“Using a live bait?”
“Ka-cha.”
Razor-sharp blades burst from Chao Long’s arms with a mechanical snap. Beneath the moonlight, their edges caught a cold, merciless sheen.
“Swish!”
They moved at the same instant, bodies flashing like lightning. Saber and bladed arms carved intersecting arcs of black light through the air as they crossed paths.
“Ultimate Crimson—Divine Might!!”
Lu Sheng flipped his saber and brought it down in a brutal cleave toward Chao Long’s head. A crimson radiance surged along the blade, swelling in a heartbeat into a dense saber web that swallowed the entire courtyard and crashed down upon Chao Long.
“There’s no need for us to fight each other. This is meaningless.”
Chao Long retreated at once, springing clear of the saber’s reach. Even so, a corner of his robe was grazed by the crimson glow and ignited instantly, curling into a small ball of flame.
He pinched it out between his fingers. Smoke drifted past his face and was scattered by the wind.
“What’s your motive?” Lu Sheng lowered his saber and stood quietly in the courtyard, as though the devastating strike had never come from his hand.
Even in his current Yin Extreme Mode—his weakest state—any casual attack carried the full might of his former peak.
“Motive?” Chao Long looked genuinely taken aback.
Moonlight spilled through the thinning clouds, revealing his face. He appeared like a muscular man carved from wood, expression rigid and unreadable. His age was impossible to tell, but the swelling muscles across his body were impossible to miss, stretched taut as if on the verge of bursting. Nearly two meters tall, his steel-like frame loomed beneath a scalp marked by a Y-shaped symbol cutting through his short gray hair.
“Since you already know about the Anomaly here, you should know the rules of the Three Sacred Gates. This passageway belongs to us this time—the Wandering Heart Society,” Chao Long growled.
“Passageway?” Lu Sheng frowned, completely lost.
“Oh, I see…” A flicker of realization crossed Chao Long’s face, as though he had recalled something long buried. “No wonder he said that back then. So this is the moment he wanted us to make a promise about…”
Instantly, Chao Long regarded Lu Sheng in a different light. The warmth vanished, replaced by a glacial chill.
“Pardon me for asking.”
Lu Sheng’s eyes narrowed. “What is it you wish to ask?”
Chao Long advanced slowly, taking two deliberate steps forward.
“A Three Sacred Mirror once appeared here. Were you the one who shattered it?”
Lu Sheng’s pupils dilated. At once, his thoughts went to the copper mirror he had taken from Tea Sect.
From the change in his expression alone, Chao Long found the confirmation he was looking for.
“So it was you. No wonder the Three Sacred Gates planted this location here again.”
“The passageway is mine. If you intend to fight me for it, then I’ll have no choice but to eliminate you first…” The spikes along his arms suddenly shot out, lengthening in a sharp, metallic hiss until they stretched down to his ankles.
At that moment, Dong Qi stumbled out of the room in a blind rush. When she saw Lu Sheng and Chao Long, relief flooded her face. She sprinted toward them, screaming at the top of her lungs.
“SAVE ME, SECT MASTER!!”
Behind her, inside the house, the twin images of Unlaughing Master merged back into one. With a placid expression, it charged straight for the doorway.
Without sparing it a glance, Lu Sheng flipped backward and sent a slashing arc toward Unlaughing Master.
“It’s mine! THE PASSAGEWAY IS MINE!!” Chao Long roared.
He kicked off the ground. A burst of white fog exploded behind him, and his figure vanished. In the next instant, he reappeared before Unlaughing Master, his right arm’s blade raking downward in a savage strike.
“BAM!!”
At the same time, the two exchanged ferocious kicks in midair. Their feet collided head-on, detonating a cloud of white dust. The violent impact hurled them apart, one flung left, the other right.
“I have no intention of seizing that passageway from you!” Lu Sheng stared in disbelief. He had believed Chao Long to be the mastermind behind everything, but now it seemed the Three Sacred Gates were the true instigators.
