Mortal Flesh Shatters a Magic Artifact, Pure Blood Feeds the Blind Girl!

Accompanied by an earsplitting crack, the air in the mud alley seemed to be forcibly torn apart.

The azure steel flying sword, radiating a chilling spiritual gleam, was forcibly caught in Lu Chen's palm.

Its blade still trembled violently, while the intricate formation patterns along its body erupted with one final burst of azure light, trying to cut through this mortal body.

Sparks sprayed wildly through Lu Chen's fingers, striking the surrounding rotten mud and raising plumes of white smoke.

The tendons on the back of Lu Chen's hand bulged, and his iron-gray skin membrane stretched to its limit.

His five fingers suddenly clenched inward.

The piercing scrape of metal against metal reached its peak.

"Bang!"

A crisp explosion rang through the mud alley.

That azure steel flying sword, capable of slicing through iron like mud and stained with the blood of countless mortals, snapped cleanly in half beneath Lu Chen's terrifying grip.

Then came a second crack, followed by a third.

The azure sword light completely scattered and died.

The intact magic artifact shattered in Lu Chen's palm into several dull, lightless chunks of scrap metal.

Lu Chen opened his fingers, and the scraps clattered into the filthy puddle below, splashing up mud stained with blood.

Li Changfeng's chest abruptly contracted in midair, and his face instantly turned as pale as paper.

A magic artifact was connected to a cultivator's mind.

The destruction of his flying sword sent rampaging spiritual energy flooding back into his meridians. The agony of the mental backlash far surpassed any injury to his flesh.

"Pwah!"

Li Changfeng spat out a mouthful of blood. Losing his balance, he plunged straight from the air.

He crashed heavily into the rotten mud, his white Daoist robe instantly soaked through by filthy water.

Dirty water poured into his mouth. He scrambled desperately with both hands braced against the ground, retreating backward in a panicked crawl.

The lofty arrogance on his face had vanished without a trace. All that remained was terror, as though he had seen a ghost.

"Impossible! This is absolutely impossible!"

Li Changfeng pointed at Lu Chen with a mud-smeared hand, his voice completely cracking.

"You're nothing but an ant without spiritual roots! You haven't even undergone marrow cleansing!"

"How could a mortal's flesh crush a magic artifact? That sword was forged from cold iron!"

Wang Xuan stood atop his remaining flying sword nearby, his legs trembling like chaff in a sieve.

The half-formed spell in his hand completely lost shape. His mouth hung open, yet he could not utter a single word.

Lu Chen did not answer Li Changfeng.

He did not want to waste even one more word.

His right leg suddenly drew back half a step, and his foot stamped heavily into the muddy ground.

"Boom!"

The ground beneath his foot collapsed into a pit more than two feet deep.

The surrounding filthy water and broken bricks were all hurled into the air by that terrifying recoil.

Borrowing the force of that stomp, Lu Chen shot forward like a cannonball leaving its barrel.

He moved so fast that he left an afterimage in the air, charging straight before Li Changfeng.

There was no flashy spellcasting prelude.

No incantation, no hand seals.

Only the brute force of his physical body, along with the fully unleashed inner strength of the tenth level of Iron Cloth Shirt.

Lu Chen clenched his fingers. His fist tore through the air with a shrill sonic boom and drove straight into Li Changfeng's chest.

Li Changfeng was terrified out of his wits and desperately slapped the talisman at his waist.

The protective jade pendant hanging there instantly blazed with light, erupting with dazzling azure radiance.

The light condensed before his chest into a thick shield of spiritual energy, trying to block the blow.

Lu Chen's fist landed solidly against the light.

The dull impact shook the crumbling courtyard walls on both sides of the mud alley, sending dirt raining down with a clatter.

That shield, capable of blocking the full-force attack of a late-stage Qi Refinement cultivator, lasted only half a breath beneath Lu Chen's fist.

"Crack."

A crisp shattering sound rang out, and the jade pendant exploded into a cloud of ash.

The fist pierced through the defense without hindrance and slammed brutally into Li Changfeng's chest.

The sound of ribs breaking rang out one after another. Li Changfeng's chest visibly caved inward, forming a deep hollow.

His entire body was lifted off the ground by that violent force and hurled backward.

He flew more than ten zhang before crashing heavily into the solid stone wall at the end of the mud alley.

The stone wall was blasted open with a huge hole.

Li Changfeng was embedded in the pile of rubble, blood mixed with chunks of internal organs pouring from his mouth. His head lolled to one side, and he went completely still. Whether he was alive or dead was unknown.

Wang Xuan and the remaining disciples of the immortal sect were scared out of their wits.

What kind of monster was this?

He had crushed a magic artifact into scrap metal with his bare hands, shattered a protective treasure with one punch, and even sucked an elder's spirit beast dry alive.

"Run! Run!"

Wang Xuan's shrill, warped scream tore through the air.

How could they still care about the Azure Firmament Sword Sect's outer sect dignity? They did not even bother retrieving the broken swords scattered across the ground.

One by one, they fled in blind panic, stumbling and crawling through the mud as they ran for their lives, terrified that if they were one step too slow, Lu Chen would swallow them alive.

Lu Chen did not pursue those immortal sect disciples fleeing in panic.

He abruptly turned and strode toward the filthy puddle in the distance.

