Way of the Devil

 Instantly, Yuan Chengdao’s eyes turned red. The blood in his body started churning as he abruptly raised his hand.

“DIE!! Frontier of the Underworld!!

Instantly, 10 or so waves of dusk-colored True Qi formed equal amounts of sharp spears, which circled around Lu Sheng before shooting toward him.

Yuan Chengdao kicked down and concentrated all his power into one last palm strike.

“Puff!!”

The scarlet yellow palm, surrounded by yellow smoke, went around the middle-aged Qingyang and struck at Lu Sheng with a boom.

Yuan Chengdao put everything on the line at that moment. He knew that with Lu Sheng’s potential, he wouldn’t get another chance to kill him if he let him develop.

Number one among the three major sects—what did that even mean?

That meant that in the future decades, Lu Sheng would grow at an unfathomable rate, and ultimately reach a level he couldn’t even touch!

When that happened…

‘This is my last chance… my only chance…!!’ Yuan Chengdao stared at Lu Sheng’s perplexed expression and suddenly lost all his emotion. His son and brother died, his loved ones died, so what else was there aside from revenge? Emotion served no purpose here.

“Puff!”

Suddenly, Yuan Chengdao’s figure stopped.

He lowered his head to look at his chest. A palm was slowly moving away from it. It belonged to Qingyang.

Meanwhile, the man in front of him, whom he thought was Lu Sheng, was replaced by Qingyang.

“It was definitely… I definitely…” With all his strength sucked away, his body fell to the ground as if it had lost its soul. Then his body turned black, and eventually dissipated into black dust.

He didn’t try to dodge at all during his last attack, because he was prepared to kill Lu Sheng at the cost of his own life. But Lu Sheng created a slight illusion, which was undetectable by anyone present with his Devil Master level mind.

It immediately changed Yuan Chengdao’s target to Qingyang.

And Qingyang was the son of Master Yuan Zheng. The attack failed before it even started.

Faced with the attack of someone equal to him in power, Qingyang also panicked slightly. On top of that, Lu Sheng adjusted the strength of his retaliation slightly.

And so, a nearly perfectly planned murder was executed. Yuan Chengdao never even understood how he died.

The other members of the upper management who’d noticed the commotion there also stood up and were in an uproar.

Though many conflicts occurred between the three major sects, a clash between elders that ended in their death was still very rare. No one thought a Spirit Bind Sect elder would be killed after attempting to settle his personal grudge in public.

Now the situation became interesting.

But that was Lu Sheng’s goal all along.

With a little influence from his Devil Master level mind plus some verbal provocation, a formidable prefect level elder was easily killed. He didn’t even have to use his own hands.

Even though he was only a weak little guy, he’d managed to considerably annoy Lu Sheng. Lu Sheng had no choice but to realize his promise and send him on his way to be reunited with his brother.

A palace master abruptly stood up, and roared, “ZHANGSUN QINGYANG!!”

“I…” Zhangsun Qingyang was confused too. He didn’t know why Yuan Chengdao had suddenly charged straight at him, either. All he did was unconsciously try to block the attack, but he’d never expected Yuan Chengdao’s defense to be so weak, and…

He was dumbstruck.

“Qingyang…” Master Yuan Zheng’s face wasn’t pretty, either. Even though it was only an ordinary prefect level elder, this was still the loss of the three major sects. The Thousand Sun Sect’s alliance ultimately did slowly gravitate toward the Youyin Sect. This was not something their upper management wanted.

He had reached the peak of his potential and there was no road ahead of him. His bloodline and spirit could only support him so far, and the future would depend on the next generations, which went hand-in-hand with resources and money. With this incident, though, the relationship with the Spirit Bind Sect would change, which might negatively affect many of the Thousand Sun Sect’s businesses.

Lu Sheng stood in the back innocently. He glanced at Master Yuan Zheng when Zhangsun Qingyang was being questioned by a couple of Thousand Sun Sect elders. It seemed like he was the key leader of the Thousand Sun Sect.

Master Yuan Zheng seemed to have felt his gaze too, and nodded at him.

“This matter shouldn’t be your concern anymore, so go find a place to rest. You still have to represent Moling during the contest against other prefectures. Don’t let us down.”

“Of course,” Lu Sheng responded.

“Senior Apprentice Brother Lu, we should leave first. Brother Qingyang would receive some light punishment at most, he should be fine.” Zhangsun Lan jumped in the air and landed lightly beside Lu Sheng.

She was very curious about this powerful novice that surprised everyone, especially after she got Lu Sheng’s data from her grandfather.

“Don’t worry, you are her disciple, so even if something happens, it won’t be blamed on you.” Zhangsun Lan saw that Lu Sheng was still ‘worried’ and tried to comfort him with a smile. “With my grandfather here, everything should be fine.”

“I hope so. Senior Qingyang should be fine, right? I started the whole thing, and would feel very ashamed if Senior Qingyang received any punishment because of it. I hope he would accept my compensation afterward.”

