Way of the Devil

There were more than 200 passengers on board the flying ship. They were all from the Prime Devil Sect and the Lu Family. Many of them were mortals who were powerless to protect themselves.

“That’s good to hear…” Anza nodded slightly.

The flying ship appeared to be flying slowly, but it was actually moving at an incredible speed. It completely passed through the first line of defense in no time.

When Anza saw this, she immediately tensed up, and reminded Mi Guangying through voice projection, “Take a look at the black lines around you. Those semi-transparent black lines which are sometimes difficult to distinguish are the swimming fishes deployed by the Mother of Pain. Once you’re touched by any of them, the Mother of Pain will be instantly alerted to your presence!”

The flying ship slowed down. However, it maintained a steady course toward the distant stars.

However, before they noticed it, a black network which completely shifted its shape had appeared around them. These nets were extended by black flying ships which sped in all directions. From a distance, they resembled black swimming fishes because of their high speed.

“To the left, 32 degrees! Look out! Accelerate forward!” the old gentleman barked out orders.

“Roger!”

Mi Guangying maneuvered the flying ship and evaded a dozen black flying fishes.

“Look out on the right! Here comes a school!” Anza alerted her.

“I see it! Take this!” Mi Guangying turned the flying ship left and made it dive. Their ship easily evaded the incoming school of black fish.

“Swoosh!”

The flying ship passed through three batches of black flying fish security nets.

The nets became more constricted the further out they were. At the same time, the thickness of the black swimming fish nets was thinning with time as well.

If someone looked in their direction from the stars beyond, they would see that the black flying ship had already reached the surface layer of the thick gauze-like black swimming fish net. If it made it through two more layers, it would be completely out of the Yellow Springs Galaxy, and free from danger.

In no time, the flying ship silently passed through a layer of black swimming fish net. The final layer was all that was left.

“It’s the final layer now. Be careful, you two!” Mi Guangying wiped away the cold sweat from her forehead and sighed slowly. The high-speed evasive maneuvers she had just pulled off were mentally taxing even for her.

She had to constantly keep her eye on the trajectories of the black swimming fishes and predict their next possible moves.

She also had to look out for the instances that they suddenly changed directions.

“Don’t worry. We’ll take this final layer slowly. This layer is much denser than the other layers before this! However, once we get through this, we’ll be completely free!” Anza exclaimed.

The old gentleman did not say anything. He clenched his fists. A complicated Divine Vein between his brows pulsed with pitch-black radiance.

“Swoosh!”

On the final layer of the black web, four schools of swimming fishes approached them from all directions. The speed at which they moved was only slightly slower than the flying ship’s.

“Accelerate! Accelerate!” Anza shouted.

Mi Guangying gripped the controller tightly. She put her weight on it so that it would not shoot up.

Formless energy flows shot out from the sides of the flying ship, propelling it forward at an increasing speed.

As time passed, the distance between the flying ship and the black flying fishes got smaller and smaller.

“Boom!”

Suddenly, the flying ship shook. The black flying fishes were clearly still some ways away, but it seemed to have collided against something.

“Oh no!” Anza’s expression changed drastically. She immediately saw the flying fishes before herself stop and shoot toward them.

“There’s a dark web! Sh*t!”

The Mother of Pain had set up a layer of invisible black web before the final layer of black flying fish web.

She directed everyone’s attention onto the high difficulty of the final black web layer’s density. In truth, she had already laid down the dark web before the final layer as a trump card, and this caught them off-guard.

The flying ship shook violently. The two transparent tail flames seemed to have been disrupted as it hissed and coughed.

“We cannot stop here! Do it! Charge!” Mi Guangying’s expression steeled. The crystal pane of the cockpit was lifted, and she charged out of the flying ship.

“Clang!”

A flying fish shoot toward her on a collision course. With a lightning-speed slash of her saber, the flying fish was split in two. The two sides shot past her and exploded.

The scarlet balls of flames and the sound of the explosion attracted even more black swimming fishes, which swarmed toward their position in a frenzy.

“Go!”

Anza swung her right hand. Countless black Devil Qi surged out. A colossal black dragon that was 1000 meters in height emerged from among the Devil Qi.

“I’m counting on you, Gela!” Anza shouted.

“Leave it to me.” The black dragon dragged its long serpentine body and crashed mercilessly into the dense school of black swimming fish.

Its black dragon horns crushed everything in their path. In an instant, a dozen swimming fishes were destroyed.

However, the black swimming fishes immediately launched their counterattacks. Black light bullets exploded on the black dragon’s body.

Its dragon scales slowly cracked from all the impacts, and its blood started to trickle out.

The black dragon roared in pain. It spewed golden dragon fire from its mouth and swept it across. Dozens of swimming fishes were destroyed.

However, that was all it managed to do. More black swimming fishes swarmed over. The black dragon Gela only managed to struggle for a moment before it was completely submerged in the swimming fishes. Soon enough, no sounds from it could be heard anymore, and it crumbled into countless puffs of Devil Qi.

“Puh!”

Blood rose in Anza’s throat.

“My summoned beast has been killed. There’s too many of them!”

At this moment, the flying ship had managed to break through the black swimming fish net. However, it could not shake off the swimming fishes that were tailing it.

