Immortal Arts My Ass—I'll Fall from the Sky and Smash the Iron Armor

Above a rocky cave halfway up the mountain.

Ancient trees thick enough for several people to wrap their arms around rose from the ground, their dense canopies sealing this patch of forest beneath them.

Deep within the high branches.

Lu Chen stood bare-chested, pressed tightly against the rough trunk of an ancient tree.

The pure yang vitality and blood of the twelfth layer of the Iron Cloth Shirt were forcibly compressed beneath his iron-gray skin, without allowing even a wisp of heat to escape.

His breathing had slowed to an extreme.

Every tiny rise and fall of his chest blended with perfect precision into the mountain wind sweeping through the forest.

Not a sound.

Even if a high-level cultivator stood beneath this tree with a Spirit-Seeking Compass, they would never detect the living man hidden overhead.

Lu Chen had never considered devising any exquisite military formation.

This was entirely the most primal instinct of a peerless beast guarding its food.

The cave was his nest.

The thirty-thousand-jin black stele blocking its entrance was the absolute boundary marker at the heart of this hunting ground.

With this ancient broken stele as its center.

Within a radius of fifteen zhang.

The archaic, crushing weight carried by the stele was like an invisible iron cauldron turned upside down, locking the spiritual energy of heaven and earth tightly in place.

Within this forbidden-art domain.

The breathing techniques, hand seals, and methods cultivators took pride in for borrowing the power of heaven and earth would all be crippled by that tyrannical pressure.

Whoever dared step into this circle.

A dragon had to coil, and a tiger had to lie prone.

His gaze passed through the narrow gap above the stele.

On the dry boulder at the deepest part of the cave.

A-Nan's tiny body was tightly wrapped in that thick Netherwind Wolf pelt.

The gentle jade glow on the little blind girl's body had completely receded.

That terrifying freakish strength she had unconsciously unleashed earlier had drained every bit of stamina she had only just regained.

She had now fallen into an utterly exhausted slumber.

She could not even lift her eyelids halfway.

She was completely unaware of the overwhelming killing intent drawing near outside.

Lu Chen withdrew his gaze.

There was not the slightest ripple of emotion in his eyes.

He raised his thick left arm.

In his broad right hand, he gripped the remaining length of hundred-year Black-Iron Chain.

"Click."

Without a word, Lu Chen wrapped the heavy iron chain around his left forearm and fist, loop after loop, pulling it tight with all his strength.

The chain tightened.

The icy iron links bit fiercely into Lu Chen's skin, covered in twelve layers of metallic patterns.

The sheer hardness of his flesh actually struck a deep, muffled clang from the hundred-year black iron.

With every tightened loop.

A tendon in Lu Chen's right arm bulged sharply.

Those violent streams of ultimate vitality and blood gave off muffled roars, suppressed to the utmost depths of his veins.

Boom!

Boom! Boom!

The ground began to shake violently.

The gray miasma that lingered in the forest year-round was violently torn apart by a brutal force crashing through it.

Thirty fully armed Black-Iron Heavy Cavalry, arranged in an airtight wedge formation.

Finally appeared in the muddy clearing below the cave.

The thick limbs of the Ironclad Rhinos stamped deep pits into the ground.

The heavy horse-chopping sabers and repeating crossbows in the riders' hands all gleamed with the light of defensive and sharpness formations.

In the dim forest, the halos of those formations were painfully conspicuous.

Chen Yuanshan stood upon a top-grade flying sword.

He hovered steadily in the safe air more than ten zhang above the ground.

This Foundation Establishment Realm retainer of Black Mud City looked down from above.

His gaze instantly locked onto the colossal object blocking the cave entrance.

The thirty-thousand-jin City-Guarding Stele.

At the sight of that black stone radiating an ancient aura, the greed in Chen Yuanshan's eyes nearly burst forth in tangible form.

Having confirmed that the precious treasure was right before him.

This old fox, who had scraped out a living in the cultivation world for more than a century, did not rush forward.

Anyone capable of dragging that stone deep into the mountains was certainly a troublesome, formidable opponent.

He had no intention of gambling with his own life.

Chen Yuanshan coldly raised his right hand and casually pointed at the heavy cavalry commander below.

"The front ten riders."

"Get up there for this old man."

"Enter that cave and probe it. Whatever's inside, shoot it dead with armor-piercing crossbows!"

This was the fate of mortal martial artists in the eyes of cultivators.

Meat shields specially used to clear mines.

The commander gritted his teeth, not daring to defy the orders of a Foundation Establishment Realm retainer.

He drew his horse-chopping saber and swept it forward.

"The first ten riders, step out! Steady your mounts and advance!"

Ten enormous Ironclad Rhinos broke away from the main force.

With heavy steps, they crushed dead branches beneath their feet and pressed toward the clearing directly before the cave.

Fifty paces.

Thirty paces.

Twenty paces.

Every heavy cavalryman held his breath, gripping his weapons tightly.

The high-grade Vajra Talismans affixed to the chest mirrors over their hearts radiated reassuring pale-gold barriers.

The instant the hoof of the foremost rhino crossed into the fifteen-zhang range of the stele.

"Hiss!"

An extremely faint sound, like red-hot charcoal thrown into icy water.

The Vajra Talisman on that rider's chest, which had been radiating dazzling light, abruptly went completely dark.

