At the very moment that Lu Tianzi stepped out of the layer of poisonous gas, he immediately felt the perception of two individuals sweep over him.

This did not come as a form of surprise to Lu Tianzi.

Back then when he first entered the region shrouded by poisonous gas, the demon Nanhong Yechang had already given the orders to look out for him, guarding all main paths leading down the mountain.

But at the same time, Nanhong Yechang had also instructed his men not to recklessly engage Lu Tianzi, but to inform him instead.

Lu Tianzi swept his perception past the two martial artists who were standing at a safe distance.

As expected, they were demons who were only at the Essence Building realm.

After all, even in the Shadowfront Fortress, Essence Condensation realm martial artists were not everywhere to be seen.

How could they be satisfied with guarding a random mountain trail just because there was a slight chance that Lu Tianzi could return that way?

These two Essence Building realm demons were no threat at all to the current Lu Tianzi. However, he stil did not move to act against them.

Instead, Lu Tianzi directly sat down on the ground in meditation, as though completely disregarding their existence.

Seeing this, the two demons let out a sigh of relief.

"The Captain mentioned that the human is supposed to be at the Peak Essence Building realm. Who knew that he has already progressed to the Essence Condensation realm?"

"Thankfully it doesn't seem like he intends to act against us. Let us quickly inform the Captain about this. Once the Captain gets here, he will definitely be able to handle the situation!"

After saying this, one of the demons raised his left fist to his mouth and whispered into a simple looking ring.

That was a communication ring, which as its name suggested, was an item that could be used by martial artists to communicate even without the need to meet face to face.

Each communication ring had its own communication mark. As long as the other party's communication mark was recorded within, they would be able to speak to each other even from a distance, all as long as they were not worlds apart.

This was also the method with which the Shadowfront Fortress had been able to maintain communication links with the Ivory Rock City's City Lord Manor without anyone realising.

Not even ten minutes had passed before Nanhong Yechang arrived where Lu Tianzi was at, accompanied with two other demons at the Primary Essence Condensation realm.

Upon seeing Lu Tianzi sitting there calmly in meditation, Nanhong Yechang frowned.

Even though his subordinate had mentioned it to him, Nanhong Yechang had still felt a little doubtful. However, the truth was now glaring him in the face.

It had only been a few days since Nanhong Yechang last saw Lu Tianzi. Yet the latter had not only managed to survive entering the forbidden ground, he had even broken into the Essence Condensation realm within such a short time frame!

Just what kind of lucky chance did he obtain up in the mountain?

As Lu Tianzi felt Nanhong Yechang's perception sweep over him, he slowly opened his eyes to match the demon's gaze.

His eyes were extremely calm even as he faced Nanhong Yechang, the very demon who had been trying to end his life just a few days ago.

Facing this pair of calm eyes, Nanhong Yechang could feel that Lu Tianzi was not even placing him in his eyes, and could not help but feel a little taken aback. However, this feeling quickly changed into anger.

So what if Lu Tianzi had advanced into the Primary Essence Condensation realm?

Right beside him were two of his subordinate at the same cultivation realm as Lu Tianzi. On top of that, Nanhong Yechang was at the Intermediate Essence Condensation realm himself!

"You are pretty daring, even choosing to return using the same trail that you escaped on," Nanhong Yechang sneered as he approached.

Lu Tianzi slowly got to his feet and dusted his pants carelessly. After which, he directly drew out his sword from within his spatial ring, standing there as he stared defiantly at the approaching Nanhong Yechang.

"Hmph! Overestimating yourself!" Nanhong Yechang drew his sword as well. "Let me show you that even though you had broken into the Essence Condensation realm, you are still far from qualified to fight me!"

Nanhong Yechang raised his sword up high as a dark light flashed at the tip of his sword.

This was not the first time that Lu Tianzi was seeing Nanhong Yechang's Blades of Darkness, and he was fully prepared for what was to come.

As the first blade of darkness projectile was fired towards him, Lu Tianzi raised his sword as a thin film enveloped the blade.