A-Nan lay quietly in the bloody water. The cloth doll missing half an ear before her had already been completely soaked to mush in the mud.

The little blind girl's breath was as faint as a thread, and her chest barely rose or fell.

Lu Chen knelt in the muddy water and lifted her with both hands.

Her thin little body was frighteningly cold, her warmth draining away at a terrifying speed.

Blood still seeped from the wound in her chest where sword qi had pierced through her, leaving flesh turned outward.

The low-grade hemostatic herbs Lu Chen usually dug up outside the city were utterly useless against such a fatal penetrating wound.

Ordinary herbs could not save her.

Lu Chen gritted his teeth and lowered his gaze to his right hand.

That arm remained crimson-hot from having just devoured the true blood of a high-grade exotic beast.

Its skin gleamed with an iron-gray luster, and thick blood vessels bulged like the roots of ancient trees.

The Ultimate Dao Furnace within him was still rotating madly.

Lu Chen closed his eyes and forcibly activated the tenth level of Iron Cloth Shirt, which he had just mastered.

His blood and qi flowed backward through his meridians by force as he drove every trace of the qilin blood qi remaining in his body toward the tip of his right index finger.

True demon beast blood was filled with violent spiritual power. To an untrained mortal, it was deadly poison.

If he fed it directly to A-Nan, her frail meridians would burst apart on the spot.

Every impurity had to be expelled.

Ultimate Dao blood qi transformed into an invisible, enormous millstone, grinding and incinerating all that savage beast nature and chaotic spiritual energy.

Strands of foul, pungent black smoke erupted wildly from the pores of Lu Chen's arm.

When the smoke fell upon the bluestone slabs beneath him, it hissed.

The hard bluestone was corroded into countless tiny pits in the blink of an eye, and even the standing water around it was poisoned black.

Expelling the impurities brought immense pain. The muscles in Lu Chen's arm twitched violently, yet he did not so much as grunt.

All the essence of the blood qi was forced to the tip of his right index finger.

A drop of incomparably pure blood finally condensed at his fingertip.

Stripped of its violent spiritual power, it became exceptionally gentle, glowing with the color of red agate and emitting a faint halo.

Lu Chen carefully used his left thumb to pry open A-Nan's pale purple lips.

He pressed his right index finger to her lips and let that gentle, pure essence of blood qi drip inside.

The red agate-like blood drop slid down her throat.

The scene he had expected, of her wounds instantly healing, did not appear.

A-Nan's unresponsive body suddenly tensed.

That drop of pure blood transformed into countless scorching threads of blood that rampaged through her meridians before all winding around her heart, locking it tightly in place.

"Mm..."

A-Nan let out an agonized cry, her tiny body convulsing violently in Lu Chen's arms.

The pain of this transformation remaking a mortal body far exceeded what ordinary people could imagine.

Her two little hands, smeared with mud, clawed wildly about. Her fingers dug hard into Lu Chen's arm, and her nails bent backward and bled from the force.

Lu Chen let her claw him. His hands only held her back steadily.

The blood flowing from her wound changed.

It was no longer the bright red blood of an ordinary mortal.

The bloody fluid thickened and turned dark red.

An extraordinarily peculiar fragrance began to spread through the air of the mud alley, overwhelming the original stench of slop.

The dark-red clotted blood slowly sealed the wound pierced by sword qi, forcibly binding the torn flesh back together.

"Cough... cough, cough."

After a long fit of convulsions, A-Nan began to cough weakly.

She remained unconscious, and the gray cloth wrapped over her blind eyes was completely soaked through with sweat.

But her frighteningly cold body temperature finally stabilized, even beginning to rise again miraculously.

Her pulse started beating once more, stronger than before.

Her life had been saved.

Lu Chen let out a long breath of foul air, and his taut back relaxed slightly.

Just then, the sound of rotten mud scraping came from behind the ruins at the alley corner.

Steward Zhao lay sprawled on the ground, the fat all over his body shaking uncontrollably. Even his crotch was soaked through.

He had seen everything that had just happened with perfect clarity.

A mortal had devoured a spirit beast alive, crushed a magic artifact barehanded, and punched an immortal master into a state between life and death.

Using both hands and feet, Steward Zhao crawled away frantically, too preoccupied to wipe away the mouthful of mud he had swallowed.

He had to run.

He had to hurry into the inner city and summon reinforcements, have the elders of the Immortal Alliance suppress this crazed monster.

Lu Chen heard the sound.

But he did not spare a glance for that terrified steward.

He slowly laid A-Nan on a cleaner stone slab.

With both hands, he took off his tattered outer garment, covered in blood and mud.

With a hard tear, he ripped it into several broad, sturdy cloth strips.

Lu Chen moved very gently. Bending down, he carefully lifted A-Nan and securely tied her to his broad back with the strips of cloth.

After ensuring that the little girl's cheek rested against his shoulder and would not slip down,

Lu Chen straightened up.

The blood qi of the tenth level of Iron Cloth Shirt still churned inside him, while scorching white vapor rose from his iron-gray skin.

He raised his head.

His gaze passed through the collapsed courtyard walls and over the outer city's utterly muddy streets.

It locked firmly onto the enormous stone stele far in the distance.

That was the city-suppressing Dao Stele that stood across the center of Black Mud City, used to divide the realms of immortals and mortals.