Using a Grand Array to Crush Me? I'll Smash the Lackey's Knees!

Lu Chen withdrew his right fist.

A layer of black metallic patterns that had just surfaced on his flesh gave off wisps of white vapor from the intense heat.

Immediately after.

The muscles in his right arm suddenly swelled outward, tendons bulging.

He threw a second punch straight ahead!

"Boom!"

The semi-transparent pale-blue array wall could no longer withstand such utterly unreasonable brute force.

Spiderweb cracks instantly spread across the entire dome of light.

With a thunderous boom, the Beast-Trapping Array shattered completely.

Countless fragments of spiritual energy shot wildly in every direction, blasting dense clusters of pits into the broken walls around them.

The four yellow flags planted in the bluestone pavement burst from within with a hiss, their cinnabar runes burning directly into drifting ash.

"Pff!"

The lanky array master threw back his head and spat out a mouthful of blood.

The young array master beside him did not even get the chance to scream. The violent backlash from the collapsing array sent him flying, and he slammed heavily into the wall behind him.

He slid down the mud wall and crumpled to the ground, clutching his chest as black blood mixed with chunks of organs poured continuously from his mouth.

Both men suffered an extreme backlash of spiritual power.

The array that they had loudly claimed could trap a second-rank demon beast to death had been smashed into a pile of scrap by a mortal who could not even sense spiritual energy—using nothing but his fists.

Ahead on the street.

The several dozen Immortal City guards clad in heavy black iron armor were utterly dumbfounded.

The standard sabers and spears they had been gripping tightly now shook so hard they struck their armor plates, producing a rapid clatter of clang, clang.

When they patrolled the outer city, they only had to draw half an inch of blade for those mortals to fall to their knees in the mud, kowtowing and begging for mercy.

They had long grown accustomed to acting like masters.

But now.

This bare-chested youth standing before them steamed with scorching white vapor, his skin iron-gray, and he had brazenly crushed the city-protecting array beneath his feet.

This was no mortal.

This was a humanoid ferocious beast that had broken free of the Immortal Sect's chains!

Lu Chen did not even pause to catch his breath.

He strode forward, heading straight toward the battle formation made up of dozens of heavily armored guards.

The bluestone slabs beneath his feet shattered one after another, stone chips spraying everywhere.

He charged directly into the crowd.

Cultivators always had to form hand seals, chant incantations, or even locate the right spiritual energy nodes when they fought.

During the battle just now, Lu Chen had realized that he had no need for such cumbersome nonsense.

No tricks, no footwork—none of it was necessary.

There was only one thing he needed to do.

Throw punches.

Ram forward.

Use pure blood and vitality to crush everything blocking his path!

Close-quarters combat was the most violent method of the Extreme Path!

A tall, burly guard captain gritted his teeth, worked up his courage, and let out a roar. Gripping his spear with both hands, he used the force of his charge to drive it viciously at Lu Chen's chest.

"Die!"

The spear tip struck its target with perfect accuracy.

"Clang!"

The deafening crash of metal striking metal rang out.

The sharp black iron spearhead did not pierce that iron-gray skin in the slightest. Instead, a shower of sparks burst from the friction.

Lu Chen did not even take half a step back. The muscles in his chest abruptly bulged outward.

Crack.

The solid wooden spear shaft, as thick as an adult's arm, snapped cleanly in the middle.

Wood splinters exploded outward, piercing the guard captain's hands and covering them in blood.

Before the guard captain could even release the broken spear and retreat.

Lu Chen's backhand slap had already swept over.

There was no flashy technique behind it.

That broad palm, carrying the weight of ten thousand jun, smashed heavily into the side of the man's black iron helmet.

"Bang!"

The sturdy helmet caved in on the spot.

The guard, who weighed over a hundred jin even without his armor, was lifted straight off the ground along with his heavy plates of armor.

His entire body tumbled through the air as he flew backward seven or eight zhang.

His massive frame knocked over five or six comrades in the rear ranks. He twitched twice after hitting the ground, then stopped moving entirely.

This was not a battle between evenly matched sides.

This was a one-sided slaughtering crush.

A-Nan lay sprawled across Lu Chen's broad back.

All around them came the dull sounds of bones breaking, along with the shrill, distorted screams of men.

The little blind girl could not see the hellish scene outside, but she could clearly feel the howling gusts whipping past and smell the stench of splattered blood.

Yet she was no longer afraid.

The scorching body heat radiating from Lu Chen's back flowed without end into her thin body.

It was warmth enough to drive away all the bitter cold from the muddy alleyways.

With that warmth there, the fear in her heart slowly faded away.

The battle was utter chaos.

Broken stones and shards of shattered weapons shot wildly across the street.

As Lu Chen threw punch after punch, he also controlled the boiling blood and vitality within his body.

He deliberately separated a thread of Extreme Path blood and vitality, forming an invisible barrier around his back.

The instant flying stones and broken blades approached, that thread of blood and vitality knocked them away.

Amid the savage fighting, not even the corner of A-Nan's tattered padded jacket was touched.

"Brother Chen..."

A-Nan rested her chin on Lu Chen's shoulder. Her voice was weak and faintly trembling.

"Doesn't it hurt?"

Lu Chen's right hand was clamped around another guard's throat.

His five fingers slowly tightened.

Crack.