Not even a trace of spiritual energy remained.

It instantly became a worthless scrap of paper.

Then came the second, the third...

In the blink of an eye, the spell barriers on all ten heavy cavalrymen who had charged into the forbidden zone shattered.

The Ironclad Rhinos' originally brutal strides suddenly stumbled.

The meager demon power within these thick-skinned, second-rank demon beasts, used to enhance their strength, was pinned into the cracks of their bones by an invisible archaic pressure. Not even a shred could be stirred.

The rhinos' legs went weak, and their speed plummeted.

"What's happening?!"

The foremost rider's expression changed drastically, and his shout cracked his voice.

He desperately tried to circulate the little martial true qi in his dantian.

Like a clay ox sinking into the sea.

His meridians were utterly empty, and the spiritual energy of heaven and earth had been completely drained away.

Normally, with true qi flowing through them, the Black-Iron Heavy Armor they wore felt as light as nothing.

At this moment, it suddenly returned to its original, terrifying weight.

Hundreds of jin of dead iron pressed brutally upon mortal flesh.

"I can't circulate my protective true qi!"

"This armor... why is it so heavy?!"

Even raising the refined-steel spear in his hand became incredibly difficult for that rider.

The muscles in his arms trembled wildly beyond his control from the excessive burden.

Panic exploded through the ten-man squad.

Without the reinforcement of the spiritual energy of heaven and earth.

These low-level martial cultivators, who normally stood high above ordinary people and were revered as the elite of an immortal city.

The false halo bestowed upon them by the cultivation world was mercilessly shattered by the stele's force field.

Without formations.

Without true essence.

Without talismans.

Together with the Black-Iron Heavy Armor they had been so proud of, they were instantly beaten back into their most cumbersome, most pitiful mortal forms.

Within this forbidden-art domain, stripped of every flashy spell and left to compete only in pure physical toughness.

Their few hundred jin of strength could not even compare to a single piece of iron-gray flesh on the outside of Lu Chen's twelfth layer of Iron Cloth Shirt!

Chen Yuanshan in midair sensed that something was wrong.

Watching the ten elite soldiers below suddenly struggle forward like turtles trapped in a swamp.

The color instantly drained from his shriveled old face.

"A spirit-suppressing formation? No, it's a suppression field carried by that precious treasure itself!"

Chen Yuanshan was a crafty old fox and immediately realized what a deadly forbidden ground lay around that black stone.

His hands rapidly formed seals, and Foundation Establishment true essence surged madly within his dantian.

Just as he was about to forcibly use the Object-Seizing Technique to drag those ten subordinates clearing the way out of the forbidden zone.

At that very moment.

Bang!!!

An incomparably terrifying explosion of splintering wood suddenly erupted in midair halfway up the mountain.

The ancient tree overhead, thick enough for several people to wrap their arms around.

A century-old branch as thick as a thigh was brutally stomped into two by an utterly unreasonable, violent force.

Wood splinters and debris shot wildly through the air in every direction.

Lu Chen moved.

No more hiding, no more lying in wait.

He had lain in wait for this moment of utmost brutal slaughter.

The ultimate vitality and blood of twelve layers erupted throughout his body. Beneath his iron-gray skin, scarlet blood surged madly.

A horrifying pure-yang heat instantly evaporated all moisture within several zhang around him.

Lu Chen's towering, iron-pagoda-like body plunged directly from dozens of feet deep within the canopy, bearing the force of Mount Tai crushing down from above.

There was no brilliant sword qi tearing through the sky.

No elaborate spell preparation or dazzling play of light and shadow.

Not even a single unnecessary move.

It was simply an ultimate furnace of flesh, pushing the potential of the human body to its limit, carrying a destructive pressure that shattered all in its path.

Falling from the heavens.

A colossal shadow.

Like dark clouds covering the sky, it instantly enveloped the foremost heavy cavalrymen below.

Those men looked up in horror.

Their necks stiffened to the extreme.

Within their sweat-soaked vision.

Only two things remained.

One was the massive iron fist wrapped in hundred-year Black-Iron Chain around the left arm, crashing straight down at them.

The other.

Was Lu Chen's eyes, utterly without ripples, gazing at them as if they were livestock awaiting slaughter.

"Move!"

Someone instinctively shrieked, trying to yank the reins.

Too late.

Under the stele's crushing pressure, they struggled even to lift an arm, much less command the Ironclad Rhinos beneath them, already scared out of their wits, to evade.

Rumble—

A deafening blast of air.

Lu Chen's feet came down in an incomparably tyrannical manner, smashing solidly onto the broad back of the central Ironclad Rhino.

That plunge, combining the explosive force of the twelfth ultimate layer with the acceleration of gravity from high above.

Directly exceeded the limits of what this second-rank demon beast's bones could withstand.

Crack!!!

A scalp-numbing crack of breaking bone exploded through the mountain forest.

The Ironclad Rhino's spine, as tough as refined steel, was crushed into powder beneath Lu Chen's foot.

The enormous demon beast did not even have time to let out a dying cry before that unimaginable pressure flattened it on the spot.

Its belly pressed to the ground, its organs and blood sprayed wildly from its nose and mouth.

The shockwave swept up mud and shattered bones, blasting outward in a ring.