Way of the Devil

The light blue cold spring was releasing a constant stream of formless cold air. However, Lu Sheng could not sense its presence at all.

It was as if the cold spring before him was merely an illusion.

He reached out and attempted to touch it, but felt nothing, which did not surprise him. It was as if he had reached into a body of cold air. The entire cold spring was not a corporeal entity.

He muttered to himself and pulled his hand back. He then closed his eyes and slowly spread his spirit onto the surface of his skin to sense the waves and auras around him.

Soon enough, cold and moist sensations reached his brain through his skin.

“That’s it.”

Lu Sheng thought about it. Among the minor secret arts which he’d obtained from Ju through dishonest methods, one of them allowed him to store the special energy of some special being around him into his Divine Vein.

A Divine Vein could be used as an Art or for enhancing purposes. It could even be used to contact some special space and store energy.

If Ju had not given him these many basic uses, Lu Sheng would not have known that a Divine Vein could be used in so many ways.

Also, he found out from these secret arts that Divine Veins were classified into ranks as well.

Lu Sheng snapped back to the present. He raised a hand, and his spirit quickly formed the pattern of the Cold Frost Divine Vein on his right palm. Then, he slowly reached for the Eternal Cold Spring.

“Hiss…”

Contrary to his expectations, the sensation he felt the instant his right hand plunged into the cold spring was not icy coldness, but scalding heat.

Ever since Lu Sheng had achieved full-mastery in the Eight-Headed Devil Art, he lost the ability to feel the pain from being burned. This incident allowed him to re-experience the sensation.

The scalding heat quickly spread from his palm to his arm, which went on to his torso, limbs, and finally to his nine heads.

“Auuurrr!”

Lu Sheng’s colossal body slowly levitated. His body size was still increasing, and the outlines of his muscles were swiftly enlarging as well.

“Pcchht!”

A pair of huge fleshy wings rose from the sides of his arms and stretched out.

His back started bending and arced upward. Densely packed lumps appeared on his back, and then wriggled and grew larger as if they were alive. From the size of a soccer ball, they quickly reached the size of Lu Sheng’s nine heads.

The cold spring’s light blue cold air swiftly surged into Lu Sheng’s body. The huge amount of mist flickered with silver light, and swiftly spread throughout his body and limbs.

With the surge of the mist, the Eternal Cold Spring’s size started shrinking slightly as well.

“Pccht!”

All of a sudden, one of the lumps on Lu Sheng’s back suddenly cracked. From it emerged a new wolf head.

Shortly after, a second lump cracked open as well with a wolf head. Then, the third one followed suit, then a fourth, fifth…

The densely packed wolf heads popped up eagerly as if to outdo each other. Lu Sheng’s body started enlarging and strengthening. He quickly reached the height of about 20 meters.

The densely packed wolf heads were all squeezed together like grapes. As time passed, their numbers increased. Soon, there was not enough space on his back. The heads started appearing on his chest, shoulders, belly, thighs…

An hour later, the Eternal Cold Spring had shrunk by one-fifth of its original size. Lu Sheng stopped absorbing the cold air as well, and his body stopped growing wildly.

Other than his calves, the other parts of his body were densely covered with wolf heads.

He resembled a monster carrying a huge burden, and the burden was his growth, or overgrowth, of heads.

“I sure look amazing…” Lu Sheng pulled his hand out of the cold spring and took a deep breath.

“Phew…”

Air flows surged frantically toward him from all directions. The simultaneous inhalation from 300 mouths resulted in an airflow which turned into a gale.

“Deep Blue.” He summoned the modifier again, and directed his gaze toward the lowermost frame.

“Cold Frost Power Atlas, Hundred-head Demon Wolf (semigod). (Special traits. Semigod constitution, Dignified Godly Light. Pseudo-god Art, Cold Winter’s Night, Snow Transformation, Divine Ice Spirit Light, Great Snow Wolf Army Summoning, Apocalyptic Breath.)”

“It feels different.” Lu Sheng raised a hand. He could still see the Mystic Water Divine Vein’s mark on the back of his hand. At his rank, he felt that he was already at the limit of this world’s capacity.

Hints of rejecting forces kept surging toward him from his surroundings. They seemed keen on pulling him into another dimension.

‘I can break the Eternal Cold Spring’s seal, but I won’t do it here.’ Lu Sheng looked toward the cold spring in the air again.

He clearly felt that his spirit was being swiftly strengthened by some special material in the air. The extent of the strengthening seemed to be in multiplications.

In the short time of a few breaths, his main body’s spirit had grown to a dozen times its initial size.

However, he felt slightly uneasy with this level. It felt as if most of his Spirit Power was only a temporary boost.

‘This should be the support of nature. It’s a natural and special advantage of this body. I don’t think it’s my spirit.’ Lu Sheng had some slight understanding of this.

‘Next, let’s unify the mountains.’ Ju’s self-destruction had instantly cleared about half of the mountains away.

Lu Sheng leapt down the peak and searched around for some time. He quickly located bear king and the others a few hundred kilometers away in an area that had not been affected.

Because of their small numbers, they were pushed to the forefront of the vanguard in Ashes’ great army. In the end, they were saved by that same fact.

Faced with Lu Sheng’s shocking new appearance, bear king and the other feudal lords were as quiet as cicadas in winter. The abnormal number of heads on his body aside, his colossal body which was more than 20 meters in height alone was enough cause for the others to fear him.

Those who went against him were no longer around. The Holy Dragon Temple’s army was obliterated. Ashes’ great army and the Scorching Sun Tribes’ great army had all died in that terrifying explosion of purple crystals.

