Before Chen Ping’an delivered his first fist.

The old immortal in the clouds, wore a Five Peaks Crown, adorned with true forms of the Five Sacred Mountains, shimmering with light, faintly echoing with the sounds of pines, cranes, and mountain streams.

The old man controlled the descending sea of clouds, as if wielding a million soldiers, pressing down upon a mere speck of land. Confidence was naturally in his grasp. He narrowed his eyes, looking towards the martial arts field of Flying Eagle Stronghold, and chuckled derisively. A mere whelp dared to try to shake a giant tree, truly ignorant of death. The demon infant gestating in the heart of the Stronghold Lord’s wife had been their master and disciple’s scheme for nearly forty years, a guaranteed success. The hardships, sacrifices, and the stroke of elusive luck were not to be shared with outsiders.

The original purpose of this Flying Eagle Stronghold, hidden in the mountains, was likely buried with the first Stronghold Lord. But the old man knew that back then, the two largest Immortal Aristocrat clans in the central Tongye Continent, the Fuji Sect and the Taiping Mountain, had clashed. Two Land Immortals had fought fiercely. The Golden Core cultivator from the Fuji Sect never expected the Taiping Mountain cultivator he provoked to be a deeply hidden Nascent Soul powerhouse!

The latter, knowing his end was near and breakthrough hopeless, finished his affairs and began to travel the world. Although his body and soul were decaying, a starving camel was still bigger than a horse. He nearly killed the Fuji Sect Golden Core cultivator on the spot. The latter fled, but was intercepted by the Taiping Mountain Nascent Soul near the present-day Flying Eagle Stronghold. Unforgiving, he paid no heed to the Fuji Sect and was determined to kill the Golden Core cultivator.

Seeing no hope of escape, the Golden Core cultivator had thoughts of mutual destruction. He used a forbidden technique of the Fuji Sect. Being at the end of his strength, the orthodox summoning of gods, with hope of inviting a powerful deity, was unlikely. He didn’t hesitate to use all his lifeblood to summon an ancient demon recorded in the Fuju Sect’s secret texts. The demon was dozens of feet tall, and its ominous aura solidified into a suit of black heavy armor. In fact, the Golden Core cultivator had died after summoning the demon. His empty shell turned to dust and disappeared into the world.

The Taiping Mountain Nascent Soul could have retreated, but chose to fight the ancient demon to the end, unleashing magical treasures and spells like rain upon the demon. The old cultivator’s flesh was torn, his soul shook. When his Golden Core shattered, his nascent spirit, fighting out of his body, died first. The Nascent Soul cultivator still shouted in exhilaration, perishing together with the demon’s earthly incarnation.

The earth beneath their feet was tainted in the aftermath of the shocking battle. The sinister energy gathered within a hundred miles was no less than that of an ancient battlefield where hundreds of thousands of soldiers had been buried.

The Taiping Mountain Nascent Soul was still worried about the mortal world. He feared that the leakage of sinister energy would affect the fortune of the surrounding mountains and rivers. His remaining soul barely clung to life and found a young woodcutter who went into the mountains to chop wood. He granted him a secret art of suppression and a fighting technique, a most righteous and masculine saber art. The Nascent Soul cultivator also asked the young woodcutter to build a fortress, start a family, and use the offspring of pure martial artists to suppress the sinister energy with their vitality. At the same time, the Huan family practiced the saber art, and the intangible sinister energy served as the best whetstone, making their martial arts progress with half the effort. This created the Flying Eagle Stronghold’s future status in the martial world, producing geniuses and leaders.

Old Master Huan and several generations of Stronghold Lords liked to travel the world after achieving success in martial arts, ostensibly to earn a reputation for Flying Eagle Stronghold, but secretly to search for immortals in famous mountains and rivers, hoping to solve the problem of Flying Eagle Stronghold’s excessive sinister energy once and for all. However, Old Master Huan died strangely, and his mediocre heir, Huan Yang, took over as Stronghold Lord in a hurry. Soon after, demonic figures from the Chenxiang Kingdom attacked Flying Eagle Stronghold. The clues about the Nascent Soul Immortal and the woodcutter ancestor were lost. Many relationships carefully cultivated by their ancestors were gone. For example, Huan Yang knew nothing about the relationship between Old Master Huan and the young Daoist Huang Shang’s master. Instead, he had to seek help from friends in the capital. Everyone in Flying Eagle Stronghold was still unaware of the two stone lions at the entrance of the ancestral hall, and then this catastrophe occurred.

The high-crowned old man in the central Tongye Continent was a notorious demonic cultivator. He was once a top-notch Golden Core expert, with extraordinary combat power. As a rogue cultivator, he believed he was no less than the Golden Core cultivators of the Fuju Sect and Taiping Mountain. However, after the feat of killing two Taiping Mountain Dragon Gate cultivators, he was soon met with a thunderous pursuit from Taiping Mountain. A young Golden Core from Taiping Mountain went down the mountain alone, pursued him for thousands of miles, and forced him to lose everything, even his last dimension space shattered. In the end, he had to give up half of his cultivation and body to escape death from the young cultivator who seemed like a heavenly god.

The old man, full of hatred, thought of revenge against Taiping Mountain all the time. Thus, he meticulously planned the Flying Eagle Stronghold scheme for decades. First, when the Stronghold Lord’s wife, who had the potential for cultivation, was young, the old man, who had fallen back to the Dragon Gate Realm, shattered her Bridge of Immortality, but not completely. Hundreds and thousands of cracks appeared, except for the “bridge section” in her heart, which remained intact. This made her like a porcelain jar constantly absorbing underground sinister energy, actively flowing into the “spring” in her heart. Finally, under the old man’s secret guidance, she conceived the demon infant.

