Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

Lu Chen withdrew his gaze from the distant Dao Stele, carried A-Nan on his back, and began to stride forward.

The tattered strips of cloth from his old coat were tied very tightly around his broad shoulders.

The soles of my shoes stepped steadily out of the muddy alley and onto the bluestone streets leading to the inner city.

"Bang."

The spot where I stepped was directly dented into a large section of the hard bluestone slab.

The dull sound traveled along the ground and spread outwards.

With each step Lu Chen took forward, a clear footprint half an inch deep was left on the bluestone slab.

His iron-gray skin was still steaming with hot white vapor.

Dark red blood dripped down the muscular lines of the wound that had been torn during the close combat with the Azure Qilin.

The blood splashed onto the bluestone slab, making a "plop plop" sound.

Behind the broken wooden doors on both sides of the muddy alley, pairs of horrified eyes were hidden.

Those ordinary neighbors who usually suffered hunger and cold with Lu Chen in the outer city were now huddled behind the door, shivering.

Even though they were all mortals, and even though they hated the immortal sects to the core, their knees still went weak when they saw this young man who had torn apart the sect's guardian spirit beast with his bare hands and was covered in blood.

Some people couldn't even control their trembling and wet their pants.

No one dared to breathe loudly, and no one dared to push open the door and say a word.

Lu Chen completely ignored the commotion on both sides.

He just kept walking forward.

The girl on his back still had a very faint heartbeat, and he only wanted to do one thing right now.

Go to the inner city.

Just as I stepped out of the muddy alley and arrived at the wide main street entrance of the outer city, the road ahead was completely blocked by a huge crowd.

Dozens of guards from the immortal city, clad in heavy armor of black iron and carrying gleaming standard-issue longswords and spears, completely blocked off the wide street.

Deacon Zhao had changed into clean clothes from somewhere and was hiding behind layers of guards.

Two men dressed in Bagua Taoist robes stood beside him, holding compasses engraved with runes, their chins held high.

Those were array masters sent from the inner city of the Immortal City.

When Deacon Zhao saw Lu Chen approaching with a fierce and menacing look, he instinctively shrank half a step behind the guards.

But the thought of having a formation master from the inner city backing him up emboldened his fat body.

He stuck his chubby finger out from the gap in the guard's shoulder and pointed it at Lu Chen's nose.

"Little beast!"

Deacon Zhao yelled and cursed, spittle flying through the air.

"You've committed a grave offense! You even dared to touch the spirit beast of the Grand Elder of the Azure Sky Sword Sect!"

"The Immortal City's law enforcement team and formation masters are all here now!"

"Why don't you kneel down and accept your death! If you offer your neck, the adults might take pity on you and leave you a whole corpse!"

Lu Chen didn't stop walking.

One step at a time.

The "crackling" sound of footsteps crushing the bluestone slabs grew closer.

The long-faced array master standing to Zhao's left picked at his ear impatiently.

He glanced at Lu Chen with utter contempt.

"Fatty Zhao, what are you yelling about?"

The lanky array mage's face was full of disdain, his tone revealing an arrogant and condescending attitude.

"He's just a mortal who accidentally swallowed the true blood of a strange beast and has temporarily gone mad."

"His mortal body couldn't withstand such a massive amount of spiritual energy. By now, his brain would probably be fried, and he'd just be a wild beast that only knows how to run around aimlessly."

The slightly younger array master on the right echoed his words, not even bothering to look at Lu Chen.

"Senior brother is right. With a mortal body consuming spiritual blood, his physical form can only last for a short while before it bursts open on its own."

"Stop wasting time talking to him, just use the trapping formation to strangle him."

"Finish this dirty work as soon as possible and go back to report. Staying in this poor, shabby place in the outer city for too long will make you tainted with the stench of worldly life and affect your foundation."

They are very familiar with this process.

In the past, some mortals, unable to bear the oppression, attempted to revolt. The standard way for immortal sects to deal with mortal revolts was to suppress them with formations.

It was straightforward and efficient, without even requiring the cultivators to personally draw their swords to chop up the filthy flesh.

The slender array mage flipped his wrist.

Four apricot-yellow banners flew out from his sleeve.

The battle flags, accompanied by a sharp whistling sound, were precisely planted in the bluestone slabs at the four points surrounding Lu Chen.

The flag moved without wind, and the vermilion runes on it suddenly lit up.

"rise!"

The formation master quickly formed a hand seal with both hands.

A translucent light blue light curtain instantly rose from the four array flags, closed in mid-air, and directly trapped Lu Chen upside down inside.

As soon as the light curtain took shape, the environment inside the formation completely changed.

Lu Chen felt a sudden weight on his shoulder.

The surrounding gravity increased several times in an instant, and this pressure acted on his flesh, bones and even his internal organs in all directions.

If this were an ordinary mortal, they would be crushed to the point of bleeding from all seven orifices and unable to get up from the ground.

Immediately afterwards, spiritual energy gathered wildly within the pale blue light screen.

