With Gu Fan glued to the stone wall, the Sentinel immediately lunged forward, swinging its jagged broadsword directly at his trapped body.

But Gu Fan effortlessly raised his bare hand, blocking the massive attack head-on, and quickly channelling his Corrosive Qi, he melted the stone weapon.

The Stone Golem looked at his sword slowly corroding, and dripped it before the Corrosive Qi could reach his hands. And in retaliation, it threw a punch at Gu Fan.

But instead of blocking, Gu Fan launched himself of the wall and landed directly onto the massive Sentinel’s broad shoulders. His heavy boots clamped tightly around its thick stone neck.

[System Notification: Weakness Detected.]

[The bound human soul is anchored directly within the centre of the Sentinel’s skull.]

"Good to know," Gu Fan sneered. He slammed both of his bare, venom-coated hands directly onto the sides of the Sentinel’s massive stone head. Channelling his Corrosive Qi to the absolute maximum, thick, acidic white smoke violently erupted from his palms.

Sssssssssss!

The heavy stone skull sizzled and rapidly melted under his terrifying grip. And in less than a couple of breaths, he corroded right through the rock, instantly breaking the connection and incinerating the trapped soul within.

With the human soul obliterated, the Sentinel went entirely limp, and its red eyes died out as it collapsed.

Gu Fan dropped lightly down to the floor from the falling statue, but the encirclement had already tightened. Three Stone Sentinals swung their halberds in a synchronized, lethal sweep aimed low at his legs.

Gu Fan pushed off the ground, leaping backward to jump away from the three Sentinels and avoid having his legs chopped off, and not get struck when he was in the air.

But there were just too many of them. As he retreated, one of the four Sentinels from the outer circle, the ones meant to cut his escape routes instantly lunged and swung its jagged stone broadsword like a massive bat, aiming right for his ribs.

Gu Fan’s eyes flashed. He immediately activated the Sovereign Strike of Infinite Freedom, and his body blurred into a ghostly phantom, teleporting just a fraction of an inch past the devastating swing to perfectly dodge the attack.

But the Bound Souls Golems were coordinating at an impossible level. Just as Gu Fan reappeared from his phantom step, a different Sentinel was already waiting at his exact reappearance point.

CRACK!

Before he could even raise his guard and activate the Sovereign Strike of Infinite Freedom, the heavy stone weapon slammed squarely into Gu Fan’s midsection with the force of a battering ram.

"Fuck!" Gu Fan was sent flying backward through the cavernous hall like a broken ragdoll, hurtling rapidly toward a thick stone pillar.

But before his back could even strike the pillar, another Sentinel intercepted him mid-flight.

It leaped high from a nearby pedestal in perfect synchronization, and raising both of its massive stone fists together, it brought them crashing down onto Gu Fan with a devastating blow.

BOOM!

Gu Fan was driven straight down into the floor, smashing into the pristine stone tiles with such catastrophic force that a massive crater spider-webbed outwards. A thick cloud of dust and debris exploded into the air.

The remaining Sentinels immediately closed in, their red eyes glowing in the dust, they were going for the killing below.

Down in the crater, Gu Fan coughed violently, spitting out a mouthful of fresh red blood that mixed with the black sludge on his chin.

His back screamed in agony, and his organs felt as if they were bleeding.

A normal 6th Stage Body Tempering cultivator would have been instantly reduced to meat paste by that mid-air combo.

[System Notification: Host, are you planning to hit back anytime soon? Or have you decided to permanently act as the ball in their little game of volleyball?]

"Alright," Gu Fan growled, his eyes glowing with an absolutely murderous green light as he slowly pushed himself up from the rubble, "Now I am actually pissed off."

He burst out of the crater with the Sovereign Strike of Infinite Freedom, completely abandoning his defensive posture. He was done playing defence.

He ducked under a halberd thrust from one of the Stone Golems and wrapped the heavy iron chain from his Meteor Hammer around the Sentinel’s waist, and physically hoisted the three-metre-tall statue into the air using his monstrous 9th-Stage physical strength, he slammed it head-first into another charging Sentinel, shattering both of their stone skulls into thousands of jagged pieces.

But Gu fan wasn’t done.

He slid across the sludge-slicked floor, melting the ankles of another Sentinel with his Corrosive Qi, bringing it crashing down before caving its face in with a brutal smash from the heavy Meteor Hammer.

