291 Flame 8

"You are welcome to try," said Shangyang Jiuli, narrowing her eyes. "If you succeed, I will report a Class Contribution under your name to the family."

"For real!?" The person was a stubborn and arrogant disciple with above-average talent. He wasn't even convinced by Shangyang Jiuli's warning, and was overjoyed when given this opportunity.

"Even though that blue giant is strong, it isn't fast. If we move fast enough, all that's going to be destroyed are some useless things. As long as we are alive, we can get those worldly things back any time we want," he said confidently.

"Alright, I'll scout it out first." He strided in front of the crowd, facing the blue mist directly.

"That dumbass!" A person next to Shangyang Jiuli cursed in a low voice. Something that even Madam Jiuli didn't want to touch wouldn't be so easily defeated!

The disciple might've been arrogant, but he wasn't completely stupid.

He waved his hand and sprayed out a bunch of jade green dots. Astonishingly, it turned out to be a wave of bugs, each about as small as a firefly.

The jade green bugs flapped their wings and slowly moved toward the blue mist. This was obviously a probe.

"Hiss..."

The first wave of bugs charged into the mist, and then...

Then nothing.

"Huh? Wha…?" The disciple stared for a moment, his expression twisting.

"Qirong, come back!" The Shangyang clansmen behind him couldn't stand it anymore, so they tried to call the disciple back as they sensed that something was wrong.

"I… I…" The young man's face twisted like he was suffering through great pain.

"Qirong!" Someone tried to pull him back.

"Wait!" Shangyang Jiuli sensed something odd, and stopped the people who were trying to help. She herself stepped up slowly. "Shangyang Qirong!!?"

"Jiu... Jiuli... save... me…" Shangyang Qirong slowly turned his head.

The crowd let out a gasp. Some even retreated several steps in horror.

Shangyang Qirong's whole body was melting at an alarming rate, like a candle in high heat.

"Help... help…" He stretched out his head toward Shangyang Jiuli.

Shangyang Jiuli took a few steps forward, but was promptly stopped by an elder.

"My lady, don't go!! You will be attacked if you approach him! That's the Nevermorning Cloud!!"

"..." Shangyang Jiuli and He Xiangzi could only watch as Shangyang Qirong dissolved into a puddle of light yellow liquid within a matter of seconds.

No one talked. Everything was quiet.

Shangyang Jiuli looked towards He Xiangzi.

The disciples of Prime Devil Sect all had horrified expressions. Many of them had just joined the sect, and didn't have the discipline to stay calm under pressure.

She then looked at her own side—a pack of elite warriors that killed their way here from the city. Their expressions were weary, but still stable.

"He Xiangzi, are there any other way out of here?" she asked in a low voice.

He Xiangzi shook her head.

"We need to split up and search! Try to find any place not blocked by the mist!" Shangyang Jiuli said in a low voice. Even if the enemy was far too strong, even if the situation seemed desperate, waiting for death had never been her style.

Even if she was to die, she would die standing!

"Yes!" the Shangyang Family elites all answered, and started to spread out to the two sides of the mist.

Under the advice of Zhan Kongning, He Xiangzi also started to order disciples to search for any opportunities to escape.

The mist covered a huge area, and there was a high chance of blind spots appearing—especially near the Devil's Pool.

"Boom!!"

Another explosion. Above the plaza of the Prime Devil Sect, the cliff wall where everyone lived was smashed open by the blue giant. The whole caven shuddered. Countless rocks rolled down, instantly burying half of the plaza.

"DIE, DIE, DIE!!! AHAHAAA!!: Bei Ni laughed fanatically, destroying everything on sight.

First, he'd destroy the Prime Devil Sect. Next up, the human cities all around.

He was going to vent all his enmity from years of imprisonment. Hence, he blocked all of the exits with his poisonous mist. Nothing would get through, dead nor alive.

