Achieving physical sainthood begins with the Iron Shirt technique!

The heavy rain just wouldn't stop.

The cold rain pounded hard on the muddy mountain path, washing away the messy footprints left by Li Laosi and his group.

More than a hundred miners, freed from their chains, followed behind Li Laosi, wading through ankle-deep filthy water. No one glanced back in the direction of Xuanni City.

A young miner in the group clutched a broken iron spear tightly in his hand. He wiped the mud off his face and hurried over to Li Laosi.

"Fourth Master, the rain is too heavy, the mountain path is completely slippery." The young miner gasped for breath, pointing to the side, "Are we really not going back to the outskirts of Immortal City to beg the City Lord's steward? That's the heart of the Great Wilderness, full of man-eating monsters. We don't even have any weapons; going in would be suicide!"

Li Laosi stopped. He had the dulled butcher knife tucked into his belt.

"Go beg them?" Li Laosi turned his thick neck, his voice hoarse. "If you stay on the outskirts of the Immortal City, you'll just be a medicine slave and food for the Immortal Lords. If you go into the heart of the Great Wilderness, you might survive if you fight against demonic beasts. But if you encounter those high and mighty cultivators, you won't even have the right to fight them with a spear."

Li Laosi stretched out his rough, large hand and pointed to the pitch-black distance ahead.

"This life was saved from a pile of corpses. From now on, we'll only follow the rules of this knife in our hands."

No one spoke. Everyone gritted their teeth and continued forward. This ragged group, composed entirely of the lowest of the low, plunged headlong into the perilous depths of the wilderness without hesitation.

Decades later, those bigwigs sitting high above the clouds in the Nine Provinces Immortal Alliance could never have imagined that these ants who escaped from the mines of Xuanni City would stand tall through the cruel trials of survival and become the most vicious sword piercing the heart of the Immortal Sect.

……

The inner city of Xuanni City.

Daylight broke. On the white jade plaza outside the city lord's mansion, the massive ruins created by the collapse of the array's core the previous night had been filled in overnight. Hundreds of outer city laborers knelt on the ground, painstakingly wiping the bloodstains from the floor tiles with rags.

The atmosphere in the entire city lord's mansion was extremely oppressive. Two rows of heavily armored guards stood at the bottom of the steps, not daring to breathe even a little more.

Inside the underground chamber.

The Lord of Xuanni City sat cross-legged on a jade futon. His face was deathly pale, and the area around his eyes was covered with scabs of black blood left by the backlash. On the sandalwood table in front of him, the Spirit-Severing Jade Box sat upright.

His fingers pressed heavily on the mechanism of the jade box.

"Click".

The jade box popped open. The black fragment of a stele, pried from the commander's chest, lay quietly inside. On the broken surface, dark red extreme-path runes still flickered, radiating terrifying heat. The primordial spiritual energy of the Xuanni City's protective array was firmly locked at its core by this fragment of a stele.

The city lord swallowed hard, his eyes filled with greed.

"With the city's protective formation destroyed, and the Azure Sky Sword Sect pursuing this matter, I'll surely face certain death." The city lord clenched his fists tightly. "As long as I drain all the essence of the formation from this broken stele and fuse it into my golden core, I can immediately break through! At that time, the world will be vast, and I'll have nowhere to go!"

His hands moved swiftly, forming an extremely complex set of hand seals. With a series of flicks of his fingers, several streams of pure true energy struck the black, broken monument.

Stimulated by the true essence, the barren patterns on the surface of the broken monument began to churn violently. The extremely dense primordial spiritual energy transformed into white mist, gushing outwards from the cracks in the broken monument.

The city lord opened his mouth and took a deep breath.

The pure spiritual energy flowed into the meridians through the mouth and nose, advancing unstoppably straight to the dantian.

An indescribable feeling of comfort spread throughout his body. The city lord closed his eyes, completely releasing all defenses, allowing this immense primordial power to nourish his golden core.

Just then, a wisp of extremely violent, dark red, wild blood silently seeped into the formation's core. It was the power left behind by the guard commander in the broken monument before his death last night.

The desolate blood was extremely domineering. Without any hesitation, it directly adhered to the surface of the city lord's spinning golden core.

A sharp, intense pain suddenly shot through Jin Dan.

The city lord shuddered, his brow furrowing. He quickly stopped his incantation and used his internal vision to examine his dantian, but he couldn't detect the slightest abnormality. That wisp of desolate blood had completely disguised itself within the flow of spiritual energy.

"The amount of origin absorbed is too vast; the meridians simply can't handle it for the time being. It's alright."

The city lord dispelled his doubts and continued to inhale deeply with his eyes closed. The violent, desolate blood of the extreme realm seeped into the core of the golden core, following the natural patterns on its surface. This deadly detonator, powerful enough to blast a Core Formation cultivator to smithereens, took root firmly.

……

The Inner Sect of Qingxiao Sword Sect, Soul Lamp Pavilion.

Tens of thousands of eternally burning spirit lamps are placed on the towering wooden frame.

Suddenly, a crisp "snap" sound came from the third shelf.

The cyan soul jade representing Song Que, the outer sect deacon, cracked open in the middle. Then, with a "bang," it exploded into a pile of fine powder. The pale blue flame on it was extinguished instantly.

The disciple responsible for guarding the soul lamp was so frightened that he took several large steps back, knocking over the incense burner next to him.

"Something terrible has happened! Deacon Song's soul lamp has gone out!"

The disciple scrambled out of the Soul Lamp Pavilion to deliver the message.

After about half a cup of tea's time.