"Take it bitches! Who is smiling now?" Gu Fan yelled at the face of the smashed Golem.

"Huh? Who am I even asking? You limp rock."

"You can’t see me!"

Two more statues tried to pin him against the wall. Gu Fan tightened his grip on the Meteor Hammer, swinging the heavy iron chain in a brutal arc to parry both of their swinging blades simultaneously.

The Audience Hall echoed with the deafening clash of metal and stone, and before the Sentinels could recover from the heavy recoil, Gu Fan stepped up and drove his bare fists directly into their glowing red eyes one by one.

Relying entirely on his monstrous physical strength, he punched right through their thick stone skulls, instantly crushing the trapped souls within.

In no time, the fight had turned into a gruesome, high-speed demolition derby. And in this fight, Gu Fan was an absolute monster.

He took shallow cuts from the stone swords, but his tough physique ignored the pain. He smashed, pummelled, and tore his way through the heavy guards using raw, brutal power, turning the pristine Audience Hall into a bloodbath of shattered stone and black sludge.

Soon the twelve Stone Sentinels were down to only four Sentinels. They grouped up to execute a combined strike.

Gu Fan spat a mouthful of black sludge onto the floor.

"I have played with you long enough," Gu Fan sneered, and he flicked his wrist and pulled a Minor Illusion Talisman from his inventory, and crushed it in his palm.

And within a breath, the air around him distorted and a perfect, blurry illusion of Gu Fan darted to the right.

The four towering statues instinctively turned and swung their massive swords at Gu Fan only to have their heavy blades smashing uselessly into the floor tiles.

"Idiots," Gu Fan sneered from the left.

He let the Meteor Hammer drop to the floor, and reached into his inventory and summoned the King-Tier Blood-Drinker Spirit Sword.

The long, crimson blade hummed hungrily in his grip.

Channelling his raw, 9th-Stage physical strength directly into his arms, Gu Fan lunged forward. He swung the King-Tier sword in a massive, horizontal slash right across the exposed backs of two Sentinels.

SHHHHHKKK!

The incredibly sharp Spirit Sword cut cleanly through the thick stone torsos as if they were made of soft butter.

The blade actually shrieked with eerie delight as it greedily drank the foul, black sludge pouring from the massive wounds. The top halves of the two statues slowly slid off their waists, crashing into the mud below.

The final two Sentinels spun around.

Gu Fan didn’t drop his momentum.

He gripped the hilt of the King-Tier sword tightly, stepping smoothly into the guard of the third Sentinel.

With a brutal, feral roar, he swung the crimson blade downward in a flawless vertical arc, and the Spirit Sword sheared straight down through the centre of the stone head, violently cleaving the giant statue into two equal vertical halves that crashed heavily to the floor on either side of Gu Fan.

Now only one of the Sentinels remained and raised its halberd to strike.

But Gu Fan vanished from his spot and grabbing the hilt of the Blood-Drinker Spirit Sword with both hands and drove it straight up through the bottom of the statue’s jaw, piercing directly into its stone brain cavity.

The Sentinel froze with his arms raised high for a few breaths before the weapon dropped from its hands, and it slumped dead to the floor.

The Audience Hall fell dead silent.

Gu Fan stood in the exact centre of the room, and was surrounded by a massive, horrific pile of shattered stone limbs, crushed heads, and deep pools of thick black sludge. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

His clothes were ruined again, completely soaked in the foul liquid, and he was panting slightly, his muscles burning from the exertion.

He looked around the destroyed hall, a cruel, arrogant smirk on his bloody face, as he spat a glob of saliva and sludge directly onto the rubble.

"Is that really the best you can do to stop me?" Gu Fan taunted the elderly voice, his voice dripping with pure disdain, "Send bigger toys next time."

As if in response to his victory, a deep, heavy rumbling echoed from the far end of the hall.

The massive, ornate stone door slowly ground open.

A haunting, mesmerising blue glow spilled out from the darkness within, illuminating Gu Fan’s bloody, muscular torso.

The temperature in the room instantly plummeted, a chilling, spiritual cold washing over the rubble.

Gu Fan smirked widely. He casually rested the bloody King-Tier sword over his broad shoulder, the crimson blade humming softly.

"At least you know when to give up!"