Way of the Devil

Mountain-Edge City.

Scarlet District Mistress stabbed a translucent long saber into the ground and sat on a well in the Manor.

Likewise, umbrella girl, Yingying, was sitting on the edge of the well, flipping through a book.

“Just a little more…” Scarlet District Mistress breathed in deeply and caressed the saber hilt beside her.

The saber was named Full Prime. It had accompanied her for a very long time. Perhaps it had been a hundred years… two hundred years? She could no longer remember.

Initially, she did not quite like the saber. But after getting used to it, she could not be bothered with replacing it. Moreover, the saber was very hardy and would not be damaged. Hence, she continued using it till now. Right now, she and Full Prime had become one.

Scarlet District Mistress breathed out again as she caressed a crimson shard embedded between the hilt and blade of the saber.

Under the gray evening sky, the shard shone with a faint red glint.

It was a glint of seductive scarlet, a hint of beauty and danger mixed in it.

“The book… says… nothing about it…” Umbrella girl put down the book gently and frowned.

“It doesn’t matter… as long as I can feel its power.” Scarlet District Mistress licked her lips.

“I can feel an endless stream of power gushing into me.” She gripped the saber hilt. Threads of red hue spread from the shard into her body. In that moment, the whole courtyard was dyed in red, as if all other colours had faded from around them.

That was the Scarlet Dragon Tribulation shard. It was her prize, hard-won and seized from the hands of many powerful opponents.

Only much later did the scarlet hue fade from the saber hilt.

Scarlet District Mistress pulled out Full Prime, allowing it to fade in her hand till it vanished completely.

She stood up.

“Alright. Next, let’s go pay a visit to another sect. What’s that place called? Gong Qu Clan?”

“Yes… but… are you ok?” Umbrella girl looked at her worriedly.

She had only just learned that Scarlet Dragon Tribulation was feeding her sister with power continuously. But such power did not come without cost.

“I can still take it…” Scarlet District Mistress chuckled, a terrifying resolve flashing across her eyes. As long as her saber was in her hand, she would never fear any foe!

So what if it was Wandering Heart Society?!

But Yingying was getting increasingly worried.

She knew that tools like Divine Weapons and Devil Blades could indeed grant power that far exceeded the boundaries of normality, up to an inestimable league.

But…

Such items consumed power generated from Ritual Offerings. A Ritual Offering could feed it with power to last a decade—that was the ordinary frequency of sacrificing an offering. Noble Families followed this frequency.

It was just like how a bonfire needed to be fed with more wood every now and then.

But things were different with her sister. She was basically feeding her own vigor and life force to the shard in exchange for power. The lives that she had massacred were far from adequate to sacrifice to the shard.

“To think that Baifeng would dare to incite me into provoking Shangyang Family… he should die. Oh right, Yingying, have you discovered any leads?” She rose to her feet and stretched her body. The thick muscles on her body moved about, displaying her strength in full view.

Umbrella girl hung a black jade pendant in her hand on her clothes.

“No… no new… discoveries at all…”

“Alright then, if you discover anything, remember to let me know immediately.” Scarlet District Mistress cracked her neck. “How I wish to go back to Scarlet District. The well’s still the most comfortable place to rest in… after being around so many humans, my chest is starting to feel uncomfortable.” She rubbed her chest.

“When… it’s built… we’ll go back…” umbrella girl stammered and giggled.

“Yingying, don’t you think it’d be nice you and I could just live like this? We’ll tour places together and do whatever we want… wouldn’t that be great?” Scarlet District Mistress lowered her voice.

“Yea…” Yingying bowed her head. A look of gentleness surfaced on her face. “Yingying… likes… sis the most…”

Subconsciously, she touched the jade pendant on her. Lu Sheng had instructed her to put it on her, but did not explain why and she did not dare to ask. After examining it for awhile, she discovered that it caused no harm to her body and so complied.

She did not notice a black thread flashing across the jade pendant…

***

Night fell.

Lu Sheng put on tight-fitting athletic robes, put on a mountain goat mask and opened the window in the bedroom of Crimson Whale Sect’s Sect Master.

Cypress Pine Lake was a picture of quiet and serenity at night. The waves lapped and beat against the sides of the ship rhythmically. A gust of cold air blew into the air, carrying Lu Sheng’s long hair into a dance.

He stuck his head out and surveyed the surroundings.

A few guards stood silently on the deck below, muffling yawns.

Some distance away on the lake, patrolling boats were circling around the Crimson Whale, carrying lanterns on the lookout.

“Dang… dang… dang…”

It was the third watch.

Lu Sheng flattened out the crease in his black athletic robes. Then, pressing a palm on the windowsill, he sucked in a deep breath of air.

“Boom!”

He applied force all of a sudden, launching himself through the window into the air like a phantom. In the inky black night sky, he was like a giant bat which shot out for over ten meters in the blink of an eye soundlessly. Lightly, he landed on the surface of the lake.

With a light tap, Lu Sheng pushed off against the water on the lake’s surface and burst forward into the air once again.

He did not know any qinggong. In this world, nobody had created any powerful qinggong either. Most movement skills only enabled practical manoeuvring in actual combat.

Although he did not know qinggong, Lu Sheng could feel an extraordinary change happening in his body in Yin Extreme Mode as the Yin and Yang inner Qi collided into each other in him.