But unlike previous times, this thin film now bore a deep shade of blue. As the thin film enveloped the blade, it was as though the sword had changed colour as it turned deep blue.

By now, Lu Tianzi had already realised that this blue shade was the natural colour that was affiliated with the water element.

With part of Lu Tianzi's Spiritual Essence particles bearing this exact attribute, coupled with how he had later transitioned into the Essence Condensation realm with the aid of the water element, Lu Tianzi had managed to establish a spiritual connection with the element.

This was what people coined as a natural affiliation.

The world was governed by a myriad of natural laws.

In fact, there were so many of these world laws that it was basically impossible to keep track of them all. After all, every single thing in this world had its own laws governing its existence.

There were the laws of the five elements, the law of poison, the law of force, the law of illusions, and many others.

Even though each law differed from another, all of them were born from the same grand origin of the world.

And at the end of the road, all of these laws similarly pointed to the same pinnacle.

By gaining even the most superficial of understandings in just one of these laws, a martial artist would already be able to tap on this understanding to amplify his strength by countless times!

By fully understanding just one of these laws, a martial artist would be able to stand toe to toe with the heavens, wielding divine strength that surpassed all others!

However, how would it be easy to obtain such unimaginable power?

Attempting to understand any one of these world laws was a herculean task, something that countless martial artists had failed to do so despite trying for all their lives.

For Essence Condensation martial artists, this was the cultivation realm where they finally gained the qualifications to have even the slightest of chances of getting into contact with these world laws.

Even so, most martial artists failed to take that step.

After all, the world laws were intangible and elusive. Even after reaching the Essence Condensation realm, most martial artists did not know where to even start comprehending them.

As for Lu Tianzi, even though he had only just stepped into the Essence Condensation realm, he had already taken his first step to understand the Law of Water.

This was all thanks to his natural affiliation with the element.

As the blade of darkness approached, Lu Tianzi slashed out with his sword to match the projectile in midair.

Seeing Lu Tianzi trying to take his attack head on, Nanhong Yechang snorted in disdain, "Truly overestimating yourself!"

However, what happened next caused his mouth to gape open in shock.

As the blade of darkness clashed with Lu Tianzi's deep blue sword, it was immediately shattered upon impact, dissipating into thin air as though it was never there to begin with!

Not just Nanhong Yechang, but the two Essence Condensation realm demons standing beside him were stunned as well.

They knew full well that this was Nanhong Yechang's strongest combat skill, and yet it was actually broken so effortlessly by a human brat of a lower cultivation boundary!

Just how powerful was that brat?

In fact, even Lu Tianzi was surprised at his own strength.

The powerful blade of darkness basically did not even apply any sort of pressure on him!

He understood that he had obtained a qualitative improvement in his strength level due to entering the Essence Condensation realm, as well as cultivating the Heaven Devouring Divine Art to formally kickstart his Slaughter Essence cultivation.

However, Lu Tianzi never expected that his strength level would have surged to such a ridiculous level!

It seemed like the combined existence of his two cultivation systems had resulted in a resonance effect of sort, amplifying his strength to a level far above the sum of its parts.

On top of that, applying his bare understanding into the Law of Water also helped to mitigate some of the force from blade of darkness. And that was even without any practice beforehand.

Lu Tianzi let out a grin upon thinking that.

The world laws were truly marvellous. In the future, he had to make sure to consolidate his understandings through practice, so as to fully tap into this completely new source of strength!

"It is not over yet!" Nanhong Yechang roared, completely angered by the grin plastered across Lu Tianzi's face.

He slashed out repeatedly, sending multiple blades of darkness towards Lu Tianzi.

However, the result was the same.

Lu Tianzi charged right into the onslaught of projectiles, shattering each blade of darkness with a mere swing of his sword as he quickly made his way towards Nanhong Yechang.

"Attack together!" one of the other demons shouted in panic.

Seeing that their leader was being suppressed, they naturally had to step in and help.

Each of them struck out with their own attacks amidst the onslaught of darkness, aiming straight at Lu Tianzi who had been busy deflecting the attacks from Nanhong Yechang.

