Way of the Devil

“Are you… going to kill me?” asked the white-masked man in a weak voice.

“Of course not.” Lu Sheng smiled. “I never kill. I just send people to the world they’d rather be in. Just like…”

He pointed a finger at Black Rope on his right.

“…this.”

“Bam!”

Black Rope’s head exploded, shattered like a broken watermelon. The scene immediately turned into a mess of red and white.

Lu Sheng moved his finger slowly and brought it up to the white-masked man’s forehead.

Amid a peculiar sounding chant, the white-masked man’s eyes quickly fell into confusion. The Snake of Jealousy’s power grew stronger.

Scenes of brand-new memories started to form in the white-masked man’s mind.

At the same time, Lu Sheng’s platinum-colored Spiritual Power dissipated silently and spread onto everything around him. This was a mark that Lu Sheng intentionally left on this place. After he’d revealed his actual body, he clearly felt that he was being rejected by this world.

This force of rejection grew stronger and stronger as time went by.

‘Is this the final outcome without a physical body?’ Although he left a mark, Lu Sheng did not put too high a hope in it. It would be best if he could make it back. If he could not, he would not mind it, either.

He had fulfilled Lu Chong’s wish on this trip. Although he had assimilated Lu Chong’s mortal body, karma was not settled. He clearly felt that he did not completely assimilate Lu Chong’s spirit.

Hence, his journey to the Other World was not perfectly complete.

Fortunately, Ju Yan had given him the Jade Records which enabled him to search for himself in the other worlds. He could decide on a second journey on his own.

He utilized his Spiritual Power and Yang Essence as he began to build the return mark which was recorded in the Jade Records. Lu Sheng continued to build the return mark as he searched for something on the white-masked man’s body.

He lifted the white-masked man higher and shook him. An assortment of objects was shaken out from him—gold, silver, brushes, gloves, books, jade, and other things.

He quickly found the cultivation method employed by the white-masked man in those books. This was his real goal.

Lu Sheng tossed the white-masked man away casually. He flipped the book. There were many passages about special cultivation methods of Spiritual Power techniques.

“This is good.” He was sure that the writings contained within the Jade Records could only serve as a reference and could not be practiced. The results of his experiment were not out yet, but Lu Sheng doubted that Ju Yan would be someone who gave away things for charity. He compared himself to Ju Yan, and thought that if it were him, he would also withhold something from this Jade Records.

Lu Sheng put the book away and spread some more of his special Spiritual Power which scattered in his surroundings. He intended this to be a directional mark for his probable return to this world.

The return mark was constructed in no time. It resembled a cluster of semi-transparent glazed flowers.

In the Jade Records, these were known as Sky Flowers.

Lu Sheng reached out a hand and pressed down on the Sky Flowers. His spirit shook as he started to use them. He searched for his original world.

However, he was still filled with slight regret. There were still many secrets to this world. Ju Yan, Spiritual Power, sealed Evil Spirits, that seed which formed within him, and Mei Youjiang…

‘I hope that I can come back someday.’ This final thought flashed past his mind. The Sky Flowers in front of Lu Sheng suddenly erupted into an oval void. A huge amount of grayish liquid-like substance was swirling within it.

A trace of familiar Spiritual Essence seemed to be seeping through the liquid.

Lu Sheng turned to look toward the place where Ju Yan was. Then, he plunged into the whirlpool and vanished in the blink of an eye.

The oval void quickly shrunk and sealed itself. In less than ten seconds, it completely vanished in thin air.

The white-masked man lay on the ground without making any movements. However, in the ruins of the Haunted House far away, two figures struggled to get back on their feet. They looked around them with perplexed expressions.

One of them was Su Ran, who had come here to investigate the Haunted House. He took in his surroundings, puzzled. Suddenly, he felt a jolt of pain on his neck. He quickly placed a hand on the suffering spot, but he found nothing there.

‘A scratch? I’m in luck this time. I must leave this place as quickly as I can.’ Su Ran did not notice the dark red feathered snake with two wings which disappeared as soon as it appeared on his neck. The strange thing was that the snake’s feathers were golden.

Su Ran quickly left the ruins. After that, other people started to regain consciousness among the ruins, and they quickly left as well.

All these people had one thing in common. Their necks were imprinted with a swiftly disappearing dark red feathered snake pattern.

***

Underneath Purple Smoke Mountain Villa.

Ju Yan sat on his throne with a dry expression.

“Was he forced to leave? It’s fine, at least we have some results. One of the Universal Ward Columns is broken.” He drummed his fingers on his throne slowly.

“Maybe this is better. This little Heavenly Devil is really strange. How did he achieve a breakthrough to the Dragon Level and produce the Sense Spirit Seed after only cultivating Spiritual Power for such a short period of time? I don’t remember teaching him the next steps of cultivation. It seems that I’ll have to find another target to control.”

He eyed the Evil Spirits under him coldly as unknown thoughts danced around in his mind.

***

Great Yin. East Sea. The Island of Illusive Sky.

Thick gray mist rolled in the wide and empty square. The entire square was enveloped in a grayish cover.

There was a hexagonal pond in the center of the square. A grayish vortex suddenly appeared in the air. The vortex kept expanding noiselessly until it reached a person’s height.

A fierce black figure leapt out of the vortex. It was Lu Sheng, who had just returned from the Spiritual Power World.

‘So I came back, after all?’ Lu Sheng stabilized his body and landed on the ground. He retracted his scales, tail, and fangs as he once again assumed the appearance of an ordinary person.

Lu Sheng glanced at the deep opening of the vortex in the middle of the pond. He remembered the terrifying black arm that reached out from within. The Divine Lords who protected this place with him were powerless in the face of that arm. It was definitely a monster at the level of a Weapon Grandmaster.

