Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

At the end of the underground river, which reeks of a foul stench.

The fence was violently smashed open by a brute force.

Old Li had half his body above the water, vomiting large mouthfuls of yellowish, bitter water. His entire body was covered in blood-sucking leeches, emitting a nauseating stench. His left arm, from the previous fall, was so badly injured that bone fragments had even pierced his flesh, leaving him completely powerless.

He relied entirely on his last breath, using his right arm to cling tightly to the moss-covered bluestone slab of the sewage outlet.

On his back, Zhang Laozhang was still tied up with tattered strips of cloth.

Li Laosi gritted his teeth and kicked his legs wildly in the water, managing to drag the two men out of the underground river and onto the shore.

This is the outermost edge of the outer city of Xuanni City.

It was a mass grave specifically used to bury dead miners and those who died from illness or as laborers. There wasn't even a proper grave mound; everywhere there were shallow pits dug by wild dogs and rotten mats.

The cold night rain pounded down relentlessly.

Li Laosi didn't even have the strength to move an inch. He turned over, hurriedly untied the tattered strips of cloth from his back, and carefully laid the barely breathing Zhang Laozhang flat.

He leaned the old farmer against a broken, unmarked tombstone, and arched his broad back to shield the old man from the rain.

After doing all this, Li Laosi collapsed in the puddle like a rag doll, his chest heaving violently and his throat emitting heavy, labored breathing sounds.

Old Zhang was now completely exhausted and on his deathbed.

The old man's spine had long been crushed by the guard commander's foot, and his lower body was completely numb; even the excruciating pain had become inhuman. Having soaked in the dark river all the way here, his body heat had been completely drained.

Breathing is intermittent, with more exhalation than inhalation.

This withered old body had only managed to hold on until now thanks to the burning hatred for the Immortal Sect that had been simmering in its chest. Now that it had escaped the inner city, the tension in its heart had eased, and the strength for its last burst of energy had been completely exhausted.

Old Zhang's bloodshot, cloudy pupils began to gradually unfocus. The focus was slowly fading.

Just at this time.

A dozen miles away, in the pitch-black sky above the inner city, a faint yet dazzling dark red light suddenly streaked across the sky.

That was a drop of the purest primordial blood that condensed from the massive extreme blood energy of the previous guard commander after he exploded in mid-air, collapsing inward.

This drop of desolate blood did not dissipate with the wind.

It paused in mid-air. It was not only drawn by the same source of blood energy, but also frantically sucked up by the piece of the same source of broken stone tablet that Old Zhang was holding tightly in his palm.

That piece of black stone, the size of a fingernail, burst forth with an extremely greedy desire.

The crimson light stretched out a straight red line through the rain. It completely ignored the spatial distance of several miles, and with extremely violent force, it plummeted straight into the mass grave.

"Snapped!"

A crisp sound.

The broken stone skin was instantly shattered by this drop of desolate blood that fell from the sky, turning into a clump of black ash.

The scalding blood didn't fall to the ground; it went straight into Old Zhang's skin-and-bones chest.

"Sizzle!"

The intense heat burst forth instantly, scalding through the old farmer's tattered coarse cloth clothes and burning his skin, producing a pungent, acrid smell.

But this domineering vitality also instantly stimulated Old Zhang's failing heart meridian.

The old man's previously unfocused eyes suddenly contracted under the stimulation of this powerful vitality. The depths of his pupils regained their former clarity.

He couldn't even feel the pain of his body being burned through.

With trembling hands, Old Zhang raised his broken and dislocated hand and tightly gripped the raging mass of blood surging wildly in his chest.

He turned his head with difficulty.

The withered neck emitted a teeth-grinding grinding sound. The old farmer stared intently at Li Laosi, who lay sprawled in the mud beside him.

The butcher's right wrist tendons had been severed by the Immortal City Guard Commander's wind blade, leaving the flesh torn open and rendering his arm almost useless.

"Fourth son..."

Old Zhang, clinging to his last breath, spoke in a hoarse voice, as if two rough stones were rubbing against each other.

Large spurts of black blood gushed from the corners of his mouth, unstoppable.

The old man stared at Li Laosi and commanded sternly, "Extend your hand...!"

Li Laosi was startled.

Looking at the old man who was usually hunched over and cowardly, but now bursting with terrifying ferocity, the lowly butcher's eyes reddened and his hands trembled uncontrollably.

