286 Flame 3

The azure blue sky was cloudless, like a large piece of flawless jade.

On the edge of that jade, some black dots were fighting with some colorful dots, and balls of colorful gas clouds would erupt every now and then.

Tens of thousands of meters high up in the air, Shangyang Jinshi's face was solemn. He was stepping on a giant white calligrapher's brush. All around him, inky black lines comprising entirely of symbols spun endlessly.

That was the protective field cast naturally by the Divine Weapon—in other words, the legendary Divine Weapon radiation.

"Where on earth did this Devil Spirit pop up from?" He gazed intently at the giant Devil monsters facing him. Black lines and marks encircled their bodies.

There were two Devil monsters, both of Divine Weapon Master Level. And they had appeared out of the blue in these skies.

"Fortunately, these should be clones, not real Devil Spirits."

Another Divine Weapon Master was standing on a massive jade maple leaf, his face solemn.

"Yet these beings are still on par with us!"

Shangyang Jinshi nodded as he glanced at the other Divine Weapon Master, who was occupied with one of the Devil monsters. To be precise, they were no real Divine Weapon Masters. Rather, they were Deputy Divine Weapon Masters.

If Holy Weapons could be thought of as being in the same class of power as Divine Weapons, then what these Deputy Divine Weapon Masters wielded were unique weapons that were each the composite of several Holy Weapons.

They had power higher than Holy Weapons, but lower than Divine Weapons. That was how strong the Nine Great Families of the Central Plains were.

"Brother Huang, Brother Lei, these two Devil monsters aren't very intelligent. How about we strike at full strength and get rid of them quickly!?" Shangyang Jinshi suggested.

"Alright!"

"Good plan!"

The two Deputy Divine Weapon Masters nodded.

After they had received the news, they had awoken from their long-term hibernation in solitary confinement.

Each of the Nine Great Families of the Central Plains had only one Deputy Divine Weapon Master. Like the Divine Weapon Master himself, these were the Families' final, ultimate forces and would not be deployed lightly.

Knowledge of their existence was typically passed down from one Resident Elder to the next. The ordinary members did not know about them at all. Only in dire situations when the Divine Weapon Master had his or her hands tied would they come out from seclusion.

The moment the Shangyang Family received news of the battle, they had immediately deployed their Deputy Divine Weapon Master along with the Huang and the Lei Family in order to suppress the situation.

What they did not expect was that they would be waylaid by Devil monsters. Each of these monsters had terrifying strength and popped up out of the blue.

"Stroke Nine: Cleaving the Stone!" Shangyang Jinshi stomped his foot and resplendent golden rays erupted from the giant brush immediately.

"Swish, swish, swish, swish." Countless golden brush hairs shot forward like spikes.

Each brush hair twisted as if it was alive. Glowing golden, they fell towards a Devil monster like rain.

Likewise, the other two performed their secret arts, activating the power of their Divine Weapons. Although these were false Divine Weapons constructed out of a composite of Holy Weapons, they were nonetheless extremely powerful.

Very quickly, a white ray traversed several hundred meters like a stream of river. The head of a massive carp reared itself from the river.

Eccentrically, this carp was pitch-black all over its body, except for two golden dragon horns on its head. Its body was over a hundred meters long, and it came ramming towards the Devil monsters.

On the other side, Lei Family's Deputy Divine Weapon Master Lei Hao grabbed at the air, instantly causing massive amounts of lighting to warp into a ball. Around the ball of lightning, several blue-purple phoenix-like birds appeared, encircling the ball of lightning slowly as they cried.

The two Devil monsters sneered savagely.

They each had a horn on their head and two golden eyes. They were covered in black armor and a spinning black metal disc was suspended above their backs. All sorts of bizarre, curly blood-red symbols covered the discs.

"Three mere Deputy Divine Weapon Masters dare to dream of stopping our Lords," one of the Devil monsters sneered.