This change significantly reduced the friction he experienced In movement. Despite his astonishing weight, he could still perform simple high-speed bursts using brute force with the help of his Yin and Yang inner Qi.

It was like broad jumps. As long as one had enough strength, one could jump really far.

Like a feather, he leapt into air above the surface of the lake again, bursting into the distance.

If anyone happened to pass by under him, he would immediately feel the invisible streams of heat bursting out from under Lu Sheng.

It was precisely this intense wave of heat that enabled his originally heavy body to move in the air silently like a wisp of cotton.

Simply put, Lu Sheng was essentially using his profound inner Qi as a jet pack, launching himself forward. The result looked as if he was using some Qinggong.

Such use of inner Qi was nothing to Lu Sheng, since Yin Extreme Mode granted him a faster Qi replenishment rate than the one he could spend inner Qi at.

In just a few breaths, Lu Sheng had shot across the surface of the lake and landed on the shore. Without a sound, he disappeared into the pitch black night.

His speed was too fast. At his maximum acceleration, he was like a gust of wind. It took two blinks of an eye to traverse a distance of several hundred meters.

Faint moonlight spilled on the ground from behind layers of clouds. Like a wisp of black smoke, he flashed across the ground without stopping.

Unexpectedly, he was heading not in the direction of Mountain-Edge City, but rather Donglin Manor in the north.

“Ka-Cha.”

A weak lightning bolt streaked across the dark clouds, lighting up the heavens and the earth for a split second.

“Hahahahaha! Drink up, everyone! Don’t stand on ceremony! Drink as much as you can!!”

Jie Long City, Donglin Manor. This was at the top of an extremely luxurious pagoda. The Sect Master of Green Star Sect, Meat Dragon, was clutching a fat beef leg in one hand, and the soft waist of a pretty woman in the other. Laughing heartily, he was playing host to the guests at his banquet.

“Crimson Whale Sect may be the strongest in the Northern Lands, but that’s because we’re avoiding the brunt of their blow for now. That Lu lad might be powerful, but there’s no way his hand can reach so far into my Jie Long City.

Relax everyone! This is Donglin Manor. As long as I, Meat Dragon, am around, I will never let Crimson Whale Sect reach out with its claws into this place,” Meat Dragon promised heartily.

“Sect Master Meat Dragon is the Number One expert in our Jie Long City. Of course we believe your words. But that Crimson Whale Sect is too strong and has recently issued a summon to many. Who’s to say that they don’t harbor an agenda of ambition…” the leader of another sect in Jie Long City said worriedly.

These were the top experts of Donglin Manor. Strictly speaking, this place was no longer considered part of the Northern Lands, even though it was not far from Mountain-Edge City. It was situated on its east, shading the sea. One could see the endless frozen ocean from this place.

If they were pressed hard, they would simply move onto ships and leave this place to settle somewhere else in the worst-case scenario. Anyway, they had plenty of ships in Jie Long City.

Green Star Sect was one of the two strongest sects here. The Sect Master, Meat Dragon, was plump and muscular. Moreover, he was unmatched in strength. If an ordinary person were to throw a punch at him, his bones would immediately be broken by the rebounding force.

“This place is remote and far. Moreover, we’ve seized control of the islands to the east and the waterways. At the very most, if things really turn bad, we can always set sail for the open seas! I don’t give a crap about their ambitions!” The leader of another sect was devouring food and wine, unbothered in the slightest.

It was beyond extravagance to taste cooked beef in such an icy, frozen land.

“What’s the use of so much talk? Come, drink! Let’s celebrate our great harvest today! It’s been a long time since we last caught so much seafood. This trip out to sea has brought back enough for us to eat for more than half a year!” Meat Dragon lifted a barrel of wine.

“That’s right! Drink up!”

“For Jie Long City!”

“Bottoms up!”

“Bottoms up!”

One by one, these ruddy-faced leaders of sects lifted up their wine bowls and cups and emptied their contents into their mouths.

“Creak…”

All of a sudden, the doors to the banquet hall opened by themselves. They seems to have been blown ajar by the strong wind.

Two guards quickly ran over and placed their hands on the doors, intending to shut them again.

But just as they pressed their palms against the doors, an overwhelming force collided against them.

“BAM!!!”

The two guards were sent flying backwards and rammed into the walls. No one knew if they were still alive.

In the cold and harsh moonlight, a man with hair that reached to his waist was standing at the doorway with a long saber in his hand.

His facial features were not visible under the dim light. One could only see his messy black hair billowing to the left in the wind.

“What a party… so many people…” The man’s voice immediately suppressed all their laughter, ringing clearly in their ears.

“Hoo…”

A gust of chilly air swept into the hall through the wide ajar doors, waking up everybody from their stupor.

“Who’re you!?”

“Szzz…”

Some or them rose to their feet and reached for their sabers, casting fierce glares at him.

Some others went out of the hall through the side doors—not to escape, but to surround the man from behind.

“Bam!”

Meat Dragon tossed the wine tub aside, sending it slamming into the stone wall and rolling on the ground. The remaining wine inside it spilled out onto the ground.

Slowly, he stood up. A bizarre and cruel grin appeared on his flabby face.

“I didn’t expect an intruder to barge into this place…”

Meat Dragon’s hulking frame was two meters tall. Standing, he was like a moving mountain of fat. Two thick feet thumped on the ground, sending tremors across the entire banquet hall.

“Heheheh!!” He chuckled savagely.