The elder guard, his face ashen, strode into the pavilion. With a sudden flick of his sleeve, he swept the remains of the incense burner off the floor, sending them flying and shattering against the wall.

The elder guard took a few steps to the third floor, staring intently at the pile of soul jade powder.

"Elder, please calm down!" The disciple who brought the news knelt on the ground and kowtowed desperately. "Deacon Song led a team to search the outer perimeter of Broken Immortal Mountain. Could it be that they were attacked by those crazed first-tier demonic beasts...?"

"Shut up!" The elder guard kicked a pillar, the sound sending dust flying from the roof of the pavilion. "Even if Song Que is useless, he's still a Foundation Establishment cultivator! Those mindless demonic beasts on the outer perimeter couldn't even break through his protective aura!"

The elder guard turned around, his face so gloomy it could drip water.

"This is definitely not some monster rampage. The laws of heaven and earth in that area deep within Broken Immortal Mountain are completely in chaos; an extremely rare treasure must have been born!"

The elder took out a communication jade slip from his waist.

"Order the Inner Sect Enforcement Hall! Send three mid-level elites to Xuanni City. Bring all the detection artifacts. I want you to turn Broken Immortal Mountain upside down and find out exactly who stole the opportunity that rightfully belonged to the Azure Sky Sword Sect!"

……

Broken Immortal Mountain, Absolute Spirit Valley.

The morning sun pierced through the thick miasma. This once dark valley was finally bathed in light.

The valley was a scene of utter devastation. The ground was riddled with huge craters carved out by lightning.

Lu Chen stood shirtless outside the cave.

He walked up to the 30,000-jin (15,000 kg) town road stele. The once scorching black surface of the stele had now completely cooled down.

Lu Chen bent down and grabbed the century-old black iron chain from the ground with both hands. Round and round, he tightly wrapped the thick iron chain around the Dao stele. Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of metal scraping, he squatted down with his tall and burly body, pressing the Dao stele firmly against his broad back.

He held the two ends of the chain with both hands, crossed them in front of his chest, and tied a tight knot.

"rise!"

The muscles on the outer thighs tensed instantly. This ultimate physical body, having broken through the thousand layers of Xuan Iron, gleamed with a dark, deep metallic luster under the sunlight.

Lu Chen straightened up abruptly. The terrifying weight of 30,000 jin pressed down, causing the ground to cave in instantly. Amidst the splashing mud, two half-foot-deep footprints were imprinted directly onto the hard granite.

From the deepest part of the cave came the soft rustling sound of fabric rubbing together.

A-Nan woke up.

The little girl crawled out from under the thick wolfskin blanket. Following the scent, she stumbled over to Lu Chen. She reached out her little hand and touched Lu Chen's arm.

The skin, which was originally rough and warm, now feels cold, hard, and solid, like a solid piece of cast iron.

A-Nan wasn't afraid; instead, she grinned and revealed an extremely reassured smile.

"Lu Chen, your arm looks like it's made of iron."

Lu Chen supported the bottom of the huge Dao stele behind him with one hand, and used the other hand to pat A-Nan's messy hair twice.

"It was forged in the fire." Lu Chen looked down at her. "You slept all night, did you see anything?"

Anan tilted her little face up. Her eyes were still covered with a cloudy white film, completely unfocused.

But the little girl tilted her head and pointed her little finger at the sky above the Valley of Absolute Spirits.

"It smells burnt black all over; that's what Thunder left behind yesterday."

Anan turned around and pointed outside the Valley of Extinction.

"There's a faint red aura coming from far away over there. It smells very strong."

The Spiritual Eye constitution is taking effect. Although her eyes are blind, the little girl can clearly outline the outlines of those deadly energies in her mind.

Lu Chen glanced in the direction A-Nan pointed.

He tore off strips of cloth from his tattered burlap clothes, wrapped them around A-Nan's back, and tied the little girl securely to the front of his broad chest.

"Come on, I'll take you to find something good to eat."

Lu Chenkong reached out and pulled out the high-grade storage bag he had torn from Song Que's corpse yesterday. He examined it carefully, turning it over and over.

The opening of the bag was covered with densely packed immortal spirit-locking array patterns. Without true essence and spiritual awareness, forcibly crushing it with brute force would cause the spatial turbulence inside this high-grade item to grind everything into dust.

Lu Chen stuffed the storage bag back into his waistband. Xuanni City was a mess right now; going back would only bring trouble.

"This thing can't be opened right now." Lu Chen patted A'nan's little bottom. "Let's go to Blood Rock Market."

He strode out of the valley.

"That's a gathering place for independent cultivators. Find someone knowledgeable to violently demolish it, sell the proceeds for a few top-grade old medicinal herbs, and give you some extra strength."

Lu Chen carried a massive black monument weighing 30,000 jin on his back, with a blind girl tied to his chest.

His iron boots slammed heavily onto the charred remains of ancient trees struck by lightning.

"Click. Click."

The sound of breaking wood echoed through the empty valley. With each step Lu Chen took, he left a deep pit in the ground, his burly back facing the sunlight as he strode towards the unknown distance.

Half an hour after Lu Chen left Jue Ling Valley.

On the southeastern horizon, the once tranquil clouds were suddenly torn open with a huge rift.

A blood-red warship, thirty feet long, carrying a suffocatingly terrifying aura, roared out of the sea of ​​clouds and sped towards them. A huge totem banner of the Azure Sky Sword Sect hung from the warship's mast.

At the very front of the deck, a soul-searching and blood-detecting artifact, carved with eerie blood patterns, was frantically spinning its pointer, locking onto the desolate ruins below.