Qingzhou Plaza was an open wound at the center of the city.
The rain poured down in relentless, freezing torrents, yet it could not wash away the nauseating, heavy stench of blood hanging over the cobblestones. At the center of the vast stone square, the massive Blood-Refining Array emitted a low, beast-like hum that vibrated through the boots of anyone standing nearby. Dark-red runes, carved deep into the stone floor, flowed with a thick, pulsating light, greedily sucking the life essence forcibly drained from three thousand mortals.
Those mortals were bound in long, excruciating rows. Heavy iron chains pierced clean through their collarbones, pinning them to the muddy ground like a harvest of slaughter-bound livestock. Their clothes were soaked, their skin turning a sickly blue from the cold, but their eyes held no anger, no rebellion. There was only a fish-like, hollow numbness born of extreme, prolonged terror. They had been taught for three thousand years that their bodies belonged to the heavens, and that to be harvested was their ultimate purpose.
Floating fifty feet above the plaza on a platform carved from pure, unblemished white jade, two Golden Core Elders of the Cloud-Soothed Sect sat across from each other, playing a game of go. A spiritual barrier surrounded the platform, keeping the rain, the mud, and the stench of mortality away from their pristine robes.
"This year’s blood ore is of exceptionally good quality," the white-haired Elder, Mo Xiu, remarked as he calmly placed a black stone onto the board. His tone was as casual as if he were discussing the annual wheat yield of a provincial farm. "The spiritual qi of this world is exhausted, and the desperate will to survive that these mortals produce actually gives their marrow a certain resilience. When refined into Blood Pills, the grade will surely be top-tier."
"Heh, the lives of ants..." The other Elder, a man with a long grey beard and narrow, serpent-like eyes, stroked his chin, letting out a soft chuckle filled with the effortless arrogance of an overlord. "If their miserable existence can contribute to extending our longevity by a few years, it should be considered the greatest honor of their bloodlines."
Just then, a rhythmic, heavy dragging sound emerged from the dark shadows at the far edge of the plaza.
Scrape... Thud... Scrape...
A massive, irregular metal object was being dragged across the hard stone tiles, pulling jagged, blinding sparks through the rain curtain with every step.
Elder Mo Xiu frowned, his fingers hovering over his vessel of go stones. The sound was highly unusual. It was not the desperate shuffling of chained mortals or the rhythmic footsteps of the array guards. Every beat of the dragging metal seemed to step precisely on the pulsing rhythm of the Blood-Refining Array below, causing an inexplicable, sharp irritation to rise in his heart.
He leaned slightly over the white jade balustrade, looking down through the rain.
Stepping into the blood-red light of the array was a tall, slouched man draped in a tattered black cloak. He was bare-chested beneath the cloth, dragging a blackened iron hammer of absurd size with his right hand, walking forward with slow, heavy, and deliberate steps.
"Who is that?" Mo Xiu asked, his voice dropping into a cold, dangerous register. "Why is a mortal walking freely within the perimeter?"
"Reporting to the Elder, it seems to be an idiot seeking death," a Foundation Establishment disciple guarding the perimeter of the array spoke up from the edge of the platform. A flash of cruelty crossed the disciple's face as he looked down at the intruder. "He carries no spiritual energy. I shall go and harvest his head to keep the array pure."
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With a flick of his fingers, the disciple leaped off the white jade platform, treading upon a sharp streak of green sword-light. He hovered twenty feet above the plaza floor, looking down at the slouched figure below like a celestial being gazing at a worm crawling in the muck.
"Vile slag! You dare trespass upon restricted ground?" the disciple roared, his voice amplified by his spiritual power. "Kneel and offer your neck!"
The disciple channeled a sword seal with his right hand, and his weapon—the Green-Rainbow Sword—transformed into a sharp, whistling arc of green light that tore through the rain, aiming straight for Gu Yao’s throat. In the eyes of the chained mortals kneeling in the mud, this strike was an light-speed, unavoidable divine punishment.
Gu Yao stopped his advance.
He slowly raised his head, his face covered in wind-scars, old burns, and forge-dust. Beneath his unkempt white hair, his grey pupils looked exceptionally cold under the crimson glare of the array.
Deep within his neck, the first Immortal-Locking Nail had now completely transformed into a piece of white-hot coal. The agony made every cell in his body shiver, but it also awakened a long-dormant, violent hunger within his blood—a hunger for justice, for vengeance, for blood.
"This strike..." Gu Yao rasped, spitting a mouthful of bloody phlegm into the mud beside his boot. "...is to settle the accounts for the Ninety-Seven Mile Blood Road."
His right hand tightened around the thick, cloth-wrapped handle of Severed Head. The six-hundred-pound hammer let out a deafening, metallic boom as he dragged it forward, carving a deep trench into the stone floor.
CRACK!!!
With a sudden, brutal twist of Gu Yao’s torso, the first Immortal-Locking Nail in his cervical vertebrae was forcibly shaken outward by half an inch by his sheer, unyielding will!
In that microsecond, a tide of violent, suppressed physical power—power that had been locked away for fifty years—surged through his calloused arms and flooded into the iron hammer like a dam bursting under a tidal wave.
There were no fancy spells. There were no brilliant, elemental lights.
There was only absolute weight, and absolute speed.
BOOM—!!!
The horizontal sweep of the six-hundred-pound hammer instantly vibrated the falling raindrops within a twenty-foot radius into a fine, atmospheric mist, creating a localized vacuum field in the middle of the downpour.
The arrogant Green-Rainbow Sword, upon making contact with the blunt iron head of Severed Head, did not even have the chance to bend. It shattered inch by inch like a fragile icicle under a sledgehammer. The residual force of the strike did not dissipate; it carried a visible white shockwave of compressed air, slamming violently into the Foundation Establishment disciple’s waist.
CRUNCH.
There was no scream.
Under that terrifying kinetic impact, the disciple’s physical body was compressed to its structural limit in a single millisecond, and then exploded outward like a water balloon filled with red ink, transforming into a thick mist of blood and pulverized bone that drifted through the rain.
Absolute silence fell over the entire plaza.
The hum of the Blood-Refining Array seemed to stutter. The three thousand mortals kneeling in the mud stared in stunned, breathless horror at the empty space where the "Immortal Master" had been standing just a second before.
On the white jade platform above, the black go stone in Elder Mo Xiu’s fingers slipped and hit the floor with a sharp, resonant clatter. He stood up abruptly, his hands gripping the balustrade so hard the jade cracked under his fingers. Horror, pure and unadulterated, appeared in his eyes for the very first time.
"This... this is definitely not spiritual power!" Mo Xiu stammered, his voice shaking. "This is the strength of Physical Sanctification? How is it possible in this era of exhausted spiritual qi? Who is he?!"
Gu Yao held the massive, blood-dripping hammer horizontal with a single hand. His once-slouched spine emitted a series of loud, bone-grinding cracks as it straightened inch by agonizing inch within the drifting red mist.
He looked up at the high white jade platform, his raspy voice echoing across the silent plaza like a death toll rising from the underworld:
"Fifty years ago, your Sect Leader owed Gu a life. Today, I am here to collect the interest."