The Broken Stele Devours Immortal Fire, Old Farmer Breaks His Bones for a Chance at Life

In the dilapidated courtyard.

The tip of the black iron spear had already pierced the skin over Zhang Elder's Adam's apple.

Blood rolled down the icy spear blade, drop by drop splattering onto his coarse cloth jacket.

His seven-year-old grandson hid behind him, crying out with heartbreaking desperation.

The child clutched his grandfather's clothes so tightly that fright had left him unable even to stand steady.

Zhang Elder's eyes were bloodshot, the whites webbed with crimson veins.

His left hand, which had remained hidden inside his coarse sleeve, tightly gripped the fragment that had broken off the City-Guarding Stele.

Several dark-red archaic patterns on the surface of the heated black stone flickered at high frequency.

A savage, violent surge of blood and vitality pierced straight through the thick calluses on his palm.

Following the pathways in his arm, that force brutally crashed into his shriveled heart channels.

From deep in the throat of the old farmer, who had endured humiliation and obeyed for most of his life, came a beastlike roar.

He did not try to evade the spear at all.

Zhang Elder's free right hand shot forward, reaching straight for the sharp black iron spearhead.

"Pfft!"

The blade pierced through his callused palm without resistance.

Several bones in the center of his hand shattered on the spot.

Pale splinters of bone mixed with blood burst outward as the spear tip brutally tore apart flesh and skin.

In that instant, the violent life force flooding back into him forcibly cut off the old man's sense of pain.

Zhang Elder let the spear blade lodge between his shattered palm bones.

The five fingers of that bloodied hand, completely pierced through, clenched tight and locked around the hard spear shaft.

Metal ground madly against bone, producing a shriek that made scalps prickle.

At the cost of having his palm pierced through, he forcibly halted the black iron spearhead less than three inches from his throat.

Even the slightest further push would have completely severed the old man's windpipe.

The captain of the guards froze where he stood.

His mind simply could not process it.

A mud-legged peasant who had not even opened his spirit aperture, who normally did nothing but kneel and kowtow whenever he saw them, actually dared to seize an immortal cultivator's artifact with his bare hand?

His shock instantly turned into extreme humiliation and fury.

The captain burst into curses.

True essence from his dantian surged madly into the arm holding the spear.

He wanted to tear off this old bastard's entire arm at the root.

In the shadows behind the door.

Fourth Li's eyes were red as blood.

He clenched his teeth, and the hand gripping the pig-slaughtering knife no longer trembled.

He sprang directly from the darkness.

Having slaughtered pigs all year round, he knew best where to strike for a fatal blow.

The sharp pig-slaughtering knife stabbed viciously into the captain's unarmored weak spot at the small of his back.

The blade sank in to the hilt.

The captain let out an incomparably shrill scream.

The protective true essence he had just raised was scattered on the spot by the searing pain.

At the very instant his true essence dispersed.

Zhang Elder moved.

With the heated black stone clenched in his left hand, he swung his arm wide and smashed it viciously into the captain's face.

"Bang!"

A dull impact exploded through the courtyard.

The captain's nasal bone and cheekbones collapsed at once.

His entire face was smashed inward, shattered fragments of his faceguard driven backward into his flesh.

That once-arrogant guard of the immortal city crashed onto his back into the mud.

His limbs twitched twice, then he went still on the spot.

Without true essence protecting their bodies, these lofty lackeys of immortals could also be beaten to death by the crudest farm tools and stones.

Just then.

Another guard responsible for patrols outside the courtyard heard the commotion and rushed in.

The instant one foot crossed the courtyard gate, he saw the captain lying on the ground with his brains splattered out.

The guard's scalp went numb with terror.

In his panic, he pulled a fireball talisman from his waist, activated it with true essence, and flung it straight at Zhang Elder's face.

The power of an immortal sect spell was simply not something mortals could withstand.

The fireball swelled in the wind as it flew, hurtling toward him with scorching heat.

Even the air in the courtyard warped from the burning.

Stimulated by that violent life force, Zhang Elder's shriveled muscles erupted with a survival instinct beyond mortal limits.

He had no time to think, and he did not know how to evade spells at all.

His arms rose instinctively, holding the fragment of the broken stele tightly before his face.

The fireball slammed viciously into the black stone.

The expected horrific scene of flames devouring flesh never came.

