Way of the Devil

Within the temple of the God of Sacrifice.

The red malicious radiance gradually replaced the faint golden rays of the offering formation.

Pastor Buddy was shining with an extremely glaring golden radiance. His eyes were completely golden as well. A circle of dark golden runes formed a ring and spun swiftly behind him.

The extreme golden radiance all over his body was fighting against the invading red light. The red light was like a parasite in his bones as it fed on the god power he possessed as the incarnation of the God of Sacrifice.

“What are you?!” Buddy, or perhaps, the God of Sacrifice, Reyr, demanded.

Lu Sheng took a step forward with his hands still locked on to the pastor’s. The red light used this as a route to spread to the other person.

“I’m just an innocent person asking for help…” He was wearing a peculiar smile. “I’ve offered you treasures… You’re the God of Sacrifice. Since someone has offered you some treasures, shouldn’t you fulfil that person’s wishes? Isn’t this only natural?”

“You cultist! Demon!” the God of Sacrifice Reyr shouted. The golden radiance all over his body shot out in spikes.

“Punishment Hammer!” A big and tall golden figure materialized behind him.

It was a golden minotaur that carried a huge warhammer.

It was more than five meters tall, with its body covered in all sorts of enhancement runes and mysterious symbols. There was also a Divine Vein which symbolized the God of Sacrifice’s god power between its brows.

Before Reyr founded his own god nation, he’d been an outstanding peak legendary Sorcerer. This minotaur was a king of a minotaur settlement which he had killed before this. He retrieved its corpse and soul to cultivate it into his most powerful battle puppet.

After becoming a god, Reyr forcibly cultivated this ultimate move of his into a terrifying war weapon which was on par with a divine region being.

Now, when his opponent had used some unknown method to restrict his host, it was a perfect opportunity to use this ultimate move of his.

“Boom!”

The giant minotaur lifted its warhammer high and brought it down heavily onto Lu Sheng.

The golden war hammer shone with a formidable Divine Vein which represented power and destructive force. Under the conversion of the Divine Vein, the god power was swiftly turned into pure physical, explosive force.

The pure strength and speed seemed to have formed an afterimage as it sped through the air. It instantly touched the skin on Lu Sheng’s forehead.

“Puh!”

The formidable magic radiance on Lu Sheng’s body was all smashed through. One layer, two layers, three layers, 10 layers, 20 layers, 30 layers…

After smashing through more than 70 layers of defensive magical light, the warhammer finally stopped and froze in midair.

“God power?!” Reyr paled. He sensed the spiritual light covering Lu Sheng’s body. It was much more powerful than any form of power. Perhaps even describing it as a supernatural power would not do this power justice.

There was only one possibility, god power. Only god power that had attained the roots of its nature could be used to describe the extent of this power.

Extremely formidable Soil Qi circulated throughout Lu Sheng’s body. This was a terrifying enhancement effect brought about by the Qianshen Method. If he relied on his seven-colored dragon’s level alone, there was no way that he could defeat an actual godly spirit.

However, if he supported it with his main body’s core Soil Qi, the results would be largely different.

Soil Qi was a terrifying form of energy only accessible by Void Underworld experts. With its energy ranking and the condensed strength, even some formidable higher gods could not stand against it, let alone Reyr the God of Sacrifice’s god power.

It should be known that god power could also be classified into several ranks.

“Goodbye, Your Majesty Reyr.” Black hands emerged from behind Lu Sheng. This was the 88th technique of his 99 arcane arts, Shadow Hands, in full force.

This time, Lu Sheng held nothing back.

His rank-678 Shadow Hands was launched concurrently with his Death Finger, which he had raised to rank-10,000 to fight against a true god.

There was a tearing sound.

Amid the densely packed Shadow Hands, a dark red electric arc suddenly shot toward the center of Reyr’s chest along an irregular trajectory.

“Bzzt.”

There was a flash of golden light. The golden radiance on Reyr’s body erupted in all directions into golden flowers. Semi-transparent humanoid shadows surfaced around him. Those were the countless saints which he had assumed into his own god nation.