‘I wonder how long I have been in the Spiritual Power world. Is there a difference in the flow of time in two worlds?’ Lu Sheng had read some records which stated that the flow of time in some small worlds and Great Yin were different.

Take the True Spirit Pagoda of the three sects for example. It was a building in which time flowed at a different rate than outside. Naturally, there were similar buildings in the lands of the three great families, but perhaps they were all known by different names.

Lu Sheng went around the pond in a circle. He did not see any signs of the other Divine Lords’ return. He knew that they had probably been defeated. If he had not had World of Pain’s Shizi Xing’s black crow figurine, the odds would have certainly been against him.

He did not wish to stay in this place for even a moment longer.

The Great Yin had countless experts. If the skies fell, the Weapon Grandmasters would hold it up. Lu Sheng made the decision to retreat.

He quickly returned to his abode and packed his stuff. Then, he unleashed his Yang Essence; it stirred up a black cloud, and he flew on it swiftly toward the west.

He only felt slightly at ease after the Island of Illusive Sky was dozens of nautical miles behind him. He started to summarize what he gained from this journey.

‘Firstly, I’ve assimilated Lu Chong from the Spiritual Power World. My Spirit is greatly consolidated, although Lu Chong’s Spirit which I’ve assimilated is only that of an ordinary person’s… Still, it has strengthened my spirit this much?’ Lu Sheng sat cross-legged within the black cloud. Compared to the time before he went to the Spiritual Power World, he felt that his spirit was at least strengthened by fifty percent. Also, it had undergone some substantial change.

‘If my spirit before this was an extremely black piece of steel, my current Spirit is some sort of alloy produced by the addition of a strange ratio of a foreign metal. The hardness and endurance were both greatly enhanced,’ Lu Sheng roughly evaluated his current spirit.

He stretched out an arm and grabbed the seawater.

He did not incorporate any Yang Essence in this action of his. He merely condensed his spirit’s power and visualized himself grabbing at the sea.

“Buzz…”

In an instant, a clear palm mark slowly appeared on the sea’s surface under Lu Sheng. The mark covered an area of a few hundred meters.

The palm mark deepened. It was as if there was an invisible palm grabbing the seawater underneath itself. The seawater did not leak out of the palm. Instead, it stayed within the palm until the end.

‘Not bad… Distorting reality with my spirit. The area and intensity aren’t that great, but I can accomplish many unbelievable feats.’ Lu Sheng was extremely pleased with the might of his own spirit.

If he compared himself to the others, he felt that he was now a Divine Intellect level Divine Lord. Tong Sheng had once described the lowest standard for Divine Intellect to him.

As he looked at the area and intensity of the reality’s distortion, he seemed to have managed to improve his spirit to the Divine Intellect Level.

‘My spirit caught up. Now, if I want my body to break through to the Divine Intellect level, I must understand the nature of the Law. The Jade Star Level was divided into the five stages of Obtain the Law, Combine with the Law, Become the Law, Control the Law, and Walk the Way of the Law. The key to raising my body to the Divine Intellect level was to first Obtain the Law. Now that my spirit is greatly strengthened, I can easily research the nature of Death Blaze and Yin Flame.’

It did not mean that Lu Sheng would possess a Divine Intellect Divine Lord’s strength just by possessing a Divine Intellect level spirit. However, Lu Sheng was never a conventional person to begin with.

Other people would have studied their own Law, and then they would Obtain the Law, Combine with the Law, Become the Law, and raise their spirit to the level of Divine Intellect before finally moving up a level.

He was different. His spirit was forcibly assimilated with Lu Chong’s spirit and raised to the Divine Intellect level by Spiritual Power.

It was only then that he went on to Obtain the Law, starting from the beginning.

As he flew, Lu Sheng quickly started studying his own Death Blaze’s structural origins.

He started the study from various aspects: the Death Blaze’s nature, its ordinary form, the kinds of unordinary forms, and the kinds of extreme forms.

Then, he recorded several parameters of the different forms, for example, the temperature, toxicity, the changes in the area of effect with the same amount of the different forms, their affinities with different kinds of materials, and so on.

Lu Sheng studied the Death Blaze with an Earthling’s scientific mindset. The progress he made was clearly faster than the other systems and Divine Lords.

The Divine Lords emphasized on enlightenment through experience. Their method was to build up rich experiences in varying environments and eventually observe and make a conclusion on the pattern of the Law which oneself controlled. They were more inclined to passive research, and not Lu Sheng’s way of active research—he recorded vast amounts of data which seemed useless to others.

He flew away from the Island of Illusive Sky in the East Sea. Lu Sheng spent three whole days before he was out of the range of the thick fog.

After he got out, he immediately sent out an emergency communication jade talisman.

The jade talisman ignited and turned into a beam of white flowing light which shot up into the skies. It shot toward the faraway skies.

Lu Sheng looked on as the jade talisman vanished from his field of vision. He waited silently on the spot.

Very quickly—in less than fifteen minutes—small black spots swiftly appeared on the sea surface far away. They were a group of yellow-robed cultivators riding on black sharks.

These men saw Lu Sheng sitting on a black cloud in midair at a glance.

The leading friar leapt into the air. He emitted golden flame-like Spiritual Essence.

“Thousand Sun Sect, East Sea branch sect master, pays homage to Divine Lord Lu!” As the guarding sect master of this archipelago in the East Sea, it was only natural for him to know about Divine Lord Lu Sheng, who was on the Island of Illusive Sky.

He had been enjoying the comforting attention of his concubines in his bed chamber, but he was surprised to see a Divine Lord-level highest security jade talisman flying toward him. Startled, he immediately leapt to his feet. He rallied a few high-ranking sect members and flew in the direction from which the jade talisman came.