Greedy Foundation Establishment Seizes Military Command, Ants Rise Up and Wield Death

Black Mud City, inner city, main hall of the City Lord's Manor.

The steward responsible for guarding the Soul Lamp Pavilion rolled and crawled over the tall white jade threshold.

He had run too fast; his boot caught on the threshold, and he crashed hard forward. His knees slammed heavily into the hard floor tiles with an exceptionally dull thud.

He paid no heed to the pain, nor to his scraped and torn flesh.

The steward's hands shook violently as he held out a carved wooden tray.

At the center of the tray—

Five patches of grayish-white powder lay scattered there. The powder had long lost the spiritual luster of cultivators, becoming nothing more than lifeless mortal dust.

"City Lord! The outer sect squad... they're all shattered!"

The steward's voice cracked outright. He smashed his forehead against the floor, not even daring to raise his head.

The City Lord of Black Mud City had been holding a fine celadon teacup. He had been calculating how to completely bury the mess in Mud Alley from earlier that day.

His gaze swept over the powder in the tray.

The City Lord's fat wrist suddenly jerked.

Crash!

The teacup slipped from his hand and shattered at his feet, scalding tea and sharp porcelain shards splashing everywhere.

The fat on the City Lord's face twitched uncontrollably. The life-soul jade plaques of five outer sect disciples had shattered at once, without leaving behind even the slightest voice transmission. The mountain-searching squad he had sent to the outskirts of Immortal-Breaking Mountain had been wiped out to the last man.

The City Lord knew perfectly well.

Once this was reported to the Azure Firmament Sword Sect, those elders above would not care what changes had taken place in the outer city. The blame for the destruction of the search squad would be nailed firmly onto his head. Those cold-blooded stewards from the Enforcement Hall would skin him alive and toss him directly into the sect's Earthfire Cavern to burn into a heap of ashes.

The City Lord gasped for breath as several names of deputies flashed rapidly through his mind.

He had to find a sufficiently weighty scapegoat to shoulder this blame at once.

Before he could open his mouth and summon anyone—

Boom!

The two heavy purple sandalwood doors of the main hall were blasted open by an incomparably violent surge of true essence. The doors slammed into the walls, wood splinters and a massive wave of air flying wildly through the hall.

Chen Yuanshan, the Foundation Establishment Realm retainer of the City Lord's Manor, strode into the hall with a dark face and a chill clinging to his entire body.

Chen Yuanshan did not even spare the kneeling steward a glance. His eyes fell directly on the tray of powder, and he gave a heavy, cold snort.

"City Lord, you're confused."

Chen Yuanshan pressed forward step by step until he reached the foot of the stairs beneath the main seat.

"Five Qi Refinement Realm disciples died without even the slightest chance to struggle. Do you truly think some mud-legged peasant from the outer city with no spiritual energy could have done this?"

Greed had completely overtaken Chen Yuanshan's face. He lowered his voice, and madness seeped through it.

"To silently kill an entire squad of cultivators in an instant, it must have been that severely wounded Old Devil, barely clinging to life deep within Immortal-Breaking Mountain! And that Old Devil must be carrying the supreme treasure of the Blood Demon Sect!"

Chen Yuanshan was wholly immersed in the enormous opportunity he had painted for himself. In order to swallow this nonexistent demonic cultivator treasure alone, he had utterly cast the sect's rules to the back of his mind.

The terrifying pressure of the Foundation Establishment Realm burst from his body in an instant.

The surrounding air turned incomparably thick, locking tightly onto the City Lord seated on the main chair.

"Hand over the thirty black iron heavy cavalry kept as the manor's final reserve to me."

Chen Yuanshan's voice was utterly forceful, leaving the City Lord no room to refute him.

"I'll lead the team into the mountain myself. Before dawn, I'll return with his head."

The Foundation Establishment pressure crushed the City Lord until he could barely breathe. It was as though a thousand-pound boulder had been laid upon his chest, and large beads of cold sweat formed on his forehead. At a time like this, how could he dare provoke a Foundation Establishment Realm retainer whose mind had been clouded by greed?

The heavy cavalry was Black Mud City's final trump card, but now he could only grit his teeth and swallow the bitterness.

"Men... bring Retainer Chen the military command token!"

The scene returned to the outer city.

Inside that sour-smelling Mud Alley.

Bang!

The guard with a face full of flesh kicked over the last broken clay jar in Old Zhang's yard.

Pottery shards scattered across the ground.

"Old bastard, the spirit coin rent has doubled! Hand it all over, now!"

The long whip in the guard's hand lashed savagely against half a mud wall, spraying clods of dirt everywhere.

"If a single coin is missing today, I'll use your grandson to suck marrow and settle the debt!"