Once successful, the demon infant would break out of her heart. Then, finding a few remote countries far from the mountain’s sight, the old man, still a Dragon Gate Realm cultivator, could easily become a national teacher, support a few puppet courtiers, or even secretly control the monarch, launching war after war to feed the demon infant. A hundred years later, the demon infant would reach the Land Immortal realm. Even the deeply rooted Taiping Mountain would not be destroyed by its attacks, but it would certainly be severely damaged.

The grudges of cultivators didn’t last long for immortals.

As for the life and death of the mortals between these grudges, some didn’t care at all, such as the old man in the clouds, but others cared, such as the Taiping Mountain Nascent Soul cultivator.

However, such compassionate immortals still could not reach the Upper Five Realms, and in the end, they could only await death. This showed that the Great Dao was ruthless and did not distinguish between good and evil.

The high-crowned old man in the clouds still found it ridiculous after the young martial artist delivered three fists. No matter how strong the momentum, without the support of a real realm, it was just a beautiful castle in the air. However, the old man truly coveted the golden robe on the young man’s body. It was simply an unexpected surprise. Such a martial arts novice possessed a treasure but did not cherish his life.

A good thing, indeed a good thing.

Could it be that the wheel of fortune had turned, and it was his turn to prosper? No longer a rat drilling underground, and would recover his former glory sooner than expected?

As for whether the golden-robed young man was a disciple of an Immortal family, the high-crowned old man didn’t care about that. He had already broken face with Taiping Mountain!

As the dark clouds descended, almost everyone in Flying Eagle Stronghold began to feel dizzy. Some frail, elderly, young, and women began to vomit at home. Cries echoed through the streets and alleys. Many martial arts practitioners in Flying Eagle Stronghold stared blankly at the dark clouds pressing down on them, feeling that their limbs would be crushed into powder. Some young martial artists with weak hearts had no desire to resist and trembled all over. Even if they escaped this disaster today, their martial arts future would be cut off.

Following the earthquake-like movements, some people discovered a magnificent golden scene in the direction of the martial arts field, amidst the flying dust. Waves of fist energy, like rainbows, grew stronger, first the thickness of arms, then the size of bowls, then wellheads, increasing in size, sweeping towards the sky, as if someone was throwing punches at the sea of clouds.

Some people couldn’t help but think: that person must be relying on his high martial arts to dare to punch.

On the martial arts field.

Chen Ping’an was not standing still, punching towards the sky. After each punch, he quickly shifted his position. The six-step stance of the Shaking Mountain Fist, combined with the Sword Qi Eighteen Stops, and the fist stance of the Cloud-Steaming Great Marsh, plus the fist intent of the God-Man Drumming.

After delivering the tenth punch, the momentum of one punch had completely overwhelmed the sound of his feet stamping on the ground.

The fist energy soared into the sky, carrying the whistling sound of wind and thunder. The roof tiles around the martial arts field, from the inside out, layer by layer, shattered violently.

Centered on Chen Ping’an, cracks like messy spider webs appeared on the surrounding walls.

The bluestone ground of the martial arts field was already riddled with holes, trampled into ten pits of varying depths.

The first nine punches, although the momentum grew louder each time, only pierced through the sea of clouds. But the tenth punch struck directly towards the cushion where the high-crowned old man was sitting. Although the old man was slightly terrified and had silently regarded the young man as someone who must be killed, especially the first to be killed, he still didn’t find this punch too difficult. Instead, he had a competitive heart. He sneered and stretched out a hand, lighting up a large group of emerald light, suddenly blooming, turning his palm over and facing down, just in time to meet the fist energy that broke through the black sea of clouds.

With a loud bang, the cushion shook slightly, but the entire sea of clouds under the high-crowned old man shook violently.

The fist energy from the martial arts field and the brilliant green light surrounding the old man’s palm shattered at the same time, turning into millions of starlight dots. The fist energy scattered into the nearby sea of clouds, making the originally dead black sea of clouds, like an inkstone with a layer of ink ground, sprinkled with a handful of golden debris, sizzling and making a burning sound.

The old man shook his wrist, looked down through the hole punched through the sea of clouds by the fist energy, following the pillar of light pouring into the sea of clouds above, and grinned at the martial arts field thirty feet away, “Good fellow, at such a young age, you can be considered a martial arts grandmaster dominating one side. Instead of minding your own martial arts world, you have to fight against me, not knowing the immensity of heaven and earth!”

Speaking, the high-crowned old man raised one hand, joined his two fingers together, and lightly swiped near the high crown with the true form of the Five Sacred Mountains, extracting a trace of the true meaning of a certain ancient Eastern Mountain, and plunged down through the hole. At first, it was a miniature peak the size of a thumb, but by the time it fell to his feet, its size was no less than that of the cushion. After sliding out of the sea of clouds hole, it was as big as a table. The old man laughed wildly, extremely happy, “Being a turtle, enduring for so many years, the heavens have rewarded my hard work. I have finally turned my luck around. As long as I grind your boy’s flesh and essence, the moment the demon infant breaks through its heart, it may be able to impact the Sea-Viewing Realm!”

On the martial arts field, Chen Ping’an watched the mountain crush down from the sky without the slightest fear. Back then, in the Sun family’s ancestral home in Old Dragon City, the sea dragon surged down, its momentum no weaker than this Immortal family divine power. Didn’t he still punch?

Energy arose, vast and mighty.

The fist intent was full and vigorous, believing that one punch could break all laws.

A golden robe fluttered, setting off the young man from Mud Bottle Alley, looking like an immortal for the first time in his life.