They were fervent believers of the God of Sacrifice. Because of their passionate souls and outstanding skills, they were taken into the god nation after their death, and became a part of the god nation.

Currently, when the true god’s incarnation was hit by this rank-10,000 Death Finger, it was a moment of life and death. The saints showed themselves through some mysterious god nation pathway and surged to Reyr’s side. They took on Death Finger’s instant death effect for Reyr.

The saints instantly crumbled and dispersed after taking the blow of Death Finger. The red light of death gradually dimmed as well.

With the passage of time, the number of saints started dwindling. The red light of death gradually faded as well.

“Puh!”

Eventually, Death Finger dissipated. Of the hundreds of fervent believers and saints Reyr had accumulated over the course of tens of thousands of years, only a few were left as platinum-colored spots of light which circled around him.

Currently, he was on the edge of breaking down from rage. He had painstakingly gathered that many saints over the years, yet they were all reduced to nothing by this person in an instant.

For him, who had always advocated peace, this was an unimaginable insult.

A mere mortal—not an Abomination, not even a creature with Divinity, but this mere mortal—had caused him this much damage just by a strengthened high-ranked art!

“Lift up your offerings, soul of the world!” He suddenly opened his mouth wide. A metallic cube with seven-colored radiance suddenly shot out from his mouth.

The metal cube swiftly melted and formed a liquified armor which covered up his body in no time. A formidable power and defense surged through his body. He gave a sudden jolt and broke free of the Shadow Hands which held him in place.

“Die!” Reyr roared as he made his move.

He’d barely made any progress when the red light of another Death Finger came toward him.

His expression changed drastically. He turned around and dodged.

“Hiss…”

The ground behind him was hit by the red light. In an instant, a huge patch of the rock slabs paled and cracked open before exploding into white powder.

Even the little remaining sign of life within the rock was completely wiped out by this attack.

“Kara Offering!” Reyr reached out and grabbed at the air. An offering formation instantly appeared on his arm.

‘I offer up my own god power in exchange for the greatest speed and power.’ He recited the incantation in his mind.

Without making a sound, his right arm became extremely light and powerful.

Currently, his right arm had the strength that was several magnitudes more powerful compared to when he’d been fighting against Lu Sheng just now. He currently possessed power and agility several times greater than a divine region-rank. This was practically the limits of the main plane’s capacity.

Reyr merely grabbed at the air, and black cracks appeared in the fabric of the dimension.

The air flow was compressed and shot in all directions. The flows popped as they broke through the sonic barrier. The walls of the church gradually cracked open. The ornamental vase and glass windows instantly burst into fine powder.

The dimension shook violently. Even the amount of light seemed to be affected by this grabbing action as it almost died out.

He had offered up almost half of his god power for this arm. He was only a weak god with a few thousand believers. With this level of power, the most he could do was to sustain his God Fire. He had no way of amassing more god power.

His current god power was actually saved up from his golden era. It was only more than 70 units at most.

However, with this attack, he instantly used up more than 30 units of god power. He did all this to kill the evil demon who’d killed his saints.

The wild god power fueled his right arm as he brought it toward Lu Sheng’s chest.

“Bam!”

Lu Sheng’s chest instantly exploded. A bloody hole the size of a person’s head was exposed.

The remaining energy formed a massive contorted orb of fluctuations as it shot through Lu Sheng. It shattered the temple’s walls and shot into the night sky. It vanished in the blink of an eye.

“That’s a great attack.” Lu Sheng lowered his head and looked at the arm which was now embedded within his chest. He had an admiring smile.

“Alas…” Countless densely packed blackish-purple energy orbs slowly rose behind him.

This was the most powerful single-target art among the rank-9 incantation school arts. It was also the most difficult art to learn for a rank-18 Sorcerer, Ultimate Destruction Orb.

It did not have an instant death effect like Death Finger. Instead, its effects were similar to a dissociation art, completely destroying the soul of a living creature.