“Speaking of that…” Zhangsun Lan stared eerily at Lu Sheng. “During this contest, you extorted ten Spirit Bind Sect disciples, eight Youyin Sect disciples, and twelve Thousand Sun Sect disciples for a total of 30 people and 20,000 Devil Gold per person… Tsk, tsk, tsk…. How very…” She didn’t even know how to describe Lu Sheng’s methods anymore. It was understandable, but the whole thing still felt wrong to her.

“600,000 Devil Gold, plus the 100,000 for you guys, that would be a grand total of 700,000 Devil Gold. Though I could only retrieve a small portion of it since most of them are only tokens of promise.” Lu Sheng shook his head humbly.

“That is still very impressive. That much money could buy you a small city in a lot of places. ” Zhangsun Lan was speechless. “We should go rest up in the True Essence Tower, going there is free during the contest.”

“Really?” Lu Sheng nodded.

“Or you could stay here and watch the other contestants,” Zhangsun Lan explained. “There will be a contest for the number one rank of the Feiling Prefecture, you could watch if you are interested.”

“Hmm, ok.” Lu Sheng, of course, had no interest. After achieving his goal, he didn’t even want to compete in the rest of the contests. It would be nothing but bullying kids. He’d originally wanted first place because of the reward, but after he found such a good way to earn Devil Gold, he wasn’t in a hurry anymore.

Following Zhangsun Lan’s lead, Lu Sheng quietly left the training ground. He left the Black Seal Temple in a teleportation node inside a small Buddhist hall, and appeared inside a room in the Thousand Sun Sect.

The moment he stepped out, he saw Wang Yunlong, Zhang Shilong, who had also come from Autumn Moon County along with him, and a couple other unfamiliar faces from the Thousand Sun Sect. They were all waiting for him.

Zhang Shilong stared at him awkwardly with a weary face, while others stared at him enthusiastically, with a hint of admiration.

“Senior Apprentice Brother Lu…” Wang Yunlong stepped up and greeted him. “After seeing your grand display of power during the contest, I, along with our fellow friends, finally saw someone from Autumn Moon County…”

After a lengthy speech involving a lot of stuff, he finally concluded with an invitation, hoping for Lu Sheng’s presence during a feast.

“It’s too early right now. I still have to compete in the subsequent contest. Once I finish that, I will celebrate with Elder Zhang and everyone else.” He knew what they wanted, but right now, he just wanted to visit Master Qian Du first and get some information.

“Of course, of course!” Zhang Shilong nodded. He didn’t finish his last task very well. Though it was partially because his master told him not to get too close to Lu Sheng, no one could have truly stopped him unless he himself had doubts.

“Also, Autumn Moon County has informed us of a similar contest. They wish to invite you as a viewing guest,” a pretty female elder next to Zhang Shilong said softly.

“Viewing guest?” Lu Sheng was a little surprised. Viewing guests were basically the judges of this world, responsible for evaluating and scoring the contestants’ overall performances. He didn’t expect the Autumn Moon County to elevate him to such a position.

“Correct. This decision was made by Sect Master Yun. The fact that you entered the inner sect and participated in the contest had already alerted the sect masters, so they are both watching you closely as well.” Zhang Shilong smiled.

“Alright, since the sect master himself has spoken, I will, of course, attend.” Lu Sheng nodded. He needed to establish a good relation with the Autumn Moon County since he still had to settle the people from Prime Devil Sect there eventually. Otherwise, there was no reason to leave Duanmu Wan there. This daughter of a Demon King was really a master at all kind of diplomatic endeavors—leaving her on a small scene like Autumn Moon County was truly a waste of her talents.

For someone so good at socializing, she could loosen powerful factions, provided she had a background strong enough.

After agreeing on a date for their future celebration with Zhang Shilong, Lu Sheng left.

“I almost forgot. Senior Apprentice Brother Lu, I met a very strange woman during the contest. You must be careful. I suspect there might be people trying to manipulate this contest,” Wang Yunlong suddenly spoke up once again.

“Oh?” Lu Sheng suddenly stopped.

“She had silver hair and was very powerful. Her voice sounded as if a man and a woman were talking simultaneously. I can only barely ensure my own safety when facing against her.” Wang Yunlong sent his voice with a smile.

He planned to get closer to Lu Sheng. As the imperial heir of the Devil World, his accomplishments in the Human World totally depended on the amount of information he could gather here.

They had never been stingy when it came to investing on people with potential. Even though Lu Sheng had nearly killed him before, it was in a formal competition. Wang Yunlong could care less.

There were no such things as an eternal enemy, only eternal profit.

This saying worked in both the Devil and Human World.

Lu Sheng sensed Wang Yunlong’s attitude as well—friendliness with a hint of closeness. He didn’t want to turn a friend into an enemy, either.

“Thank you, Junior Apprentice Brother. We should get closer in the future.” After all, they were apprentice brothers from Autumn Moon County, and both had entered the Moling contest. It was almost like fate. It would make sense for them to be friends.

Wang Yunlong was ecstatic and nodded. “Of course.”

The two exchanged addresses before Lu Sheng left.

A plaza was right outside the room. A hexagonal crystal stood in the middle, flashing a faint white light. It was the central plaza that where they entered Black Seal Temple.

Lu Sheng looked back and saw that he came out of the feet of a statue of a slim young man holding a bow and looking in the distance.