Way of the Devil

Wisps of black gas were mixed with the cold wind.

The entire mountain forest seemed to be covered in a layer of mist. The black mist and white vapor mingled and rendered their surroundings blurry. It felt as if the temperature rose as well.

Lu Ran took a step backward. She seemed to be holding something in her hand. However, she directed her eyes at an angle toward the mountain forest behind her.

She was not the only one. Hu Jin, Lu Fengchou, and Delin stared in the same direction with dark expressions as well.

“That voice sounded like Sect Master Lu Sheng.” The old man behind Lu Ran could not resist the urge to identify him.

“Run!”

All of a sudden, Lu Ran threw something before herself, and it erupted in a ball of blue light.

Amidst sputtering sounds, the blue radiance dispersed and released countless blue threads. They conquered an area of ten meters in the blink of an eye.

The blue threads only existed for an instant. They withered, faded, and dissipated momentarily.

When they dissipated, Lu Ran and the old man were already nowhere to be seen.

“You can’t run!” Delin sneered. He shook his sleeve and produced an exquisite oval jade mirror. Two red spots shone clearly on it. One of them denoted their current location, while the other spot was where Lu Ran was.

“Northward, five kilometers! After them!” Delin shouted sternly. He leapt into the air and flew toward the north in the blink of an eye.

The other two had no time to think as well. They leapt into the air and followed after him. The three of them instantly turned into three beams of light and shot across a few hundred meters.

Lu Sheng stood with his hands behind his back among the trees. He stared at the three Divine Lords who were leaving.

He reached out his right hand slowly. Three sparkling dark blue water balls danced on his palm.

“Since you’re here, why not stay for a while?”

“Swoosh!”

A peculiar eye opened in each of the water balls.

…..

Delin suddenly felt his body stiffen. At first, he thought he was overwhelmed by the mysterious person’s aura which rendered his senses numb momentarily. However, he quickly noticed that something was wrong.

This was because he realized that he was not the only one experiencing this. Hu Jian and Lu Fengchou beside him also stiffened in midair.

‘This power?!’ Delin wanted to shout, but he found that he could not make any sound no matter what.

An immense and peaceful power enveloped the three of them softly, and pulled them toward the ground.

Delin clearly saw Hu Jin and Lu Fengchou display expressions of shock, puzzlement, and unease.

The three of them were frozen in the air while they were flying away quickly. It should be known that the three of them were Jade Star Divine Lords. Even a Divine Intellect Divine Lord would not be able to freeze them instantly for such a long period of time.

The three of them soon dropped toward the ground. A strong, big, and tall man slowly entered their fields of vision.

“Lu Sheng?! It’s you… How’s this possible?!” Delin spoke out with fright.

They had investigated the situation here before they came. There was only a Divine Lord from the Thousand Sun Sect governing this area, and that was the new Divine Lord Lu Sheng. However, since he was new, they reckoned that he was at most at the Gold Leaf tier. There was no way that he could be at a higher level right now.

The other two also had anxious expressions. By this time, the three of them were already having a bad feeling about this. It seemed as if they had really stepped on a mine this time.

Suddenly, Hu Jin noticed the slowing Mystic Water Divine Vein on the back of Lu Sheng’s hand and the three peculiar water balls that hovered around him.

“That is?!”

“Run!” Delin shouted sternly. He broke free from the invisible shackles and covered himself in a layer of reddish radiance. He seemed ready to shoot off in the faraway direction.

Hu Jin tossed a talisman sword offhandedly. He allowed it to explode into a huge mass of grayish-white talisman swords, which poured toward Lu Sheng like a torrent.

Lu Fengchou chanted under his breath and broke free of his shackles as well. He took out a small knife and slit his wrist.

His blood spattered, and he slowly transformed into a blood shadow which faded and disappeared.

Naturally, their respective reputation as Jade Star Divine Lords was not undeserved. They instantly unleashed their various methods and aces-in-the-hole. The destructive power and fleeing abilities which they erupted with had already exceeded the Jade Star tier in terms of their spirit’s volume alone. They were already at the Divine Intellect tier.