The several dark-red archaic patterns on the broken stele's surface suddenly blazed.

The instant sparks touched the stone, the immortal laws and violent true qi within the fireball were forcibly drained dry by an utterly unreasonable force.

That mass of true fire, enough to burn a person into ash, instantly collapsed inward.

The spell was completely extinguished.

Only a plume of scorched smoke from ordinary fire remained in the air, washing over Zhang Elder's head and face.

It blackened his entire face with soot.

The spiritual energy fluctuations released before the fireball talisman erupted were far too conspicuous.

A large number of heavily armored inner-city guards patrolling the outskirts of Mud Alley immediately noticed the anomaly here.

Dense footsteps ground across the bluestone pavement as they rapidly closed in.

A guard commander clad in high-grade enchanted robes strode into the courtyard.

The flesh on his face was drawn tight, and he did not give anyone in the courtyard the slightest time to react.

His right leg shot up, and he kicked Zhang Elder squarely in the chest.

"Boom!"

The old man's body flew backward and crashed heavily into the crumbling earthen wall at the back of the courtyard.

The wall could not withstand the impact and collapsed by more than half.

Mud bricks and thatch rained down over Zhang Elder's body.

Fourth Li pulled out the pig-slaughtering knife and charged at the commander with a roar.

The commander did not even spare him a glance, merely flicking a hand.

A translucent wind blade shot from his fingertips.

The wind blade precisely sliced open Fourth Li's right wrist.

The tendons snapped on the spot, exposing white fascia to the air.

The pig-slaughtering knife fell into the filthy mud.

Two heavily armored guards immediately stepped forward and pinned Fourth Li tightly in a puddle of foul water.

Fourth Li's cheek pressed against the stinking water, yet no matter how he struggled, he could not move.

Before the suppression of the immortal sect's core forces, the gulf between classes appeared incomparably cruel.

The commander strode up to Zhang Elder.

He raised his black iron battle boot and viciously stomped on the old man's back.

"Crack!"

The teeth-grating sound of bones breaking rang clearly through the entire courtyard.

Zhang Elder's spine was crushed beneath that stomp.

He collapsed completely into the mud, his lower body utterly numb.

The commander continued to press down with his foot, grinding the old man's shattered bones as he prepared to torture this lowborn wretch who had dared resist the immortal city to death.

Zhang Elder lay prone on the ground, black blood mixed with chunks of organs continuously spilling from his mouth.

Though his lower body was paralyzed, the fragment of the broken stele in his hand was still ceaselessly forcing the last thread of violent life force into his heart channels.

That final burst of strength before death made his shriveled arms shoot forward.

His hands, covered in mud and blood, clamped tightly around the commander's battle boot planted on the ground.

No matter how the guard kicked or struck him, those hands remained locked around the boot, impossible to pry apart.

He raised his soot-blackened face and hurled the crudest curses from his throat at Fourth Li on the other side.

"Run!"

"To hell with you immortals!"

"Run!"

This was the final scrap of resistance, paved in flesh and blood by the lowest of mortals.

Fourth Li trembled violently in the filthy puddle.

Watching the old man's hands, veins bulging from the strain, he forcibly held back the moisture in his eyes.

He did not turn back to help, nor did he make a sound.

Fourth Li rolled and crawled wildly through the mud, suddenly breaking free from the guards' loosened restraint.

His left hand clawed into the yellow earth as he plunged directly into the hidden cellar once used for burying corpses.

He bit down hard on his own tongue until his mouth filled with blood, yet he refused to let out even the faintest sob.

Following the secret passage at the bottom of the cellar, he crawled outward with all his might.

That was the thread of life the old man had bought with his own life. The spark of resistance could not be extinguished here.

In the courtyard.

With his right leg being held, the commander's fury was thoroughly provoked.

He gave a cold snort and was just about to use a soul-searching secret art to extract this old bastard's soul and refine his spirit.

But at the instant he lowered his head.

His gaze swept over the black fragment of stele clenched tightly in the old man's hand.

He knew perfectly well how powerful the fireball talisman thrown by that guard had been.

Yet this worthless-looking stone had swallowed an immortal sect spell without leaving even a scrap behind.

The commander stopped moving.

He stared fixedly at the black stone radiating faint warmth, and an emotion of extreme greed filled his entire face.