Compared to Death Finger, the Ultimate Destruction Orb worked quicker. Also, it could be easily controlled, and its trajectory could be easily manipulated.

Death Finger, on the other hand, resembled a cannon. There was no way of fine-tuning it after it was shot.

Hence, after taking these factors into account, Lu Sheng specifically derived the Ultimate Destruction Orb into a skill.

After its derivation, this skill was like the six-meridian god sword which could be unleashed from any part of his body at will. Also, he could unleash several hundred shots in one go.

Under the supply of this huge amount of Soil Qi, Lu Sheng seemingly unleashed 1000 shots in two batches. The orbs hovered behind him.

“Go!”

With the pointing of his finger, a large number of Ultimate Destruction Orb rained down on Reyr.

The two of them were too close to each other. Reyr had nowhere to run.

He could only shield himself with his free arm. Then, he felt a sensation of pain all over his body.

This was a rank-9 art. Even he could not be completely immune to this. His body could only allow him immunity against rank-5 arts at most. In other words, it was immunity against a rank-10 Sorcerer’s attack.

If he went up against Sorcerers of higher ranks, it would be impossible for him to come out completely unscathed.

“Boom! Boom! Boom!”

Small orbs landed on Reyr’s body and exploded like bombs. Purplish spiritual light with black corrosive properties exploded on the surface of his body.

The metal armor on him eventually cracked under the explosions of the numerous power orbs.

This was the equivalent of 1,000 rank-18 Archimages unleashing Ultimate Destruction Orbs at him at the same time.

With this ferocity, even a middle god would suffer the same consequences, let alone himself.

Reyr took the brunt of one-third of the attacks and could finally take no more. The armor on his body shattered, exposing his blood-battered body underneath.

“No!” The minotaur behind him stepped forward to shield him. However, it merely took a dozen orbs before it was completely dissolved and gasified by the purplish-black destructive spiritual light.

His body was not the only thing that took damage. Even his equipment and weapons were completely dissolved by the destructive spiritual light.

“No!” Reyr shouted.

Gods were immortal.

The nature of the gods was the God Fire. God Fire was sustained through belief power and the god’s own spirit. That was the Life Flame of the gods.

In simple terms, belief power was the fuel, while their spirits were reserve fuel. The burning of the God Fire produced god power.

The actions of a god, however minute, would expend god power. In order to sustain their God Fire, the gods valued their believers over anything else. That was the basis of ensuring that they would not die.

However, at this moment, Reyr’s god power was being depleted at an alarming rate. Withstanding the destruction orbs alone had used up his remaining god power.

In the end, even his war puppet was completely disintegrated.

His God Fire could no longer provide him with more god power. His body started disintegrating.

Before Lu Sheng’s eyes, Reyr’s body resembled a once-perfect vase with cracks rapidly spreading across its surface. Through the cracks, Lu Sheng could see a spherical crystal covered in spikes.

The crystal swiveled slowly as it shone with faint colorful radiance. A pure white flame burned within its translucent body.

The instant Lu Sheng saw the crystal, it was as if he could hear the loud prayers and hymns of countless saints. There were also the pained pleas and despairing tales of the people who offered up sacrifices.

The voices and scenes swiftly flashed through his mind.

“That’s the Godhood!” He rejoiced internally.

From his underling feudal lords, he knew that the God of Sacrifice had taken on the form of an ordinary pastor. He shrunk his own god nation and hid within the cracks of this main plane.

The God of Sacrifice Reyr’s god nation was not huge. Hence, after shrinking it, he hid within this temple and turned the temple into a part of his god nation in the mortal realm.

His god nation was too weak; hence, it did not suffer too much rejection from the main plane. This allowed him to protect himself here.

Many other gods knew about his existence. However, with the protection of his god nation, Reyr could unleash almost all of his strength.

The other gods would only be greatly suppressed by the main plane. Although they could unleash formidable strength, they would not be much stronger compared to Reyr.

Hence, nobody came to give him trouble.

At most, some of the legendary or divine region beings who learned about this secret would come here in an attempt to seal him away.

However, most of them never returned from their journey.