Immortal Arts Turn to Scrap Iron, Butcher Slays Immortal Sect Lackeys!

The formation master's severed arm slammed into the white jade ruins.

Great torrents of scorching blood spurted wildly from the jagged stump.

A stench of blood so thick it could not dissolve exploded across the ruins before the array core.

The lowly laborers and mine slaves, already crushed to the brink of madness by the immortal city's harsh laws, completely broke down at that moment.

"Run!"

"The immortal master was torn apart by a mortal!"

No one knew who let out that shrill cry.

Panic spread in an instant.

More than a hundred laborers threw away the shattered jade they had been carrying and fled toward the edge of the ruins, scrambling on all fours and tumbling over one another.

No one looked where they were going.

They trampled their companions' bodies, and when they fell, they clawed forward through the mud with both hands. The scene dissolved into chaos, screams tearing through the night.

At the edge of the ruins.

The heavily armored guards tasked with escorting the mine slaves all froze stiffly in place.

For years, these guards had been molded by the rules of the immortal sect, their reverence for cultivators carved into their bones.

In their eyes, the inner city's formation masters had always been living immortals perched high above them, capable of deciding their lives and deaths with a single spell.

But now.

That lofty formation master was pinned hard into a heap of broken jade by the commander.

The commander opened his utterly deformed mouth, filled with hard keratin, and bit directly into the formation master's wound.

The sound of flesh tearing and bones chewing was amplified endlessly by the wind and rain.

The worldview the guards had built over decades collapsed completely beneath that single bite.

"Clang!"

Several guards' hands trembled so badly that they could not hold their heavy black iron spears. Their weapons crashed onto the bluestone ground.

The inviolable majesty of immortals was trampled into pieces by pure, savage flesh.

Upon the high platform.

The dying formation master's facial features twisted together in agony.

Being torn alive in public by a mortal martial man, the immense humiliation overwhelmed even his fear.

He squeezed out the last shred of strength in his chest and viciously bit down on the tip of his tongue.

His natal essence blood, mixed with bits of flesh, sprayed out.

He wrung the remaining true essence in his dantian to its limit and poured it all into his sleeve.

"Pfft!"

A half-foot-long short sword of azure light shot from his sleeve.

The short sword shrieked through the air as it stabbed viciously into the commander's abdomen.

Its sharp blade sliced through the cracked outer flesh and sank all the way to the hilt.

The stimulus from the sword piercing his flesh directly stirred the incomparably violent supreme qi and blood within the commander's body.

Dark crimson qi and blood flowed backward through the wound in his abdomen and poured straight into the artifact.

Supreme power, carrying an overbearing heat, erupted on the spot.

The intricate formation patterns carved within the sword's blade did not even last a single breath.

The spiritual qi met that supreme heat and was burned completely clean.

The artifact's most essential spirituality was utterly erased.

Its dazzling azure glow went out in an instant.

That peerlessly sharp immortal short sword turned directly into a useless piece of mortal iron inside the commander's abdomen, its entire blade blackened.

Not a single muscle in the commander's face twitched.

He felt no pain whatsoever.

He casually reached out with his blood-smeared left hand, gripped the hilt of the scrap sword in his abdomen, and forcibly tore it out.

It pulled out a long string of sticky, blackened blood droplets.

The commander casually tossed the scrap iron aside.

He clenched his right fist.

Then he drove it heavily into the formation master's chest.

"Crack!"

Accompanied by a bone-splitting sound that made scalps crawl.

The formation master's breastbone was smashed completely apart by that pure brute force, and his entire chest caved deeply inward.

His shattered ribs pierced straight through his heart and lungs.

The formation master vomited mouthful after mouthful of black blood mixed with fragments of organs. His body twitched twice, then he swallowed his final breath.

The commander straightened his back.

The fragmentary stele on his chest had now fused tightly against his breastbone without the slightest gap.

The ancient desolate patterns on its surface had turned red-purple.

Dozens of strange dark crimson blood threads grew wildly from the bottom of the black stone.

The blood threads pierced directly through the flesh of the commander's chest, following his meridians as they burrowed deep into his heart.

His heart was completely taken over by the fragmentary stele.

The last trace of human focus in the commander's pupils fully scattered.

He had become nothing more than a flesh-and-blood weapon that knew only slaughter.

Below the ruins.

The two guards originally assigned to watch Zhang Elder saw the horrific scene atop the platform. Gathering their courage, they drew the long sabers at their waists and tried to rush forward to help.

They had barely taken two steps.

They were too close to the huge array core.