"Let them dream on," the other Devil Monster sneered with almost exactly the same tone and pitch.

"We'll open your eyes." In a flash, one of the Devil monsters appeared in front of the other.

"Swish!"

At almost the same moment, each of them rammed an arm straight into the other's mouth.

Their arms extended longer and deeper into each other and quickly reached each other's stomachs. What was most bizarre was that the other parts of the two Devil monsters started fusing with each other.

"Crack!"

Black lightning crackled around the bizarre ball of flesh formed by the two fusing monsters. The temperature of the air soared.

"BOOM!!"

A large ball of black Devil Qi erupted off the bodies of the Devil monsters, instantly enveloping the three Deputy Divine Weapon Masters nearby. Caught off guard, the three of them were caught in the blast together with their Divine Weapons.

"Not good! A Devil King clone…!" Half of Shangyang Jinshi's body charged out in an attempt to break out of the black cloud. But his voice stopped short as he was pulled back into the cloud by countless inky black arms.

***

The Prime Devil Sect. Deep underground.

The purple flames lit up the cavern brilliantly in a purple hue.

Although Lu Sheng's body was three meters tall, his head had inflated to exaggerated proportions. His thirty meters long mouth was like a crocodile's jaws. Or perhaps like a dragon's head. Razor-sharp teeth presently pierced deep into the snake leopard's hide.

The front half of the snake leopard's body had entirely disappeared into Lu Sheng's mouth, leaving only the lower half of its body dangling outside. Rows of limbs writhed and struggled outside. Fresh blood dropped down to the ground along the side of Lu Sheng's jaws.

The snake leopard's sharp claws scratched frenziedly on Lu Sheng's mouth.

A pity, however, that given the hardness of Lu Sheng's scales, the most these claws could do was to leave faint, superficial marks on Lu Sheng's mouth. Moreover, these light wounds would heal within a few breaths after they were inflicted.

Lu Sheng was not even bothered. He was fully focused on devouring the snake leopard. Taking advantage of a moment of distraction, he had transformed into his Yin Yang Integration Destroyer Mode and chomped down on it. Then the feeding began.

Such an opportunity was hard to come by. As an ancient Devil, the snake leopard certainly had more tricks up its sleeves. Once it wrestled free and was given time to catch its breath, it would certainly put up another round of tough fight.

"Szzz… szzz…"

Like a crocodile, Lu Sheng threw his head upwards and began stuffing the snake leopard down his throat. Immediately, a long stretch of its body went in.

Through the wounds caused by his teeth on the snake leopard's body, his saliva constantly corroded the flesh within it.

After the flesh was dissolved into liquid, it would be sucked dry by Lu Sheng into his stomach, turning it into nutrients which nursed Lu Sheng's wounds.

"No… NO!!"

The snake leopard continued struggling inside Lu Sheng's throat, causing the scales on the outer surface of his throat to bulge in all sorts of shapes.

All it took was a moment of distraction for it to land in such a plight. It had not expected that Lu Sheng's strength and speed would climb several folds higher in an instant.

At their league, any amplification would at most increase their attributes by twenty or thirty percent. And such secret arts were already considered extremely powerful. A secret art that could multiply his attributes several times like this was simply unheard of.

After all, their base strength was already staggeringly high to begin with. As beings at the top of the food chain in the league of Devil Kings, and even approaching the class of Devil Lords, there was no way such high base attributes could increase by too large a margin instantly.

"Are you still trying to run even after entering my stomach?" Lu Sheng said in a garbled voice. With the snake leopard dangling from his jaws, Lu Sheng glanced left and right, then pressed both hands on the lower half of its body and began stuffing it down his throat again.

"BAM!!"

Instantly, his stomach inflated like a balloon from the massive force that ensued from the snake leopard's struggles. But, immediately, it tightened and constricted again.

Violently, the snake leopard rained blows and punches in Lu Sheng's stomach. But as the seconds trickled by, its resistance was ebbing and weakening.

