an incredible body-refining technique! If I could get my hands on this, why would I bother being a mere errand boy in the outer sect? This body-refining technique is worth a thousand times, ten thousand times more than this low-grade spirit mine!

With profits at stake, who cares about the fate of a mere offering?

Song Que suddenly turned around and strode up the steps.

"Pass on my order."

"Send out all the guards of Xuanni City, even the gatekeepers and handymen!"

"Tonight, immediately cut off all water sources outside Broken Immortal Mountain that lead to mortal villages and alleyways!"

"Bring the array plates and completely seal off this entire mountain!"

Song Que pulled out eighteen array flags from his storage bag. Each flag was densely engraved with second-tier trapping array runes in demon blood.

He suddenly exerted force with his wrist, and the eighteen array flags, with a sharp whistling sound, were thrown directly to the group of elite disciples who had been waiting below the spirit boat.

"Drill the array flags into all the earth veins and acupoints on the edge of Broken Immortal Mountain."

"I will turn this land into a desolate wasteland where even birds cannot fly and not a blade of grass can grow!"

The group of elite disciples drew their flying swords in unison, took the array flags, and without any hesitation, scattered and rushed into the dark night sky, stepping on the sword light.

Dozens of streaks of light drew dazzling trails in mid-air, heading straight for the edge of Broken Immortal Mountain.

The night wind blew faster and faster.

The eighteen disciples pinpointed each spiritual energy node with pinpoint accuracy. Without the slightest hesitation, they raised the array flags and plunged them firmly into the soil beneath their feet.

The moment the battle flag was buried.

At the same time, all eighteen ley line acupoints emitted blindingly bright light. A deep, muffled rumble echoed from the depths of the earth, causing the entire land to tremble violently.

A huge pale blue light curtain rose from the ground, rapidly spreading into the sky, and finally closing perfectly at a very high altitude.

Like an inverted giant bowl, it tightly covers the entire Broken Immortal Mountain and a large area surrounding it.

Deep within the underground passage.

Li Laosi was pressed against the damp earthen wall. He covered his mouth tightly with both hands, not daring to breathe loudly.

Through the extremely thin gap in the wooden plank above his head, he could clearly see that the night sky was completely shrouded by that pale blue curtain of light.

Then, an extremely terrifying change occurred.

Li Laosi's ears caught the faint sounds coming from outside.

The old well at the alley entrance, which had sustained the entire muddy alley for decades, was having its life-giving slurry forcibly pumped away by a completely unreasonable and monstrous force. It emitted a series of chilling sucking sounds.

The sound of the well drying up had just subsided.

Then came a series of dense rustling sounds.

The extremely tenacious weeds in the yard turned completely yellow and withered within a few breaths, crumbling into a pile of debris.

That invisible pulling force swept wildly along the earth's veins.

In this edge of the forest, shrouded by a curtain of light, several small plant spirits, who had only just begun to develop a sliver of intelligence and were trembling in a tree hollow, withered and turned into wisps of ashes that drifted away in the wind before they could even utter a scream.

The great thief of heaven and earth, leaving not a single blade of grass behind.

The last glimmer of hope for millions of lives to survive was completely stripped away by these few battle flags.

The immortal sects will use the most ruthless and cruel methods to starve the mortal hiding in the mountains, along with all the ants on this land, to death, squeezing out their last drop of blood.