Chapter 193

Outside the Grand Hall of Deliberations, the Path to Immortality that Gu Yuan had casually tossed away was no longer the size of a mud loach.

It grew with the wind, instantly turning into a white‑jade stone stair that reached from heaven to earth, one end rooted in the Gu Family's divine island training ground.

The other end pierced straight into the clouds, disappearing into the unknowable void's depths.

Upon the stone steps, there was no ethereal immortal aura as imagined; instead a sour‑tinged, murderous chill lingered.

It was not a road at all, but more like a meat grinder.

Gu Zhan stood before the steps, his tattered golden armor not yet replaced, and he casually tossed his life‑linked great axe to a nearby clan member.

He wiped the bloodstain from his face—it was a medal left from the earlier clash with Gu Xue Dao.

"Old Zhan, have you decided?"

Gu Xue Dao leaned against a column at the hall's entrance, his wiping cloth crumpled from being twisted in his hand.

He didn't look at Gu Zhan, his gaze fixed on the mist over the stone steps, his tone rigid,

"If this road can't be taken, I'll melt your axe and forge a night pot."

"Pah! A dog's mouth can't spit ivory."

Gu Zhan turned his head, gave Gu Xue Dao the middle finger, grinned, his missing front tooth looking especially comical,

"Just keep your heart in your belly and wait for me to call you a true immortal grandpa."

After speaking, he didn't look at anyone, not even Gu Cangsheng or Gu Yuan.

Without any grand words, the brute simply inhaled deeply, lifted his large foot clad in tattered straw sandals, and heavily stepped onto the first step.

Buzz—

At the instant his feet touched the ground, the dormant Path to Immortality seemed to come alive.

The originally pure white jade steps instantly turned crimson, like heated iron.

A terrifying pressure, surpassing the ancient Immortal Realm laws, descended upon Gu Zhan without warning.

"Hmph!"

Gu Zhan let out a muffled hum; that towering, iron‑tower‑like body was suddenly compressed, their knees emitting a tooth‑aching bone‑cracking sound.

This is not a Path to Immortality.

It's clearly a torture device designed to kill!

"This road… is interesting!"

Gu Zhan bit their teeth, the blue veins on their forehead bulging like twisted earthworms.

They did not channel energy to resist; instead they withdrew the protective aura around them, allowing the pressure to grind their flesh, muscles, and bones.

They are a body cultivator.

The body cultivation path has always involved taking the harshest blows and stacking the thickest armor.

One step, two steps, three steps.

Each step leaves a blood‑stained footprint on the stone steps.

The blood does not flow out; it is forced from the pores by the terrifying pressure.

Inside the hall, the atmosphere was heavy and somewhat oppressive.

The elders stared intently at the water‑mirror technique suspended in the air, watching the usually boisterous brute now move along the endless unseen road like an ascetic.

"Young Master, what exactly does this road test?"

Gu Linjiang couldn't help but speak.

He could see clearly that the pain Gu Zhan endured now was not merely physical.

That twisted visage indicated his spirit was undergoing an even more terrifying rending.

Gu Yuan lifted a teacup, his fingers gently tracing the rim, his gaze profound.

"Separation."

He spat out two words.

"Separation?"

"For a mortal to become an immortal is a leap in the level of life. But Uncle Gu Zhan is already at the Supreme Peak; his body has already formed an inherent law cycle, the pinnacle of humanity. The normal Heavenly Emperor Realm is essentially a step toward becoming an immortal, so transitioning from the Heavenly Emperor Realm and failing does not lead to death or the disappearance of the Dao."

"And the Path to Immortality, to become immortal… must first shatter this pinnacle. Break the mundane bones, replace the Supreme blood, and completely remove the human impurities within the spirit."

"The process is like grinding a person into powder alive, then molding a new one."

"If you can endure it, it's a rebirth; if you can't…"

Gu Yuan didn't finish, but everyone understood.

Not enduring it becomes a puddle of rotten mud.

Time passed bit by bit.

One hour, two hours, a day, two days.

Gu Zhan kept walking.

At this point, he no longer resembled a human shape.

The proud muscle he once boasted of had been ground to a blood‑and‑flesh blur, some parts even exposing stark white bones.

Yet he kept moving, even crawling, even gnawing the steps with his teeth to scramble upward.

"This madman…"

Gu Xue Dao stood outside the hall, unmoving for two full days. The wiping cloth in his hand had been unintentionally torn into fragments.

On the third day,

Gu Zhan had already crawled to the end of the Path to Immortality.

There stood a door.

An ancient, dilapidated wooden door, even slightly drafty.

It looks like the wooden gate of a rustic farmhouse in the mundane world; a little force is enough to kick it open.

But at this moment, Gu Zhan barely had the strength to lift his eyelids.

He lay sprawled on the final step, a long trail of blood behind him.

His consciousness was fuzzy, double vision clouded his sight, a buzzing rang in his ears, as if countless voices urged him to sleep.

Sleep, if you sleep the pain will go away.

Sleep, you've already reached the Supreme Peak—why endure this suffering?

「Sleep your grandpa……」

From Gu Zhan's throat squeezed out a feeble curse, so weak only he could hear it.

He recalled his childhood, when he was too dull to learn arts, mocked by peers, and could only hug a large boulder in the back mountains to train his strength.

He remembered his first kill, his hands shaking so badly he couldn't even grip an axe; it was the Old Ancestor who kicked him into a pile of demonic beasts and told him, 'If you don't want to die, swing the axe.'

He thought of Gu Yuan, that kid—though still small, he always acted old‑mannered, hauling good things home as if they were free.

「If I collapse here……that brat will surely laugh at me……」

「Old Third will surely melt my axe……」

「I am……Gu Zhan! 」

Roar——!

A roar unlike any human voice exploded from deep within Gu Zhan's shattered body.

The qi and blood that had long been exhausted suddenly flared up like a dying lamp's last glow.

He was burning his own essence, burning his Supreme Dao Fruit!

No destruction, no establishment!

This brute actually intends to ruin his own cultivation before even becoming an immortal!

Doing this isn't just mad……and even if he breaks through, what then?

Without cultivation, how can he withstand the tribulation?

「Open……for me! 」

Gu Zhan exploded upward, using his head reduced to a bony frame, he slammed hard into the rotting wooden door.

Bang!

With a tremendous crash, the wooden door shattered.

No myriad golden lights, no celestial music in harmony.

Beyond the door lay a expanse of chaos.

Gu Zhan plunged headfirst in, his silhouette instantly swallowed by the chaos.

The next instant.

Boom—!!!

The Heavenly Dome of the Primeval Immortal Realm changed.

The azure sky, once clear for thousands of miles, instantly turned blood‑red.

It was not an eerie red, but a red suffused with iron‑blood, slaughter, and violent fury.

It was as if an ancient war god had splashed a basin of hot blood across the heavens.

「Done! 」

Gu Cangsheng sprang to his feet, "This brat, he's ruthless toward himself. Abandoning the Dao to rebuild, placing himself at death's door to live—if it weren't for me, he'd have nine deaths out of ten, no, ten deaths and no life."

Gu Yuan also rose, the corner of his mouth curling into an arc.

"Uncle Zhan is a smart man. He knows his foundation isn't as good as your father's, nor the Old Ancestor's. Following the ordinary path could never make him an immortal; breaking then establishing is the stupidest yet cruelest method—at least after becoming an immortal he won't be the weakest."

"Shatter himself, so the path to immortality can be reforged."

"With this step taken, he will no longer be that brute who only knows how to swing an axe."

"He is……a Martial Immortal."