Step into the Mud

Day three.

Noon.

The western suburbs of the capital, the entrance to the Taiyi Dao Sect's pocket dimension.

The landscape of this land, which originally belonged to Great Xia, had now been completely transformed.

The air was filled with a visible white mist, which was extremely dense spiritual energy.

Deep within the mist, an ancient mountain gate standing a thousand feet tall could be faintly seen.

In front of the mountain gate.

Li Miaoyuan stood with his hands behind his back, wearing a moon-white Daoist robe.

Two hundred years of devoted cultivation had given his skin a lustrous, jade-like glow.

Standing there, he seemed to blend with the surrounding heaven and earth, exuding an inviolable, transcendent aura.

Behind him stood three junior martial brothers in neat formation, similarly dressed in Daoist robes.

Any one of these three, if sent to the capital, could sweep through those so-called ancient martial arts families.

"Eldest Martial Brother."

One of the junior brothers glanced at the sky, his tone carrying undisguised contempt.

"The time is almost up. If that so-called head of the Shen financial group doesn't come to kneel before the mountain soon..."

"Then we shall go and wipe out his entire family."

Li Miaoyuan's tone was flat, as if he were talking about stepping on a nest of ants.

"The mortal realm has been sealed for a thousand years. These ants have long forgotten how to revere immortals and deities. Slaughtering the fattest chicken will save us a lot of trouble in the future."

As soon as he finished speaking.

The extremely deep roar of a car engine approached from the distant winding mountain road.

A black Mercedes-Benz G63 off-road vehicle tore through the dense white spiritual mist and brutally charged right up to the mountain gate.

"Screech!!!"

Accompanied by the ear-piercing sound of braking, the Mercedes stopped less than twenty meters away from Li Miaoyuan.

The car door was pushed open.

Shen Fei stepped out.

There was no massive motorcade of bodyguards.

There was no Ling Shuang or Ling Xue leading the way.

He was alone.

Wearing a black shirt without a single wrinkle, he walked alone onto the territory of this immortal cultivation sect.

Li Miaoyuan looked at Shen Fei, who had come alone, and frowned slightly.

He did not sense the sincerity of taking three steps and bowing once.

"Are you the head of the Shen family?"

Li Miaoyuan looked down at Shen Fei from his high vantage point.

It was an extremely natural sense of superiority, precipitated by two hundred years of time.

"Did you bring the one hundred billion in gold?"

Shen Fei did not answer.

He walked step by step until he was in front of Li Miaoyuan.

The distance between the two shortened to ten meters.

Five meters.

Three meters.

Shen Fei stopped in his tracks.

He did not look at Li Miaoyuan's arrogant face, but instead lowered his head and glanced at the lush wild grass beneath his feet, which had been nourished by the spiritual energy.

"Mortal."

Li Miaoyuan's voice suddenly turned cold, carrying a coercive pressure that pierced straight to the soul.

"I command you to kneel."

The surrounding air became as heavy as mercury under this spiritual pressure from the peak of the Foundation Establishment realm.

The three junior brothers standing behind Li Miaoyuan had already revealed expressions of watching a good show.

In their eyes, this reckless mortal would have his legs snapped by the pressure in the next second and fall to the ground like a dog.

But Shen Fei did not kneel.

He didn't even bend his knees.

Shen Fei slowly raised his head.

He looked at Li Miaoyuan.

"The ground is dirty."

Shen Fei's voice was exceedingly calm.

Li Miaoyuan's eyes instantly turned icy.

"You are courting death."

There was no unnecessary nonsense.

Li Miaoyuan didn't even deign to touch this filthy mortal with his own hands.

"Clang!"

An extremely crisp sword chime, like the roar of a dragon, exploded in mid-air.

A streak of golden light shot up into the sky from behind Li Miaoyuan.

A natal flying sword!

This flying sword had accompanied his cultivation for a full fifty years. Forged from deep-sea cold iron mixed with Taiyi essence gold, it could cut through iron like mud.

The so-called bulletproof armor of the mortal world was not much harder than tofu before it.