“It’s alright! It’s alright! We’re almost at the rendezvous point!” Mi Guangying said anxiously. She held onto the flying ship with one arm while she brandished her black saber with the other and destroyed an incoming swimming fish.

She knew that the passengers on the flying ship were all Lu Sheng’s kin and trusted people. If anything happened to them, she would not have the face to face him.

The flying ship slowly picked up speed. Fortunately, it was slightly faster than the black swimming fishes behind it.

As time passed, the flying ship put more and more distance between itself and the flying fishes. This made the three of them sigh with relief.

“We should be almost—”

“Rumble!”

Suddenly, there was a loud sound. The entire flying ship suddenly rolled backward as if it had been rammed by some colossal object.

Mi Guangying and the others tried hard to steady the flying ship. However, the impact was too huge. Even with the three of them working together, they could only manage to reduce the pace at which they rolled slightly.

The tail of the flying ship broke away from the impact. About a fifth of the ship was broken off from the collision, and the parts rolled toward the depths of space.

“Sh*t! It’s the space-time undercurrent!” Mi Guangying cursed through gritted teeth.

She did not expect to run into a space-time undercurrent at this crucial moment.

“No! This isn’t a coincidence! The Mother of Pain has the ability to influence the space-time undercurrent. She must be the one laying down this secret line of defense!” shouted the old gentleman.

“Please think of a way! Otherwise, we’ll all be pulled into the space-time vortex!” Anza screamed.

If they were pulled into a space-time undercurrent without making a space-time beacon beforehand, they could kiss seeing the Heavenly Devil World again goodbye.

The flying ship rolled wildly in 360 degrees. The three of them did all they could to maintain the ship’s balance. Unfortunately, the undercurrent’s force was too powerful. They merely managed to slow the ship’s speed by a little.

Somewhere dark among the stars.

A huge pitch-black figure with only one eye looked at the receding shape of the flying ship. It raised an arm which suddenly extended over a long distance, and slammed its hand into the side of the flying ship.

“Boom!”

Its palm was of similar size to the flying ship. With this palm strike, the flying ship shattered and broke on the spot.

Another chunk of the flying ship exploded again, and turned into a scarlet ball of flames.

Mi Guangying shouted furiously. She concentrated all her power into black lightning, and equipped it on the blade of her black saber.

“Limitless Heavenly Soul Slash! You’re just a specter, die!”

“Pchht!”

A 100-meter-long blade burst forth from the black saber. The back of the blade shone with faint silver radiance. It was as if the black and silver lines were overlaid on top of each other as they slashed onto the huge palm.

“Dong!”

It was as if the blade was not cutting on flesh.

The palm was unscathed. However, Mi Guangying used the reaction force to propel the flying ship forward and away from the Yellow Springs Galaxy.

“Go… Inform Lu Sheng, quick… use my… origin stone!” After Mi Guangying spoke her final sentence, blood gushed forth from her throat into her mouth. She fell backward and lost consciousness.

Anza and the old gentleman quickly caught her. They combined their powers and managed to produce a Confusion Realm-tier strength which they used to fly the flying ship away from this place.

“A meeting gift, hope you’ll like it…” The giant single-eye woman looked in the direction in which the flying ship left. She smiled silently.

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“The flying ship was destroyed… and Ning’er is missing!?”

Lu Sheng opened his eyes slowly and stared at the hovering origin stone before himself.

“Yes… Just when we were about to leave, we were so close, too! We suddenly encountered a specter that broke the flying ship with a single palm strike… The Prime Devil Sect… Half of its members lost their lives. One-third of the people from Lu Manor died as well… We… We… really…”

Lu Sheng’s expression remained unchanged. He listened to the sobbing voice which was transmitted through the origin stone.

“Tell me your coordinates,” he suddenly interrupted the speaker.

“…We’re 50 light-years away from the West Sutra Planet. There’s an asteroid belt nearby… Also… there’s a solar system with two suns!”

“Got it… Someone will pick you up soon,” said Lu Sheng calmly.

“Al… Alright…”

The communication using the origin stone was slowly deactivated.

Lu Sheng sat on the spot silently. He looked up at the stars scattered across the skies.

“Tell me, Toram. Why do some people not understand the preciousness of life? Why don’t they understand how wonderful it is to live?” he asked softly.

Toram Bach was silent for a moment.

“Maybe… it’s because of pain?”

“Pain?” Lu Sheng lowered his head to look at her.

“Yes… Only those who find living more painful than death will seek a way out,” Toram spoke softly.

“Is that so?” Lu Sheng got to his feet slowly.

“I was planning to retire and live out my days on a nice planet. I’d fill my time with bringing up my kids and spending time with my wife. Alas… why… why must there always be someone who forces me to…”

Lu Sheng took a step forward. Surprisingly, he was stepping onto thin air. It was as if he was going up a flight of invisible stairs into the skies.

The pure white diamond-shaped crystal slowly appeared behind him.

“Pchht!”

Instantly, the crystal extended its branch-like black tendrils, which spread out in all directions.

In an instant, the branches covered a distance of 1000 meters.

The skies gradually darkened.

There was a loud rumble.

Lu Sheng vanished in the blink of an eye.

The sirens blared. In the skies above the city, the people could vaguely make out the figure of an immense black crane flying toward the starry skies. In the blink of an eye, it vanished beyond the city’s protective barrier.