He casually crushed the brittle bones of the man's throat.

The man rolled his eyes and collapsed limply onto the blood-soaked bluestone pavement.

Lu Chen shook the blood from his hand.

On this street littered with corpses, where the stench of blood soared into the sky, he turned his head.

When he answered the little girl, he deliberately lowered his voice until it was barely audible.

"Big brother doesn't hurt."

"Close your eyes. Don't listen."

It was the only tenderness he retained amid all that blood.

Behind the crowd.

Steward Zhao had originally hoped the guards could bury this trash with no spiritual roots beneath sheer numbers.

But now, as he looked at his subordinates sprawled everywhere, wailing with broken bones and torn tendons.

A massive crack split through his flabby mental defenses, and he finally broke.

"Monster... What kind of monster is this?!"

Steward Zhao's fat hands trembled as he fumbled through his robes. He failed to get a proper grip several times.

At last, he pulled out a white jade plaque engraved with intricate array patterns and flickering with faint spiritual light.

He clutched the jade plaque tightly, gritting his teeth as he tried to seize his final lifeline.

"You dare kill me?!"

Steward Zhao screamed madly at the top of his lungs, the fat on his face jiggling.

"Look carefully at what I'm holding!"

"My life-soul plaque is linked to Black Mud City's Immortal City Grand Array!"

"You lowborn bastard without spiritual roots, try touching me!"

"If I die, the grand array will immediately bring down heavenly punishment!"

"It'll grind you—and that blind girl on your back—into a lump of rotten meat!"

Those words thoroughly ignited the powder keg.

He was using A-Nan's life to threaten him?

That had touched Lu Chen's absolute reverse scale.

All expression vanished from his face, and savage killing intent churned in his eyes.

The violent blood and vitality he had deliberately restrained out of concern for A-Nan exploded at that moment.

Lu Chen lowered his eyes to the ground.

There lay a section of black iron spearhead that he had snapped off with his slap earlier.

He raised his right foot and violently flicked his toes upward.

"Whoosh!"

The half-chi broken spearhead shot out with a piercing shriek that tore through the air.

It was even several degrees faster than a cultivator's low-grade flying sword.

Steward Zhao had not even prepared himself to scream.

"Squelch!"

The sharp metal tore through flesh and pierced straight through the calf of his right leg.

The enormous momentum yanked Steward Zhao's body violently backward.

The spearhead was driven brutally into the bluestone pavement behind him.

It nailed his fat leg firmly to the ground.

"Aaaah—!!!"

Steward Zhao let out a shriek like a slaughtered pig.

The jade plaque fell from his hand. He desperately tried to pull out the spearhead, but the moment his hand touched it, the searing blood made him jerk it back.

Lu Chen spread his long legs and stepped over the guards' bodies strewn across the ground.

He strode up to Steward Zhao.

He did not even spare the glowing life-soul jade plaque on the ground a glance.

He raised his right foot.

Then, without mercy, he stomped down on the knee of Steward Zhao's left leg, which was still kicking wildly.

Crack!

The sound of bones being ground to dust drowned out his screams.

Steward Zhao's left knee was crushed into a puddle of pulp, leaving him completely crippled.

Lu Chen looked down from above at this lackey of the Immortal City.

His voice carried the most primal brutality.

"I'd like to see."

"Whether your array is faster."

"Or my foot is."

Lu Chen lifted his sole and casually swept out with a side kick.

"Bang!"

Steward Zhao, already in so much pain that his eyes had rolled back, tumbled far down the street before crashing into a stone pillar at the roadside and finally stopping.

He lay sprawled by the road, twitching uncontrollably.

That laughable confidence in the Immortal Sect, that self-righteous threat of life and death.

Before absolute, crushing violence, Lu Chen had smashed it all to pieces.

The main road was finally cleared completely.

No one dared stand in his way any longer.

With A-Nan on his back, Lu Chen continued along the broad street toward the inner city.

Before long.

He arrived at the far end of the square marking the boundary between the outer city and the inner city.

Straight ahead stood a colossal object.

A massive black stone stele, ten zhang tall and weighing thirty thousand jin.

The stele stood brazenly embedded along the axis dividing immortals from mortals, its shadow blanketing half the square.

Its surface was carved with densely packed ancient patterns.

An aura that looked down from on high and suppressed every spark of life among mortals spread out across the area.

This was Black Mud City's City-Guarding Stele.

A dead thing that symbolized the immortal sect's absolute authority.

Every mortal living in the outer city had to kowtow before this stele every morning.

If they did not kowtow, they could not pay their tribute.

If they could not pay their tribute, they would be driven out to feed the demon beasts.

It had weighed upon the backs of all mortals for who knew how many years.

Lu Chen walked up to the stone stele.

Before this colossal object weighing thirty thousand jin, his body appeared especially small.

He raised his head and gazed up at it silently for a moment.

Then.

He extended that rough hand, freshly stained with his enemies' blood and gleaming with an iron-gray luster.

Slowly reaching forward.

His palm pressed firmly against the slightly cool black surface of the stele.

The instant they touched.

Lu Chen's breathing abruptly caught.

The eleven layers of ultimate blood qi surging madly within him suddenly throbbed beyond his control.

Through his palm.

Within this dead thing that represented the immortal sect's authority.

He sensed a faint, yet completely kindred...

Tremor of bloodline.