Just wait. Wait until he destroyed the Secret Art Palace, which was a large portion of the sealing formation. Then, the whole Prime Devil Sect would be buried under his toxic mist. Everything living would be dissolved, with no flesh or bones left!

************************

"Boom!!"

Purple flame and black lightning clashed.

Lu Sheng's four arms were holding the knife, fanatically clashing with Carfe in a fluid motion.

Carfe was surrounded with arcs of black lightning. Vast amounts of electricity sparked on his body, enclosing it like nets.

The two had been exchanging moves while remaining in a stalemate for a while now.

Carfe had been getting unsatisfactory results. He'd even activated dark thunder to increase his reflexes and speed, but to no avail. At this point, it was a matter of who had better endurance and resilience.

But as the king of this land, it was the first time he had to fight someone for this long. Plus, his body was way too big: every move required a vast amount of energy.

He had always crushed opponent with sheer strength before, but this one...

Carfe rapidly blocked Lu Sheng's attacks. Under the shock wave caused by the two, the cavern shook and expanded. Every second, parts of the wall would break and collapse, making the space bigger and bigger.

Carfe surveyed his surroundings, and immediately landed behind Lu Sheng. He noticed that there were somehow two tumors growing on Lu Sheng's back. He was quite amazed by the arms that grew from wings, and now there were two more tumors!

Through the tumor, he could vaguely see two more arms.

He, of course, didn't know that these were Lu Sheng's new talent. It just didn't have enough time to develop before, and Lu Sheng needed time to adapt to the new Ultimate Eight Head Devil Way after evolving it.

Carfe sensed his situation was dire: if he was only able to keep even in the fight now, against two more arms, he could be in danger.

At this moment, while he was distracted by Lu Sheng's back, Lu Sheng saw an opportunity.

One black knife penetrated his defense, landing on his neck with a booming sound. 

"Snap!! Boom!!"

The black knife exploded in an instant. The explosion made Carfe lose his balance and fall backward.

Lu Sheng's 10-meter-tall body with four arms spun. Fist, palm, finger, and knife—four different types of attack flew towards Carfe like hurricane.

Carfe was forced to retreat step after step. He let out an angry roar, but still could do nothing to improve his situation.

"Damn you!!" he roared, blocking constantly. The lightning surrounding his body had been battered and broken to the point where it didn't serve any defensive purpose anymore.

Lu Sheng forced Carfe to retreat, all four of his arms rapidly controlling black Devil Qi to form four knife-like edges.

Every time he struck, a long edge swooped down with purple glow.

The demonic knife edge of at least 10 meters created a giant blood-red wound every time it connected, completely ignoring Carfe's scales like they didn't even exist.

The cavern shook. Huge boulders fell onto the ground. Everything that fell near the battle zone instantly shattered into dust.

But suddenly, Lu Sheng's attack suddenly paused as Shadow of Insanity transmitted images of its view into his brain. 

Inside of the Prime Devil Sect, the enormous dark-blue giant, King of Dark Clouds, laughed maniacally as he destroyed everything in sight.

Lu Sheng's arm finally stopped moving for a brief moment. Even though it was only an instant, but in this level of battle, an instant was enough to twist the whole fight around.

"Entangling Hands!" Carfe retreated rapidly, quite mad at the fact that he couldn't compete in sheer strength against Lu Sheng. Yet there was nothing he could do. Seeing this opportunity, his heart leapt, and he spat out a giant pale white skeleton hand. The hand flew out and slammed heavily into Lu Sheng's chest.

"Bam!!!"

With immense momentum, Carfe didn't even turn his head to look at the result before turning the opposite direction and fleeing.

He flew back, his huge body merging into the stone wall as if it were liquid.

All of this happened in an instant. Before Lu Sheng could react, Carfe escaped.

As Lu Sheng recovered, he realized he was alone.

He silently dropped his knife.

"Boom!!"

Four giant demonic knives slammed into the wall, shattering countless rocks.

"Damn it!!!" He was one second away from killing Carfe and absorbing his Devil Essence. Who would've thought that news from the Prime Devil Sect would distract him briefly and let Carfe escape.