“Then stand aside. Once I deal with the Unlaughing Anomaly, I’ll compensate you,” Chao Long replied coldly.
“Go ahead. I won’t make a single move.” Lu Sheng retreated two steps. From Chao Long’s reaction, he could tell there had been a misunderstanding between them.
“You serious?” Chao Long’s eyes narrowed.
“Of course.” Lu Sheng retreated two steps and drew Dong Qi behind him, placing his body squarely between her and the danger.
Chao Long studied him in silence, then turned and walked toward Unlaughing Master.
“Hoo!!”
Without warning, Chao Long vanished. The ground where he had been standing caved in, and in the next split second he reappeared beside Lu Sheng.
“But I think it’s safer to get rid of you first before collecting my passageway!!”
“CLANG!!”
Saber met arm in a deafening crash.
Lu Sheng barely reacted in time. In the instant before the penetrating strike pierced through, he raised his saber layered with the blood web and blocked it head-on.
‘That bizarre stealth movement again’. When Wandering Heart Society had contacted him before, their approach had completely escaped his senses. Now, Chao Long was using a similar technique.
Chao Long’s arms began to spin at terrifying speed, whirling like a top. The blades on his limbs transformed into a raging tornado, unleashing dozens of slashes in the blink of an eye. The storm of strikes hammered down upon Lu Sheng’s guarding saber.
They moved at blinding velocity, one pressing forward relentlessly, the other holding firm. With a thunderous crash, the two were driven straight into the wall of the adjoining courtyard.
Stone exploded outward. A vast opening was torn through the wall, exposing the garden beyond, where artificial mountains and pavilions stood in chaotic ruin.
“Boom!!”
A violent detonation echoed across the courtyard. Chao Long, who had just hurled Lu Sheng through the wall, was suddenly blasted backward in the opposite direction at even greater speed. He slammed down and stomped into the ground with a resounding “BAM,” the impact sending a thunderous tremor rippling through the entire courtyard.
“Get rid of me? Just you??”
A streak of black shadow drifted out from the churning dust cloud left by the shattered wall.
It was Lu Sheng.
The body that had moments ago been flung aside began to distort and swell. Something seemed to awaken within his previously restrained frame. Muscles, bones, and skin surged outward in violent expansion, darkening as they hardened, until his physique transformed into something massive, black, and terrifying.
A grotesque mass of flesh surged and piled atop itself, swelling across Lu Sheng’s upper body as it continued to expand. Two enormous bulges forced their way out from his back, heaving with unnatural weight.
In the same instant, his temples jutted outward like uneven horns. The muscles along his spine ballooned, and a ridge of blackened flesh erupted from his back, hardening into jagged spikes.
His body swelled without pause, growing taller and broader, until his once-human frame expanded into a towering five-meter giant in the blink of an eye.
“SWISH!”
The corners of Lu Sheng’s lips split wide, baring rows of sharp, gleaming teeth. Packed tightly together, they no longer resembled anything human. They looked like the fangs of a feral, flesh-devouring beast.
“Come on. Let me see just how you intend to get rid of me!?”
“BAM!” The entire courtyard shuddered as his colossal foot came crashing down.
“HOO!”
A streak of black shadow suddenly lunged in from the side. It was Unlaughing Master. His face remained utterly placid as a claw swept toward Lu Sheng’s back.
“Scram!!” Lu Sheng’s hand, broad as a fan, smashed into Unlaughing Master and sent him flying into the distance. Without slowing, his gigantic body surged forward toward Chao Long.
“COME ON! WEREN’T YOU ABOUT TO GET RID OF ME??!”
“BOOOM!!”
His fist slammed into the ground where Chao Long had been standing.
The earth ruptured violently. Cracks spider-webbed across the courtyard as soil and shattered stone erupted skyward, leaving behind a deep crater. Yet Chao Long was nowhere to be seen. In the next instant, he appeared behind Lu Sheng as if by teleportation.