The small force faraway was the only remnant of the great army.

Lu Sheng could not care less about them. He ordered bear king to locate the poison dragon king and three-tailed scorpion king. Then, he started to subjugate all the other races in the mountains.

When faced with the demigod Lu Sheng, the tribes were completely powerless. The greatest among their ranks were only at the great feudal lord rank. In a mere two days, the entire grassland mountains were unified under Lu Sheng’s rule.

Where the Eternal Cold Spring was, other than legendary creatures, all the other living beings would be naturally frozen solid once they got close and their spirits would be gradually devoured by the cold spring.

The entire area had completely turned into a forbidden land.

Lu Sheng sent out some patrols to tighten the security in the area while he himself stayed around the cold spring. He started preparing the Eternal Cold Spring.

Without the obstructions from the Holy Dragon Temple, the entire grasslands mountains became his territory. The mountains were already unified, and there was no longer anyone suppressing him. He was the most powerful person in the entire mountains.

He had almost completed his two karmas. Lu Sheng slowly felt his own spirit merging with Black Bone’s.

He understood that when their spirits merged completely, it would be the time for him to leave.

He decided to go into secluded cultivation near the cold spring.

…

10 days later.

“Rumble.”

Gloomy thunderclouds covered the skies above the grassland mountains.

Lu Sheng sat cross-legged beside the cold spring. Densely packed complicated formations were carved into the ground beside him. 100 shining ice-cold white crystals were treated as consumables as they were wedged into the formation on the ground.

In the center of the formation was a stack of three compatible Divine Veins. They were the Mystic Water Divine Vein, Cold Frost Divine Vein, and the Toxic Divine Vein.

Lu Sheng sat on the side with his immense body. He trained his eyes on the movements of the three Divine Veins.

He had obtained these three Divine Veins from the inheritance atlases of the great tribes. In truth, the Mystic Water Divine Vein and the Cold Frost Divine Vein were the only ones that he was able to use. The Toxic Divine Vein was just an experiment of his.

This formation was a product of his derivations after he compiled various secret arts. He did not rely on Deep Blue. It was a tool specifically used to aid him in absorbing the Eternal Cold Spring’s power.

As the Prime Devil Sect’s master, Lu Sheng was already an expert in using poison. He was most familiar with the Toxic Divine Vein.

Hence, he planned to use the formation to absorb the Eternal Cold Spring’s power and convert it into Divine Vein Power before merging it into himself.

Because he travelled between worlds, the only thing that he could keep with him was Divine Vein Power. If he could somehow convert it into Divine Vein Power, then he would consider it a great benefit.

“Almost there.” Lu Sheng checked again. He confirmed that there were no mistakes or loopholes.

He reached out with his paw and smacked the ground before him.

“Smack!”

His wolf paw landed precisely in the center of the formation and Divine Veins.

“Buzz…”

The entire formation quickly lit up with a white radiance. A ring of blue runic chains that formed a spiral leapt into the air from the formation. It circled around him and kept flying upward. They flew past Lu Sheng’s head and slowly disappeared in the air.

The light blue cold air within the Eternal Cold Spring was also being extracted quickly, and surged into the formation.

Amid the strong and terrifying cold flow, the three Divine Veins in the center of the formation started vibrating. The Mystic Water Divine Vein slowly merged into the Cold Frost Divine Vein and formed a peculiar new Divine Vein. However, the Toxic Divine Vein could not merge into this new Divine Vein no matter what.

The cold flow turned into Formation Power which activated the Toxic Divine Vein. The latter kept releasing dark green glow.

With the passage of time, the Toxic Divine Vein’s green glow grew stronger and brighter.

“Click.”

All of a sudden, the green radiance died out. Instead, the bluish-white light swiftly grew dazzlingly bright.

A huge surge of the Eternal Cold Spring’s cold flow plunged into the new peculiar Divine Vein. The flow was endless as if this Divine Vein was connected to an unknown space which was capable of absorbing the cold spring’s energy without limits.

“Rumble…”

With the leakage of the cold spring’s power, its size quickly shrunk as well.

As it shrunk, a strange and loud moan was suddenly heard in the air. It gradually rose in volume as if it was anticipating something with joy.

Lu Sheng turned a deaf ear to it. Instead, he stared at the Eternal Cold Spring.

Time ticked by.

In no time, the cold spring was reduced to the size of a fist.

He suddenly lifted his wolf paw that was on the formation’s Divine Veins.

“Bam!”

The runic chain above the formation suddenly snapped, and the channel that sucked the cold flow suddenly erupted. Everything stopped abruptly.

The only thing left was the peculiar Divine Vein that was carved into the ground.

Lu Sheng reached out again, and pressed his paw on this peculiar Divine Vein.

This Divine Vein stuck to his palm as if he just did stone rubbing. It was transferred from the ground to his body.

“Your Esteemed Majesty, oh ancient dragon, you should be able to easily break through this meager amount of Cold Spring Power. To avoid any incidents, I’ll be taking my leave now.”

Currently, Lu Sheng could already clearly feel that there was an extremely immense force within the Eternal Cold Spring which made him shudder with fear. The force was jumping and struggling wildly.

This was his first time witnessing a force of such magnitude. Even Aurora Polaris and the others were not as overpowering as this.

Currently, he felt Black Bone’s Spirit merging with his main body at a swift pace.

“It’s almost time.” Lu Sheng stood up. The remains of the cold spring were no longer capable of stopping the ancient dragon from breaking free. He had done what Ju asked him to do.