The golden sword qi traced a blinding trajectory in the air, carrying an ear-piercing shriek that tore through the air, slashing straight toward Shen Fei's throat!

Fast!

Too fast!

This was the method of an immortal cultivator: the sword fired with a mere thought, killing a person from a hundred paces away!

A sneer had already appeared on the corner of Li Miaoyuan's mouth.

He could even already see the image of Shen Fei's head falling to the ground.

But at the exact moment the flying sword was about to touch Shen Fei's throat.

Shen Fei moved.

Heavenly Demon Body, full power eruption!

Shen Fei's body did not retreat; instead, defying all logic, he took a half step forward.

He turned his body slightly, dodging the sharpest point of the flying sword.

Then.

He reached out his left hand and viciously slapped the ridge of the flying sword with his palm!

"Ding!!!"

An extremely jarring sound of metal clashing!

Li Miaoyuan's proud natal flying sword trembled violently in mid-air.

The golden spiritual energy attached to the sword blade was actually slapped away by more than half from Shen Fei's strike!

Before Li Miaoyuan could even react.

Shen Fei's left hand flipped and clamped down.

He tightly grabbed the blade of the flying sword!

"Are you crazy?!"

One of the junior brothers behind Li Miaoyuan cried out in shock.

Grabbing a flying sword infused with Foundation Establishment spiritual energy with bare hands? Did this mortal not want his hand anymore?!

But the next second, they witnessed an extremely terrifying scene.

Not only was Shen Fei's hand not severed.

Instead, an extremely dense, dark-golden demonic energy crazily poured into the flying sword along Shen Fei's palm!

"Boom!"

The Heavenly Demon true energy acted like a furious black dragon, directly destroying the spiritual formations inside the flying sword.

"Crack... crack..."

The exceptionally crisp sound of shattering rang out.

That natal flying sword, which Li Miaoyuan had nourished for fifty years, crumbled inch by inch in Shen Fei's hand!

Finally, it turned into a pile of scrap-like iron sand, clattering to the ground.

"Pfft!"

With his natal magical treasure destroyed, his mind and spirit being connected to it, Li Miaoyuan spat out a mouthful of blood on the spot.

His face, which always maintained a transcendent appearance, instantly became extremely twisted and horrified.

"This is impossible!!"

Li Miaoyuan roared.

How could a mortal's flesh possibly withstand a magical treasure?!

But he simply had no time to ponder this question.

Because the moment he crushed the flying sword, Shen Fei had already closed in!

The speed of a peak Great Grandmaster broke the sound barrier at this moment, leaving a visible sonic boom cloud in its place.

Too fast.

So fast that Li Miaoyuan's physical reaction as a Foundation Establishment cultivator couldn't keep up at all!

"Bang!"

Shen Fei's left hand grabbed the collar of the moon-white Daoist robe on Li Miaoyuan's chest.

The five fingers of his right hand clenched tightly into a fist.

There were no flashy martial arts moves.

Just extremely pure, tyrannical physical strength!

"Boom!"

An extremely heavy, muffled punch solidly smashed into Li Miaoyuan's abdomen!

The layer of spiritual energy shield on Li Miaoyuan's body, strong enough to withstand armor-piercing bullets, lasted only a tenth of a second against the tremendous force of Shen Fei's Heavenly Demon Body before shattering with a loud crash.

The terrifying force of the punch directly penetrated the spiritual defense and smashed into his internal organs.

"Blargh—"

Li Miaoyuan spat out another large mouthful of blood, which even contained pieces of his shattered internal organs.

His eyes bulged outward due to the extreme pain.

His entire body was lifted into the air by Shen Fei with one hand.

Just like a plucked, broken gunny sack.

"Eldest Martial Brother!!!"

The three junior brothers standing behind him only now woke up as if from a dream. Terrified out of their wits, they instinctively wanted to summon their magical treasures and step forward to rescue him.

Shen Fei didn't even turn his head.

His left hand, gripping Li Miaoyuan's collar, slammed downward with tremendous force!

Boom!!!

Pinned by Shen Fei's single hand, Li Miaoyuan was violently smashed into the ground!

