The heavy, suffocating curtain of pouring rain hacked the desolate wilderness into jagged, bleeding fragments.
This was no longer a mere tactical retreat; it was a slow, agonizing war of attrition played out upon the razor-sharp edge of a deadly blade. Fifteen miles past the heavy iron gates of Qingzhou City, the ancient official road narrowed into a treacherous, suffocating chasm known throughout the region as "Soul-Shatter Ridge."
On either side of the narrow path rose sheer, jagged uplands of desolate black stone, looming over the valley like ancient tombstones. Between them lay a choked, knee-deep channel of viscous, foul-smelling black mud. Three thousand mortals shuffled through this treacherous trench, their bodies and spirits pushed far beyond the absolute limits of human endurance. The low, rattling wheeze of dying elders and the muffled, terrified sobs of starving children twisted together in the howling gale. The heavy air reeked of iron, rain-soaked earth, and the suffocating, acidic stench of lingering, hopeless decay.
Gu Yao walked through the very deepest trench of the mire. Every single step he took sank heavy into the swampy mud, leaving behind a deep, crimson mark of fresh blood that even the violent torrents of rain refused to wash away.
Deep within his spine, the terrifying crack along the second Immortal-Locking Nail—Ju-Que—was actively expanding, sending web-like fractures directly into the surrounding marrow and vertebrae. He felt as though a massive steel rod, heated to a white-hot glow, was constantly being hammered back and forth through his central spinal column. With every ragged, bloody breath he drew into his chest, his lungs burned as if filled with glowing, smoldering coals.
"Halt."
Gu Yao abruptly raised his left hand. His voice was low, gravelly, and heavy, sounding like massive boulders grinding together in the terrifying depths of an ancient well.
The sprawling procession of three thousand came to a grinding, shuddering standstill. Every pair of hollow, frightened eyes shifted toward that towering, blood-soaked figure at the front. Shen Yi was supporting a young mother who had completely lost her strength, her own posture tense and her sharp, watchful eyes darting cautiously toward the pitch-black abyss of the narrow canyon ahead.
"Since you’ve already tracked us all the way here, stop hiding like cowards behind that foul stench," Gu Yao sneered, his cold, unblinking gaze locked onto a massive, shadow-draped boulder positioned high above the eastern ridge.
"Hahaha! Worthy indeed of the Cloud-Soothed Sect’s former First Disciple! Even after fifty long years of being nailed into a useless, crippled dog, your perception of Divinity remains as sharp as ever!"
From the swirling darkness of the thunderstorm, several swift figures clad in sleek, cyan-patterned combat robes slowly emerged from behind the jagged rocks. Unlike the flamboyant outer disciples who had tried to block the road earlier with loud boasts, these men exuded an aura as steady, dense, and oppressive as a falling mountain. At their waists hung heavy brass bells engraved with intricate dark runes—the Demon-Suppressing Bells worn exclusively by the elite, high-ranking executioners of the Sect’s Disciplinary Hall.
These were the Heaven-Pole Guards—the true, cold-blooded hunting hounds of the Cloud-Soothed Sect, trained specifically to track down, torture, and slaughter any disobedient "blood-slag."
The leader of the squad stepped forward to the edge of the cliff and casually tipped off his conical bamboo hat, revealing a grotesque, terrifying face covered in deep, crisscrossing blade scars. It was Mo Xiu’s eldest son, Mo Sha.
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"Gu Yao, don't you find it utterly exhausting, dragging these three thousand worthless dregs through the freezing rain?" Mo Sha toyed nonchalantly with a pair of curved short daggers in his gloved hands, their jagged edges pulsing with a sickening, venomous purple light. "If you drop that shattered piece of junk iron right now and hand Shen Yi over to me as a Living Cauldron for our Sect, I might feel generous enough to plead with my father on your behalf. We could refine these three thousand dregs into semi-finished Blood Pills instead—sparing them at least half of the excruciating torture they are about to face."
Behind Gu Yao, Shen Yi clenched her trembling fists so hard her knuckles turned stark white, her sharp fingernails cutting deep into her bruised palms.
Gu Yao bowed his head, letting out a deep, gravelly chuckle that quickly devolved into a sudden, blood-spitting cough. Then, he abruptly snapped his head up. Within those hollow, blood-caked sockets, twin crimson irises flared to life with blinding brilliance, a suffocating wave of pure, unfiltered killing intent bursting forth like a physical shockwave that parted the falling rain.
"Mo Sha... fifty years ago, when I personally taught you your very first sword stances in the inner courtyard, I told you that your heart was far too crooked for the true Dao."
Gu Yao spat out a mouthful of dark, bloody mud straight into the rain. His right hand violently clamped around the thick, cloth-wrapped hilt of his shattered warhammer. The blood-soaked linen wrappings creaked under his crushing grip with a harsh, agonizing squeal.
"Today, as your former Senior Brother, I shall teach you one final, indelible lesson: the true meaning of... a Price."
"Fire!" Mo Sha’s scarred face twisted in sudden panic, and he violently swung his gloved arm down.
Whiz—whiz—whiz—!
Twelve heavy crossbow bolts, trailing thick plumes of acidic, greenish-purple toxic smoke, erupted instantly from the concealed strike positions on the high cliffs. These bolts were not fired with the intent to kill Gu Yao outright, but rather to blind his senses, poison his blood, and force him into a defensive crouch.
Simultaneously, four Heaven-Pole Guards darted forward like shadowy panthers hunting in the dark, their movements leaving multiple ghostly after-images in the heavy air as their blades flashed directly toward Gu Yao’s elbows and kneecaps.
Gu Yao did not retreat by a single inch. He did not even bother to raise a defense.
He slammed his lead foot down into the muddy earth with monstrous, mountain-shaking force. The viscous black mire beneath him exploded violently into the sky under the sheer pneumatic pressure, forming a towering, temporary shield of dense black mud.
Cr-crack!
Deep within his spine, a sharp, horrific snap of breaking bone echoed clearly in his ears. Gu Yao bit clean through his lower lip, forcibly suppressing the blinding, agonizing white light that threatened to shatter his mind and render him unconscious. Raising the six-hundred-pound shattered hammer high with both arms, he delivered a crushing, full-body horizontal sweep the exact microsecond the mud wall burst outward.
This strike contained no spiritual qi, no refined martial artistry, and no delicate immortal technique. It held only fifty long, dark years of pure, condensed, unadulterated vengeance.
BOOM—!!!
The leading Heaven-Pole Guard had no time to dodge, nor even the breath to scream. The high-grade spiritual shield held tightly in his left hand shattered into useless dust like damp paper the fraction of a second it made contact with the shattered hammer. Immediately following was his chest—a ribcage forged through decades of hard cultivation to withstand full-force strikes from Foundation Establishment warriors—which collapsed inward instantly under the horrific kinetic impact.
His entire body was launched backward over thirty meters like a burst blood-bag struck by a siege engine, smashing heavily into the jagged stone wall and reducing into an irregular, unrecognizable lump of minced flesh and bone.
"Kill him together! His internal bones are shattered—he can't sustain this form for long!" Mo Sha shrieked, his scarred face turning deathly pale as his purple daggers whirled into a frantic frenzy of ten thousand lethal serpent-shadows.
Gu Yao stood tall like an unyielding mountain, leaning heavily on the thick hilt of his shattered hammer as torrents of ice-cold rain washed the fresh blood from his face. Looking at the pack of blood-hounds surging toward him from all directions, a cold, vicious, and terrifying smile slowly curved his blood-stained lips.
He knew in his heart that this was only the true beginning of the Ninety-Seven Mile Blood Road.