He gritted his teeth and, without any hesitation, handed over his mangled right arm.

Old Zhang stretched out his withered old hand.

With all his might, he pressed the drop of scalding blood from his palm deep into the wound on Li Laosi's right wrist.

"Ughhhh!"

Li Laosi raised his head, the veins on his neck bulging, and let out a bloodcurdling scream.

Wild blood enters the body.

The overwhelming and domineering power of the ultimate path instantly transformed into raging flames within his body.

The severed tendons were melted by the intense heat. The shattered wrist bones were forcibly broken, polished, and then reassembled under the impact of the extreme qi and blood.

The pain of being skinned, dismembered, pulverized, and reassembled far surpasses the excruciating agony of slow slicing.

Li Laosi was in so much pain that he rolled around wildly in the mud puddle. His left hand formed a claw, digging more than a dozen deep furrows into the mud, tearing off all his fingernails and causing them to bleed.

Old Zhang didn't let go at all.

The old farmer rushed over and used his broken body to firmly press down on Li Laosi's wildly swinging wrist. His withered fingers pinched the clump of blood like iron clamps, preventing it from leaking out at all.

Blood and foam mixed with fragments of internal organs gushed from the old man's mouth.

He faced the wind and rain, and roared wildly at Li Laosi:

"Fourth Brother... I've finally seen through him today!"

"Those high and mighty immortals, their bones are damn brittle! A knife will stab them, they'll bleed, they'll die!"

"Take this thing... and smash a path to survival for us peasants who have no other way out!"

The old farmer was risking his life for another.

With a desperate, last-ditch effort, he forcibly drew this drop of primordial, desolate blood into his body, using it as a wedding dress for his ultimate power.

The frenzied, wild blood surged along Li Laosi's wrist, forcefully breaking through the blocked meridians in his body.

This force surged forward recklessly, eventually piercing Li Laosi's heart.

"Thump!"

A terrifying roar, like the beating of a war drum, burst from Li Laosi's chest.

That fragile heart, originally belonging to an ordinary person, was forcibly modified by the power of the ultimate path, causing its muscle fibers to tear, strengthen, and expand wildly.

In just a few breaths, the heart was forcibly transformed into the prototype of an extreme "blood furnace".

All of Li Laosi's ordinary blood was absorbed by this blood furnace.

When it was pumped out again, it had been completely tempered by the high temperature into a volatile, dark red, barren blood.

The transfer of power is now complete.

Old Zhang's old hand, which had been gripping Li Laosi's wrist so tightly, finally lost all its strength, slipped limply, and crashed heavily into the mud.

The muscles on the old farmer's face completely relaxed.

He felt no fear, nor any resentment. His weathered old face wore a relieved smile, a smile that conveyed a profound sense of liberation and detachment, as if he had seen through the rules of the mortal and immortal realms.

He exhaled his last breath.

Old Zhang finally swallowed his anger.

The heavy rain continued.

Li Laosi lay sprawled in the mud, his eyes fixed on the dark night sky. He didn't shed a single tear.

The butcher felt the massive heart pounding in his chest.

That's the Extreme Blood Furnace in operation.

With each beat, scalding, raw blood was pumped into every part of his body. His severed right wrist was not only fully reattached, but now it was also filled with unimaginable, terrifying power.

It's a twisted illusion that you could smash through an iron shield with a single punch, even if it were blocking your way.

Li Laosi slowly got up from the ground.

Looking at the old farmer's smiling corpse, a raging, indomitable fire ignited deep within his eyes.

He found a long-abandoned, collapsed, waterlogged grave and carefully placed Old Zhang's body inside.

Li Laosi knelt on the ground and used his large hands, which had just been modified by the extreme path, to scoop up handfuls of slippery yellow mud, completely burying the old farmer.

Heavy rain washed over the lonely grave without an inscription.

Li Laosi pulled out the butcher knife from his waist; it had been soaked in the blood of the treacherous dogs of the immortal sect.

With the terrifying physical ability granted by the Extreme Blood Furnace, which makes them utterly tireless.

This lowly butcher from the outer city turned around and plunged headlong into the torrential rain.

Without stopping, he ran wildly through the night.

It plunged straight into the depths of the dense, impenetrable miasma surrounding Broken Immortal Mountain.