The methods they erupted with in this instant were unleashed with speed several times quicker than ordinary Weapon Masters. In the blink of an eye, they had progressed from being hesitant and doubtful to realizing that the situation was bad, and finally turned to flee. The entire process lasted less than a second.

Such a reaction time was not something that ordinary experts could hope to catch up with.

Unfortunately, Lu Sheng was not an ordinary expert as well.

‘Poof! Poof! Poof!’

The three Eyes of Gesangna exploded at the same time.

Seemingly at the same time, with the sound of the explosion, three figures dropped to the ground from midair. They spat blood out of their mouths, and their faces suddenly turned ghastly pale.

Lu Sheng clearly felt their spirits tremble violently and quickly weaken.

It was apparent that the Eye of Gesangna had a special effect in Great Yin as well. This secret Art which targeted a person’s spirit directly seemed to have been made especially for him. With his immense spiritual volume, he had only unleashed a probing attack with a fraction of his power, yet three Jade Star Divine Lords were already gravely wounded in an instant.

If he had unleashed this might on ordinary Weapon Masters or ordinary Earth Prime experts, the result might have been more terrifying.

“Prancing Dragon Controls the Rain!” Although he was heavily wounded, Delin would not take this lying down. He suddenly opened his mouth, and his tongue shot out of his mouth. It quickly elongated, and the tip of his tongue morphed into a scarlet dragon’s head. It roared fiercely and lunged at Lu Sheng.

“Go, Cutting Jade Ring!” Hu Jin unleashed his Divine Weapon as well. A dark golden ring appeared before him. The ring turned a circle in midair, shone with white radiance, and lunged at Lu Sheng as well.

Finally, Lu Fengshou exploded again. He turned into black flames and shot far away. He was still trying to flee from Lu Sheng.

As Divine Lords, their spirits were extremely immense. Even their physical bodies had endured the vicissitudes of life. Although they were not as terrifying as Lu Sheng, their qualities and regenerative abilities were already at unimaginable levels compared to ordinary Weapon Masters.

Three Jade Star Divine Lords were just the right materials for Lu Sheng to experiment with the fruits of his recent expeditions.

Lu Sheng stretched out his left hand. He tapped Delin’s red dragon head lightly. At the same time, he swiped his hand across the dark golden Cutting Jade Ring which flew toward him.

“Bam!”

The two of them were forcibly repelled by Lu Sheng’s terrifying physical strength.

It was only now that he noticed that Delin’s Divine Weapon was a tongue piercing on Delin’s tongue, while Hu Jin’s Divine Weapon was the Cutting Jade Ring which he had just swatted away.

When the Cutting Jade Ring came into contact with his palm, he clearly felt it erupting with a huge force that was three times greater than before.

An ordinary Divine Lord might have been flustered by the sudden burst of energy. However, this trick was meaningless in front of Lu Sheng.

In physical strength alone, he was already dozens of times more powerful than any one of them. This was practically a difference between an adult and a child.

Although their Divine Weapons had their own specialties, the only things that could be relied upon in actual combat were either one’s physical strength or one’s spiritual techniques.

Delin’s Divine Weapon was capable of controlling his own body, allowing it to morph into any shape. The instant his attack connected with his target, he would also be able to control his target’s blood.

However, due to the huge gap between their spirits, the most he could do to Lu Sheng was affect his circulation slightly.

Lu Fengchou turned around and ran. However, for some unknown reason, he came running back just as quickly. He joined the fray against Lu Sheng as well. His Divine Weapon was a long sword which burned with flames. It appeared very ordinary, but golden speckles would jump out from the flames occasionally, and it had a faint suppressing effect on dark Devil Qi. He mainly cultivated sword skills. He launched one sword skill after another at Lu Sheng.

Finally, Hu Jin attacked with punches. His Divine Weapon, the Cutting Jade Ring, acted like his assistant as it supported his advances from the side. It felt as if two brothers were attacking at the same time.