Dozens of palm-sized wind blades materialized out of thin air.

The edges of the wind blades gleamed with a pale blue light as they spun rapidly, emitting a piercing cutting sound.

"fall."

The slender array mage snorted and pressed his finger down.

"This formation can even trap and kill second-tier demonic beasts."

He stared at the suppressed figure within the formation, his tone full of sarcasm.

"I'd like to see just how many blows your crazed mortal flesh can withstand."

Whoosh whoosh!

Dozens of wind blades roared and slashed towards Lu Chen from all directions.

They mercilessly struck his back, chest, and neck.

Lu Chen stood still without dodging, but slightly arched his back to protect A-Nan on his back even more.

Clang!

A dense barrage of metallic clanging sounds erupted within the array's light barrier.

Large swathes of Mars flew around in all directions.

The wind blades struck Lu Chen's iron-gray skin, but couldn't cut through his flesh, leaving only shallow white marks.

This is not over yet.

Lu Chen's body surface was constantly overflowing with intense, extreme Daoist energy and blood.

The wind blades formed from spiritual energy had just finished slashing and hadn't even had a chance to retreat when they were scalded apart by this terrifying body temperature.

The wind blades turned into wisps of white spiritual energy residue and completely dissipated in mid-air.

Outside the light curtain.

The sarcasm on the array master's face froze.

The Beast Trapping Formation is specifically designed to target cultivators and demonic beasts. Its greatest strength lies in its ability to suppress spiritual energy, thereby inhibiting the flow of spiritual energy within the formation and greatly reducing the combat power of those trapped within.

But Lu Chen was just an ordinary person.

He had no spiritual energy whatsoever; it was purely brute force and blood.

The spirit-suppressing effect that the immortal sect was so proud of was completely useless against him.

Inside the light screen, Lu Chen slightly raised his head.

The joints in his neck made a crisp popping sound.

He felt the several times the gravity suppression brought by the formation and suddenly felt very comfortable.

After swallowing the Qilin's true blood, the violent energy was surging wildly within his body. Although he forcibly raised his external martial arts level, his skin and flesh were somewhat swollen and weak.

Now, under the relentless pressure of gravity, the previously swollen and uncomfortable flesh and bones are instead subjected to an extreme tempering.

The body's Qi and blood, stimulated by the heavy pressure, not only did not stagnate, but instead boiled even more intensely.

Blood surged through the large blood vessels, roaring like a mighty river.

The Extreme Furnace was running wildly, frantically extracting the violent power hidden deep within flesh and blood.

Click.

A very faint cracking sound came from Lu Chen's body.

That was a barrier of cultivation techniques that should never have been broken.

"Iron Shirt, Eleventh Level".

Lu Chen silently recited a sentence in his mind.

This external martial art, which is commonplace in the mortal world, has only ever had ten levels since ancient times.

Even if you train to the highest level, you'll only reach the Great Perfection of the Ordinary Iron Body.

However, under the forceful push of the ancient blood and qi, and the heavy pressure of the immortal sect's formation, it was forcibly pushed into an unknown new realm.

On the iron-gray skin, a very faint black metallic texture began to appear.

The density of the muscle doubled again.

He no longer looked as bulky and bloated as before; instead, he shrank back, becoming extremely lean and powerful, exuding an explosive sense of pressure.

Lu Chen took a step forward.

He withstood hundreds and thousands of wind blades that had re-formed within the formation, and the pressure had doubled.

Step by step, they walked straight toward the edge of the light curtain.

The wind blades lashed wildly across his face, but he didn't even blink.

The dazzling spiritual light and shadows exploded around him, but they could not stop him in the slightest.

The lanky array mage's expression changed completely.

That air of superiority vanished completely, replaced by incomprehensible terror.

"This is unbelievable! What kind of monster is this?!"

He roared at the top of his lungs, frantically forming hand seals, desperately channeling the spiritual energy within his body into the array flags.

The array flags in the four directions shook violently, and the pale blue light screen instantly doubled in thickness.

Gravity increased dramatically again.

The young formation master panicked and quickly took out several low-grade spirit stones and slapped them on the formation's core, trying to push the formation's strangulation force to its limit.

Lu Chen had already reached the very edge of the light screen.

They were less than two steps away from the guards outside.

He stopped and looked up at the semi-transparent array wall.

There were no spells to start with.

There were no hand gestures or incantations.

There was no grand spectacle of mobilizing the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

Lu Chen simply raised his right arm.

He stretched his right fist backward, creating an extremely violent crescent-shaped arc.

The newly formed black metallic texture on his arm moved wildly beneath the skin.

It carries immense pressure and terrifying brute force, like eleven layers of iron armor.

He punched the light screen.

"Snap!"

A crisp cracking sound suddenly rang out in the deathly silent street.

The array light screen, which was said to be able to trap and kill second-tier demonic beasts, was under the horrified gaze of Deacon Zhao, who looked as if he had seen a ghost.

It exploded with a bang, revealing countless spiderweb-like cracks!