Lu Tianzi shot a cold glare at the two demons, and with a mere thought, pulled out his sabre from his spatial ring.

"Die!" Lu Tianzi struck out with his left hand, slashing down with his sabre at one of the two demons.

"As if that will happen!" the demon shouted as he raised his weapon to block.

Slash-!

The demon's weapon was completely split into two, unable to withstand a single strike.

In fact, Lu Tianzi's sabre had slashed across the demon's body at the same time, directly splitting him into two along with his weapon!

With one dead, Lu Tianzi immediately turned towards the other demon who had charged in to pincer him from the side.

With a single glare from Lu Tianzi, the demon hesitated for just a split second before decisively turning around.

His strength level was similar to the other demon who just died. Since the other demon could not even withstand a single strike, then he would definitely be unable to stand a chance against Lu Tianzi as well.

Since that was the case, then he would rather forget about the fight altogether and keep his own life!

Right now, all he wanted to do was to escape from Lu Tianzi.

But how could Lu Tianzi allow him to retreat just like that?

Lu Tianzi decisively turned around to change his approach angle, choosing to rush towards the retreating demon instead of continuing towards Nanhong Yechang.

Due to that slight moment of hesitation by the demon, Lu Tianzi caught up immediately, slashing out domineeringly with his sabre.

"Watch out!" Nanhong Yechang shouted as he tried to warn his subordinate.

However, the demon had already fallen into panic, and was fully focused in retreating at the fastest speed possible.

The demon never even managed to see Lu Tianzi's expression as he slashed down, forever dividing the demon's body into two.

"I will kill you!" Nanhong Yechang had lost all reason by this point.

Nanhong Yechang originally had all the confidence in the world that he would be able to kill this human brat, chasing him all the way up to the forbidden ground of Crimson Mountain.

But not only had the human brat managed to return from the forbidden ground alive, he had even broken through to the next cultivation realm.

On top of that, he somehow managed to find a way to break past the blades of darkness that Nanhong Yechang was so proud of, and even acted to kill off Nanhong Yechang's two subordinates right before his eyes.

Those were powerful Essence Condensation realm subordinates that Lu Tianzi had just killed, trusted men who were Nanhong Yechang's closest aides!

All these events occurring within a short span of time had finally tipped Nanhong Yechang over the edge, triggering him into a crazed state of complete recklessness.

He swore that as long as Lu Tianzi remained alive for one more moment, he would definitely spare no expense to kill him!

Nanhong Yechang bit his tongue and spat out a mouthful of blood onto his sword.

As though driven by some invisible force, this red blood flowed upwards to the tip of his sword and entered the dark light that was flashing there.

Upon contact, the dark light turned dark crimson as it hungrily absorbed the blood. After which, the dark light immediately started to give off an ominous feeling.

It was as though the dark crimson light was alive and watching Lu Tianzi at this moment.

"Die!" Nanhong Yechang slashed out once more with all his might.

This time, the projectile was no longer jet black, but dark crimson.

Even though Lu Tianzi had not seen this version of the blade of darkness before, he dared not be careless. He could easily tell that the power behind this projectile was countless times greater than the original blade of darkness.

He could not help but feel that the attack by Nanhong Yechang was faintly imbued by the power belonging to a different set of world law from the Law of Water.

Perhaps at the last moment, the demon Captain had managed to awaken his hidden potential, establishing a link to the world laws.

Lu Tianzi knew that there was no way for him to evade the attack, and decided to match power against power, slashing down with his sword.

Bang-!

The collision sent out a shockwave that rattled the trees around them, causing weaker branches to directly break apart.

Nanhong Yechang could only stare in disbelief as Lu Tianzi charged out from behind the dissipating dark crimson light, slashing down with his sword towards him!

This strength... was he truly only at the Primary Essence Condensation realm?

That was the last thought that would ever pass through his mind.

On this day, Captain Nanhong Yechang, one of the six main guardians of Shadowfront Fortress, had fallen to the hands of Lu Tianzi.