The hard rocky ground was instantly covered in spiderweb-like cracks as a half-meter-deep, human-shaped crater was forcibly smashed open.

Kicked-up dust obscured the view.

Shen Fei stood at the edge of the crater.

He lifted his right foot.

And casually stepped on Li Miaoyuan's back.

The dust gradually settled.

The senior disciple of the Taiyi Daoist Sect, who just moments ago had been acting so high and mighty, treating mortals like dirt.

Was now covered in blood, half his face buried in the dirt, pinned beneath Shen Fei's foot like a dead dog.

Shen Fei looked down at him.

His tone was incredibly calm.

One hundred billion.

I don't want to pay this price.

Shen Fei slowly raised his gaze, looking at the three completely terrified immortal cultivator junior brothers ahead.

Therefore.

I can only send you on your way.

The three junior brothers turned deathly pale.

They finally realized that the mortal before them, who lacked any spiritual energy fluctuations, was no fat sheep waiting to be slaughtered.

He was an ancient ferocious beast wearing human skin!

Form the array! Kill him!

The three roared in unison, their hands rapidly forming seals. Three magical artifacts radiating precious light shot into the sky simultaneously, attempting to form a combined attack array.

Shen Fei sneered.

He didn't move his foot from Li Miaoyuan's back.

He merely shifted his body with extreme casualness.

The dark gold Heavenly Demon true qi within his body erupted out like a volcano!

Boom!

The berserk wave of Heavenly Demon qi instantly swept across a thirty-meter radius.

The three newly launched magical artifacts were directly blown away by the shockwave.

The two junior brothers attempting to attack from the flanks were hit head-on by the Heavenly Demon true qi. Before they could even scream, they were sent flying backward like kites with broken strings, their fate unknown.

The last junior brother, who had charged to the very front.

Was struck in the chest by Shen Fei's palm strike from afar.

He flew backward like a cannonball, crashing heavily into a barrier stone pillar at the entrance of the folded space.

Crack.

The stone pillar shattered.

The junior brother slid to the ground, twitched twice, and completely stopped moving.

In less than a minute.

The four elite disciples of the Taiyi Daoist Sect who had entered the mortal world.

Three were crippled and one captured.

Shen Fei stood in place.

Even his breathing rate hadn't changed in the slightest.

He kept his foot on Li Miaoyuan.

The system's data rapidly flashed in his mind.

Prompt: The Heavenly Demon Physique's physical defense has taken full effect in the collision with the immortal cultivation magical artifacts.

However, residual high-dimensional spiritual energy from the magical artifacts has been detected, causing extremely weak penetrating corrosion to the host's muscle tissue. Heavenly Demon true qi is automatically clearing it...

Shen Fei felt the almost negligible stinging sensation on his left hand.

The magical artifacts of immortal cultivators indeed had some tricks to them.

But that was all.

It seems the so-called immortals are nothing more than this.

Shen Fei retracted his true qi, preparing to exert force with his foot to directly snap Li Miaoyuan's spine and end this boring farce.

Right at this moment.

Li Miaoyuan, pinned beneath his foot, suddenly stopped struggling.

His face, buried in the dirt, slowly turned around.

His originally clear eyes were now covered in horrifyingly savage bloodshot veins.

There was no humiliation in his eyes.

Only a kind of extreme, deranged madness that belonged to an immortal cultivator who had been trampled underfoot by a mortal.

The mortal realm...

Li Miaoyuan's voice was incredibly hoarse, like sawing wood.

To think the mortal realm... actually has such a demon...

He suddenly grinned, revealing teeth covered in blood, looking extremely eerie.

But did you think the foundation of an immortal cultivator is merely flying swords?!

With great difficulty, Li Miaoyuan pulled a paper talisman from his robes.

It was a pitch-black paper talisman.

There was no cinnabar on it, only some extremely ancient, bizarre patterns radiating a blinding golden light.

The moment that golden light flowed.

For the first time, an incredibly intense sense of danger flashed through Shen Fei's eyes, which had always been as calm as still water!

No.

It was the warning of death!