The enormous vortex formed in the array core by the fragmentary stele's frenzied devouring swept directly over their bodies.

The true essence in the guards' dantians was drained completely dry in an instant.

Before they could steady themselves.

The uncontrolled, rampaging spiritual qi deep within the array core transformed into visible chaotic currents and violently surged back out.

"Pfft!"

The two guards threw back their heads and sprayed blood at the same time.

The meridians inside their bodies shattered inch by inch beneath the impact of that spiritual qi.

Their knees gave way, no longer able to bear their weight, and they collapsed onto their knees in the muddy ground strewn with shattered jade.

Everyone's eyes at the scene were fixed on the monster atop the platform that was devouring the formation master alive.

No one noticed this corner.

Fourth Li, wearing that ill-fitting suit of black iron leather armor, pressed himself tightly against the ground.

Using the shadows cast by large stones among the ruins as cover.

The butcher crept forward without a sound, slowly making his way behind the two severely weakened guards.

Mud covered his entire body.

Fourth Li's movements were vicious beyond measure, without the slightest hesitation.

He slipped his left hand into a gap between the armor plates and pulled out the oil-paper packet containing Qi-Severing Powder.

With a hard rub of his thumb, the oil paper tore open, revealing the grayish-white powder inside.

The two guards knelt on the ground. Their meridians ruptured, they had their mouths open as they gulped for air, trying to drag it into their lungs.

The instant they opened their mouths.

Fourth Li shot both arms forward, clamping his hands over their mouths and noses from behind.

He brutally shoved a great handful of poison powder directly into their nostrils and mouths.

The guards instinctively inhaled, drawing all the powder into their bodies.

Qi-Severing Powder was specially used to foul flesh and blood.

The instant the powder entered their bodies, their remaining qi and blood began to surge backward madly.

Several muffled explosions sounded from within their chests.

Their lungs burst on the spot.

Thick black blood flowed from all seven of the two guards' orifices at once. They could not even scream.

Their bodies twitched a few times in the mud before collapsing dead.

Fourth Li quickly withdrew his hands.

He felt around the waist of the guard captain's corpse and seized a heavy ring of brass keys.

With the keys in hand, he lowered his body again and crawled toward Zhang Elder, using the stone shadows as cover.

In the muddy puddle beside the wooden cart.

Zhang Elder's lower body was submerged in bloodied water.

In the old farmer's rough hand, caked with yellow mud, he clutched tightly a small piece of black stone skin that had broken off the fragmentary stele.

The stone skin's surface was rough. It was the old farmer's last shred of confidence.

In the deepest part of the inner city.

An unbearably piercing alarm bell suddenly rang out from the direction of the City Lord's Manor.

The heavy toll pierced through the torrential rain and echoed madly over the entirety of Black Mud City.

Great numbers of elite cultivators wearing the robes of the Azure Firmament Sword Sect rose into the air on flying swords, transforming into dense streams of azure light.

Braving the wind and rain, these high-ranking cultivators began rushing toward the array core ruins as reinforcements.

The sky was filled with shockwaves left behind by flying swords ripping through the rain curtain.

At the center of the ruins.

The fragmentary stele on the commander's chest showed no sign of stopping its devouring of the array core's origin.

A vast amount of pale blue spiritual qi was forcibly drained away.

At the source of Black Mud City's Heaven-Locking Array, an immensely severe hollowing of the spiritual veins appeared.

The energy fault erupted with a roar at that moment.

High overhead, the originally flawless pale blue curtain of array light let out an ear-piercing tearing sound.

"Riiip!"

The light curtain flickered violently, its glow dimming sharply.

A massive black crack spanning half the immortal city exploded open in the night sky.

Wind and rain poured crazily through the crack into the inner city.

The array stood on the verge of collapse.

The commander bathed in the formation master's blood.

He suddenly threw back his head and unleashed a roar that sounded nothing like a human voice.

Having absorbed too much supreme qi and blood, the muscles across his body swelled beyond all human limits.

Dark crimson sinews bulged high.

The remaining black iron armor plates on his body could no longer withstand such a terrifying physical expansion.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

The armor plates burst apart completely, becoming countless shards of iron that shot in every direction and scattered across the ground.

As the array light curtain high in the sky fractured severely.

From the tallest white jade tower in the inner city.

A terrifying Core Formation Realm pressure descended with a crash.

Carrying absolute suppression of rank, that pressure directly crushed the auras of all the Qi Refinement Realm and Foundation Establishment Realm cultivators running wildly around the scene.

The pressure pierced through the rain curtain and bore straight toward the center of the ruins.