Old Zhang shielded his grandson behind him. The little boy was so frightened that he hid beneath his grandfather's ragged hem, not even daring to make a sound.

His dry, thin back was bent, and his wrinkled face wore the same utterly humble, ingratiating smile as always.

"Please calm your anger, my lord. This old man will get it right away, right away..."

Old Zhang nodded and bowed repeatedly. His trembling hand slowly reached toward the ragged cloth pouch inside his robe.

The sole of his foot, clad in a broken straw sandal, inconspicuously edged half a step backward through the mud. Most of his shriveled body slowly leaned toward the dead corner by the courtyard wall.

A hoe he usually used to turn the earth rested there at an angle.

The guard had grown extremely impatient.

"Moving so slowly? You're courting death!"

The guard raised the long, cured cowhide whip still dripping with someone else's blood.

He normally worked in the inner city. To save his meager spiritual energy after his shift so he could spend it carousing at the Spring Breeze Pavilion in the inner city, he could not be bothered to circulate the protective true essence in his dantian when collecting rent in Mud Alley, where everyone was a mortal ant.

These lowly outer-city commoners did not even dare look immortals in the eye. Why waste true qi on them?

That fatal arrogance sounded his death knell.

The long whip descended with a shrill whistle through the air.

Old Zhang did not dodge at all.

He spun around sharply, completely shielding his little grandson before him, and took the vicious whip across his broad, withered back.

His old, thin padded jacket tore apart on the spot. His flesh split open, blood instantly soaking through the coarse cloth.

At the very instant the whip struck his back—

Old Zhang's callused hands suddenly seized the wooden handle of the hoe at the corner of the wall.

There was no cultivator's true essence flowing through him.

Nor was there any flashy immortal sect technique.

What Old Zhang relied on was the brute strength in his waist and abdomen, forged over sixty years of clawing a living from the earth day after day.

His withered arms heaved upward.

Whoosh—

The hoe swept upward from below with an exceptionally muffled roar of wind, carving an incomparably savage arc as it swung out hard.

Crack!

An exceptionally dull sound of shattering bone exploded through the yard.

Without true essence protecting it, even a cultivator's body was equally fragile before a blunt weapon.

The heavy blunt iron back of the hoe, carrying the tyrannical force of an old farmer who had dug earth all his life, smashed with precise and incomparable viciousness into the guard's fragile throat and crushed his Adam's apple.

The guard's mouth gaped wide, but he had no time to make any defensive move.

"Urgh..."

His shriek mixed with his completely shattered windpipe, choked dead in the deepest part of his throat by thick, foaming blood. He could not force out even a single complete syllable.

A great rush of warm blood streamed down the blackened wooden handle, instantly covering Old Zhang's hands.

Old Zhang's face flushed crimson as he gasped roughly.

He braced the hoe handle tightly. His legs suddenly straightened in the mud.

The immense force drove the tall, burly guard directly against the broken mud wall behind him.

The guard's long whip fell into a filthy puddle. Both hands desperately clawed for Old Zhang's arms, but with his windpipe shattered, his strength drained away rapidly.

Old Zhang held him there, refusing to let go.

Not until the guard's dead fish eyes rolled completely upward, losing every trace of light, and his limbs drooped limply.

Old Zhang pulled out the hoe.

The guard's heavy corpse slid down the mud wall into the muck, splashing water everywhere.

Old Zhang leaned against the courtyard gate, his chest heaving violently as he gulped in cold air thick with the earthy stench of mud.

He lowered his head and stared fixedly at the corpse of that black-armored lackey at his feet.

Those cultivators who usually lorded above everyone else and treated human lives like grass—when their throats were smashed by a farm tool, they died just the same. So these people could die too when their necks were broken.

Amid his violent gasps—

The black fragment of a Dao monument hidden in Old Zhang's robes slipped out through the clothing torn by the whip.

Plop.

The black stone, stained with dried blood, fell into the pool of blood beside the corpse.

At that very instant—

The rough rock patterns on the fragment's surface lit with an exceptionally faint gleam. The pungent pool of thick blood gathered around it was being madly devoured by the black stone.

In only a few breaths—

The remaining blood on the ground was drained completely clean. Even the overpowering stench of blood in the air was thoroughly concealed, with not the slightest trace escaping.

From the muddy main alley outside the yard came the impatient urging of the other guards.

"Pockmarked Li! Why are you taking so long to collect rent? Get out here already!"

Old Zhang bent down, picked up the blood-sated stone fragment, and tucked it back into his robes.

He raised his head. The cowardice in his old eyes had vanished without a trace, replaced by the cold, fierce ruthlessness of a lone wolf.

Old Zhang extended his blood-smeared hands, grabbed the guard's black iron boots, and dragged the heavy corpse with all his strength toward the deep, dark cellar in the rear yard.

The storm clouds overhead pressed even lower.