After a long while, finally, the entire snake leopard had been stuffed into Lu Sheng's stomach. But even after being chomped into many small pieces by Lu Sheng's razor-sharp teeth, it remained full of vigor and life force.

Many body parts of the snake leopard remained on the ground in the cave. As if they were alive, these body parts crawled along by themselves on the ground.

Slowly, Lu Sheng's long and slender tail wrapped these body parts up one by one, gathering them in one spot. Then, it began feeding them one by one into his mouth.

Massive volumes of Devil Qi burst out of his body like a tidal wave. They were the countless Devil aura obtained from digesting the snake leopard. Too much of it. It satiated Lu Sheng's horrifying hunger in a timely manner.

He stood still on the ground. Devouring one ancient Devil made him feel as bloated as if he had just eaten hundreds and thousands of those Devils from previously. He was stuffed and Devil Qi was also saturated in him to the point of leaking.

And endless sea of Devil aura was absorbed by Lu Sheng's starved cells in a frenzy. Like a sponge, Lu Sheng was absorbing all the Devil aura at top speed.

The Modifier Deep Blue was also become clearer.

With ample supply of Devil aura, the upgrade this time showed results.

An entirely new level of secret art he had never seen now appeared in the row.

'Extreme Way of the Eight-Headed Devil: Level Five—Conversion to the Way of the Devil. Special Effect(s): Integration of Eight Great Devil Bodies, High Acidity Grade Forty-Two, Mental Corrosion Grade Fifty, Tough Hide Grade Fifty, Penetration Resistance Grade Fifty, Amplified Strength Grade Ninety, Unlimited Growth Grade One…'

Every special effect was raised by more than ten grades. His strength had soared to Grade Ninety. One had to remember that before Lu Sheng began fighting with the snake leopard, his Amplified Strength was only at Grade Fifty.

That was the terrifying extent of his upgrade.

In fact, Lu Sheng could sense the eight Devil Bodies fusing and integrating with one another during the extrapolation to form a near-perfect complete Devil body that was far more powerful than he had ever imagined.

Not only did this Devil Body possess the strengths of all the Devil Bodies, it most importantly acquired a new special ability called Unlimited Growth.

This term had been formed from Lu Sheng's framework of knowledge. The number of cells in an ordinary person was fixed. It could fluctuate only within an approximate standard variation. So was the number of times they could divide.

But with this special effect, unlimited growth was now open to Lu Sheng. He could keep increasing the number of times his cells divided to strengthen his physical body like mad.

As time passed, Lu Sheng gradually recovered from his intense hunger.

'Although I'm satisfied for the time being, I still need a new and massive supply of Devil Qi to proceed with extrapolating the next level,' Lu Sheng thought, feeling as if he was not entirely full yet.

Astonishingly, he was not completely satiated after eating an ancient Devil, a Devil King through and through. In actual fact, however, it was only because he had not yet fully digested the remaining parts of its carcass.

Before long, Lu Sheng had recovered to his original shape.

He surveyed his surroundings before fixing his gaze on the entrance to the next underground level.

"BAM!!"

Without warning, a deep blast erupted from within his stomach.

Lu Sheng's face changed. His body immediately expanded, morphing into his over ten meters tall Yang Extreme Mode form. But even in this form, his stomach continued expanding, as if some extremely powerful force was erupting madly within him.

"BURP!"

With a loud burp, Lu Sheng vomited out an object.

It was a pitch-black crystal with wisps of Devil Qi extending from its edges like tentacles.

"This is…" Lu Sheng picked up the crystal, puzzled.

This was the part of the snake leopard which he could not digest.

He pinched the crystal and held it closer to his eyes to examine it.

"Swish!"

Just then, countless white eyes, packed densely together, opened at the same moment within the crystal.

Several hundred eyes stared at Lu Sheng. Even he was shocked.