Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

The sky is falling.

The Heaven-Locking Array surrounding Broken Immortal Mountain was shattered so badly that not even a trace of its foundation remained. The spiritual energy of heaven and earth from all directions poured into the void above the Valley of Extinction like a flood bursting its banks.

In less than the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea, a huge, thick thundercloud, so heavy it could drip ink, was forcibly squeezed out of the air hundreds of feet above the ground.

Lightning, a mixture of blue and red, churned and collided wildly within the clouds.

This was no ordinary thunderstorm. This was the natural law of the Great Wilderness and Nine Provinces.

Cultivators strive to align themselves with the heavens and earth, seeking resonance with spiritual energy. The ultimate path of body refinement, however, involves using the physical body as a furnace, aiming to devour all things in heaven and earth. This storm of blue and red lightning is specifically designed to repel and obliterate this unorthodox power that dares to defy convention.

Inside the cave.

Lu Chen turned around. He strode over to A'nan and picked her up, bedding and all, with his rough hands. He carried her to the deepest part of the cave, to a secluded corner where she would be least likely to be disturbed.

He yanked the thick, dark wolf pelt over and wrapped it around A-Nan's body in layers. Especially her eyes, which were covered with a white film, were completely concealed by the wolf pelt, preventing even a sliver of the blinding electric light from penetrating.

"Don't move," Lu Chen said in a rough voice.

He turned his tall, imposing figure around and strode out of the cave.

As soon as they stepped out of the cave, they were met with a terrifying pressure that seemed capable of crushing mountains.

Lu Chen stomped his right foot down heavily.

The 30,000-jin (15,000 kg) town-guarding stele beneath his feet emitted an extremely deep hum. He stood on the wide black stele, his muscular upper body bare, his face tilted back, staring blankly at the thunderclouds that were pressing down lower and lower.

The might of Heaven is overwhelming; mortals should kneel and kowtow in respect.

But this butcher, who crawled out of the muddy alley, had a thick neck and eyes full of ferocious fighting spirit.

"Boom!"

A deep, muffled boom erupted from the deepest part of the clouds. The first bolt of lightning had struck.

It was a bolt of pure blue lightning as thick as a giant python, carrying terrifying power that could tear the night sky apart. Without any warning, it struck straight at the top of Lu Chen's head.

If a cultivator of the immortal path were to encounter such overwhelming pressure from heaven and earth, they would have already risked their lives to unleash their natal flying sword and seven or eight layers of protective array shields.

Lu Chen didn't even blink.

He neither dodged nor flinched.

Within his pure flesh and blood body, the pure Yang energy of the twelve layers of the Iron Shirt technique was pushed to its limit. The iron-gray skin stretched taut on his body surface, bracing itself against the descending heavenly lightning.

"Bang!"

The giant blue python slammed into Lu Chen's forehead. The blinding light instantly illuminated the dark valley as if it were daytime.

The violent lightning strike exploded directly on his body. The outermost layer of skin and flesh on Lu Chen's body was instantly charred black. An extremely pungent smell of burning permeated the valley with the scattered gusts of wind.

If it were someone else, even their ashes would have been scattered.

Lu Chen remained firmly standing on the monument. From beneath his charred flesh, a burst of extremely arrogant laughter suddenly erupted.

"Ha ha ha ha!"

The laughter grew louder and louder, eventually turning into a roar that shattered the rain.

"Is that all God can do?" Lu Chen stretched out his thick thumb and fiercely wiped the soot off his face. "With this little strength, you think you can break my bones?"

As soon as he finished speaking, the twelve layers of extreme Dao Qi and blood within his body erupted in full force.

This butcher completely disregarded the common sense of the cultivation world. Instead of expelling the lightning that had entered his body, he transformed his burly physique into an impenetrable cage.

He forcefully locked the chaotic blue lightning power that was running rampant in his meridians under his skin!

"Refine it for me!"

Violent arcs of electricity coursed wildly through the thick meridians and muscle groups. What would be a death sentence for others became, for Lu Chen, an extremely harsh iron hammer.

The Extreme Furnace is running at full speed.

The power of lightning transformed into a forging hammer, pounding fiercely against his internal organs and meridians. Those last traces of impurities hidden deep within his flesh and blood, impurities that even a hundred years of blood-nourishing medicine could not expel, were instantly burned to ashes under this violent forging of lightning and fire, spewing out plumes of black smoke from his pores.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Deep within Lu Chen's marrow, a clear, metallic clanging sound, reminiscent of striking metal, emanated.

The skin, originally charred black from being struck by lightning, began to peel away in patches of dead skin. Beneath the newly formed iron-gray membrane, dark golden lines reappeared.

This time, the patterns were clearer than ever before, bursting forth with a dazzling light in the darkness.

The thick thundercloud in the sky seemed to be completely enraged by the arrogance of this lowly person.

The thunder was no longer a monotonous rumble, but a continuous roar as if the sky were collapsing and the earth were sinking. The two-colored lightning, a mixture of blue and red, looked like an inverted torrential downpour, crashing down relentlessly from the sky.

The entire Valley of Absolute Spirits instantly transformed into a pale sea of ​​lightning.

Lu Chen's burly body was completely engulfed in dense lightning. The pain caused by this level of bombardment was unimaginable to ordinary people.

The first bolt of crimson lightning ripped through the flesh of his shoulder, so deep that the bone was visible.

Immediately afterwards, his extreme qi and blood surged up, forcibly sealing the wound.

A second bolt of azure lightning struck down, instantly shredding the newly grown fleshy bud.

The wound was frantically torn apart and reassembled repeatedly between the destruction of the lightning strike and the powerful self-healing of the extreme qi and blood. This was the living agony of being slowly sliced ​​to death.

Lu Chen was covered in blood, his entire body resembling a blood-red gourd. He gritted his teeth, letting out a low growl like a wild beast driven to the brink of despair. His right foot, bulging with veins, was firmly planted on the 30,000-pound Dao stele, refusing to budge an inch.

Under the relentless, devastating onslaught of lightning, the bottleneck of the twelfth level of the Iron Shirt technique that had plagued Lu Chen for so long finally cracked with a remarkably clear sound.

"Click."

It's like the shackles that were locked onto one's destiny were forcibly broken.

Lu Chen's ultimate physical body possessed an incredibly profound foundation. The medicinal power of the century-old Blood Marrow Vine he had previously ingested, along with the pure vitality accumulated through his slaughter, exploded completely at this moment.

A terrifyingly powerful aura of blood and qi suddenly shot into the sky from the top of Lu Chen's head.

This plume of smoke was as thick as a pillar, its color a deep purple. It forcefully pushed aside the net of lightning falling from the sky, and in mid-air above the Valley of Absolute Spirits, it faintly condensed into a crimson canopy that seemed almost tangible.

This is a terrifying phenomenon that only occurs when the Qi and blood are extremely concentrated!

The moment the Qi and Blood Canopy took shape, Lu Chen's aura surged wildly.

The enormous thundercloud in the sky suddenly stopped its relentless bombardment. It seemed to have sensed some uncontrollable qualitative change taking place in the furnace of flesh beneath.

Deep within the clouds, all the blue and red lightning began to rapidly contract towards the center.

Lightning from all directions converged into a single, dazzling point, turning the night into blinding daylight.

This is the final, decisive blow brewing by the laws of heaven and earth.

Lu Chen raised his head, which was covered in blood, and the dark gold patterns on his body shone brightly as he faced the sky.

The next moment, the very center of the cloud suddenly collapsed.

The final, destructive lightning bolt, as thick as a water bucket, crashed down with a terrifying force capable of annihilating all life!