“Heart Penetration!!” Chao Long growled low. Bringing his palms together, he aligned the blades toward the center of Lu Sheng’s back and thrust forward in a single, lethal motion.
Unfortunately for him, even in his weakest state, Lu Sheng had already reached the Five-Vein level. With this bodily transformation, his power had surged to an even more terrifying height. He had forcibly stepped into the Snake realm.
Unlike the balanced fusion of Yin and Yang, the true strength of this bodily transformation did not lie in speed, reaction, or explosive bursts of power, but in sheer defense and overwhelming physical force.
“Thud.”
Chao Long froze in horror. His strike had barely pierced a fraction into Lu Sheng’s skin, as though his blades had sunk into solid wood.
“Fool!”
Lu Sheng twisted his massive body and drove the back of his elbow forward.
“BOOM!!”
The colossal elbow, thick as Chao Long’s waist, crashed into him. Chao Long’s body folded in on itself as terrifying force detonated in midair, sending ripples of dust and ash blasting outward.
In the blink of an eye, he was smashed into the ground. A thunderous explosion followed as the earth caved in, forming a vast pit several meters across.
“This is how you intend to get rid of me, Chao Long of the Wandering Heart Society?” Lu Sheng strode to the edge of the crater and peered down. “If I had a choice, I wouldn’t have used this mode. It’s far too ugly. Unfortunately… you left me no alternative.”
He reached into the pit and rummaged through the rubble. Moments later, he hauled out a body so badly battered it was barely recognizable.
It was Chao Long, unconscious from the crushing impact only moments earlier.
“Compared to the other Wandering Heart Society Deputy Leader, Chao Hu, you are a disappointment.” Lu Sheng recalled the single-eyed titan who had once fought Hongfang Bai at her peak. By contrast, this man had only reached the pinnacle of Seven-Vein and had not even stepped into the Snake Realm.
“What should I do with you?” Lu Sheng lifted Chao Long’s limp body into the air. Beside his own towering frame, Chao Long’s nearly two-meter-tall physique looked no different from that of an infant.
“Cicada Moult!”
Without warning, Chao Long’s body shuddered. With a slick, sliding sound, a layer of skin peeled away. A smaller version of Chao Long slipped free from Lu Sheng’s grasp and dropped lightly onto the ground.
With a sharp swish, countless slender blades burst from Chao Long’s arms like cicada wings. Translucent and densely layered, they shimmered with a crystalline gleam.
Chao Long’s face twisted into something grotesque, darkening into a savage black hue reminiscent of a writhing worm. His mouth elongated into a thin, black spike that stretched all the way down to his abdomen.
“I had planned to conserve my strength for whatever lies within that passageway. But it seems I have no choice now…” He spread his arms wide as a faint green light ignited within his eyes.
“Cicada-Winged Flying Dragon—Nine Heavens!!”
“SWISH!!”
A streak of green radiance slashed across Lu Sheng’s chest like a bolt of lightning.
“BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!!”
Explosions erupted in rapid succession. Lu Sheng’s towering body was driven back several steps as shockwaves tore through the air. A shallow gash appeared on the blackened skin of his chest.
Though the wound was not deep, the sheer force of the impact knocked him off balance.
“HAHAHA!! Interesting! INTERESTING!!” Lu Sheng roared with manic laughter. Around him, the searing blood web contracted violently, condensing into a thin layer over his skin and forming a faint, translucent crimson membrane.
“COME ON! KILL ME! IF YOU CAN!!” Without warning, his massive hand shot forward, grabbing at the incoming green glow.
“SWISH!”
Another streak of green light flashed past. Lu Sheng’s grasp missed, and a fresh wound was carved into his arm.
Strangely, the earlier gash on his chest had already nearly healed.
From the newest wound, dark red and golden sparks sprayed outward. They were born not only from the brutal friction at extreme speed, but also from the scorching resistance of Lu Sheng’s blood web, reinforced by the automatic anti-tremor effect of Yin Yang Jade Crane Aquarius Qi.
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