Lu Sheng maintained his physical body’s condition. He was not at all flustered by their collective attacks.

The three Divine Lords’ skills were already at the level where they were impeccable. There was no flair to them; everything they did was to serve the purpose of killing their enemy.

Lu Sheng carefully felt the methods of their attacks, their strength, speed, and other factors.

This was unlike a Weapon Master who relied heavily on his Divine Weapon. As Divine Lords, especially Jade Star Divine Lords, the three of them wielded their Divine Weapons as if they were ordinary weapons. They mainly relied on their own strengths and enhanced themselves with their Divine Weapons. At the same time, they supported their moves with their Divine Weapon’s special abilities.

They possessed terrifying regenerative abilities, constitution that was far beyond a Weapon Master’s, perfect control over their Divine Weapons’ special abilities, flawless skills which were refined countless times, and finally various formidable secret Arts which had been passed down for countless generations.

The powerfulness of a Jade Star Divine Lord had widened Lu Sheng’s horizons greatly.

He had not fought too many Divine Lords before. This time, he was taking on three of them at the same time. This greatly improved his understanding of a Divine Lord’s fighting method.

As long as they were not struck by some spirit-destroying secret Art, the three Divine Lords would have been able to continue unleashing attacks wildly without issue even if they lost their heads.

Once, Lu Sheng attempted to crush half of Hu Jin’s body into a fleshy mush with a great force.

However, with the support of his immense spirit and with the feedback of Spiritual Essence from his Divine Weapon, Hu Jin had completely recovered from his wounds in three breaths. Even Lu Sheng could not beat that regenerative rate.

At the tier of a Jade Star Divine Lord, unless he was capable of destroying their spirit or not leaving even a trace of their corpse, these beings would be perfectly able to regenerate their physical bodies. In a certain sense, they had already attained the realm of immortality.

Lu Sheng could somewhat understand now why some records of fights between Divine Lords described the crumbling of the heavens and cracking of the earth. When the fights were drawn out, a few days and nights were child’s play. There were fights that lasted for months and years.

At this stage, if he did not possess some special and powerful method to harm their spirits and Divine Weapons, the only way to defeat them would be to slowly wear them out.

Ordinary spirit-targeting secret Arts were no longer fatal to Jade Star Divine Lords.

These three were more powerful than Xu Qi, whom Lu Sheng had fought against back then. There seemed to be no end to the variety of peculiar secret Arts they could unleash. They were like slippery mudskippers. Lu Sheng often felt as if much of his force had been dissipated when his attacks landed on them.

They possessed many secret treasures that were capable of blocking and parrying attacks as well. They were extremely difficult to deal with.

The fight between the four of them was on a much smaller scale than Delin’s sword slash in the beginning. Everyone trained their focus on a small area. Other than the occasional slip of strength, it was just as if four ordinary martial arts elites were fighting to the death in the forest.

Lu Sheng’s palms moved with lightning speed as he fended off the torrential attacks from three directions. He moved to the left and right, up and down. He seemed to be teleporting within the small area. Every attack he launched was with extreme speed. His strength also far exceeded their expectations.

Even with their combined strength, they kept experiencing crushing defeats when Lu Sheng faced them head on. The three of them gradually learned to only attack him from the sides. They would not go head-to-head with Lu Sheng.

“Sect Master Lu, you’re incredibly powerful. I am truly impressed! However, the three of us are here on the royal family’s orders. We came from the Yin Capital. Although you’re powerful, Sect Master Lu, you still have to consider if you can bear the flames of fury of the Extreme Yin Weapon Grandmaster.” Delin moved with lightning speed. With his long sword, he unleashed a set of complicated yet intricate sword skill. His moves layered on one another. With clever movements, he deflected the terrifying power which Lu Sheng hurled at him.

At the same time, he was starting to feel anxious. They were being held down by Lu Sheng. If the royal concubine managed to get away again, they would be in great trouble when they returned.