"No matter who you are, you are going to die!!" Lu Sheng roared as he picked back his knives, turning towards the tunnel that led to Prime Devil Sect.

*******************

"AHAHAHAHA! I am the King of Dark Clouds! I am Bei Ni! Perish! Perish!!" The blue giant, King of Dark Clouds Bei Ni, laughed maniacally, fanatically striding towards the Palace of Secret Arts.

The Palace of Secret Arts was the last node in the Prime Devil Sect's Great Holy Weapon Formation. The moment it was destroyed, his toxic Nevermorning Cloud could cover every single inch of the Prime Devil Sect in an instant.

Even though he technically could slowly erode away the great formation, Bei Ni's patience had simply run out. 

He wanted to destroy this place as fast as possible, then leave and find the descendants of those who had sealed him! He would make sure they lived in twisted pain for the rest of eternity!

"Boom!!"

The gate of the palace was stomped flat with one kick.

The chains in the courtyard shook violently and flowed a faint red. Vast amounts of mysterious ancient runes started to move and flash.

"A last bout of resistance… how futile!!" The King of Dark Clouds' eyes glowed with madness. After being sealed away for all these years, it had already been quite some time since the last bit of sanity he had at the start of his imprisonment had eroded away.

He looked straight at the door of the palace, the madness in his eyes growing. He completely ignored the chains and runes all around.

He stretched out his right arm, which turned into countless blue streaks all of a sudden, and charged towards the door. Each streak found a gap and crawled inside.

With a booming sound, almost half of the palace collapsed. From it, Bei Ni grabbed a black boulder that was tens of meters tall.

There was a slim and long knife inserted into the rock, but everything else looked normal.

From inside the rock came a scared and desperate voice. "Bei Ni… I'm not part of the Prime Devil Sect!! Listen to me!! Listen to me!!"

But the King of Dark Clouds' eyes were still twisted and chaotic; it was as if he didn't understand the voice at all.

"Look what we got here. A giant egg? I wonder how it will taste?"

"Haha… Who would've thought… that I, the great Lord of Northern River, will die here, at the hand of a lunatic…" The voice inside the black rock started to sound even more desperate.

Suddenly, there was a rush of footsteps.

Song Zian was expressionless. With one hand holding a sword, he walked towards Bei Ni step after step, as if he didn't see the King of Dark Clouds' giant form.

"Why did you come back!?" The voice in the black rock sounded shocked and angry. "This is my fate, like that time when I was sealed. You have only come to your death!"

"I…" Song Zian tightened his grip on the sword.

Of course he knew that by coming here, he would die. But there were some things that he had to do in this life!

He took a deep breath and looked at the enormous King of Dark Clouds.

"Senior Ling, if everything is up to fate, then let fate decide if you and I will die at the hand of this monster."

"You!?" The voice in the black rock turned quieter. "Fate…" He was raised high now, only a moment away from being eaten by Bei Ni.

"Fate… Fate stopped me from achieving my potential…" Suddenly, a voice interrupted him.

Behind the King of Dark Clouds Bei Ni, the ground splitted.

Lu Sheng flew out with a solemn expression, his strange eyes with 3 pupils glowed with a killing rage.

"So, as a tribute to fate… all of you… will die!!!"

"Boom!!"

A giant explosion.

His whole body suddenly transformed, transforming into his Extreme Yang Mode in an instant. The horrifying body nearly 20 meters tall that looked like a mountain of muscle stretched out its four arms and grabbed the still stunned King of Dark Clouds.

Before the King of Dark Clouds could even react, he was already captured by the four arms.

"Aghhh!!" he screamed in agony, his body feeling a horrifying force.

"Screeech!!"

Bei Ni's huge body was ripped apart in one stroke. All at once, blood and flesh sprayed out while a blue cloud and gas exploded.

The whole Palace of Secret Arts collapsed. Countless blue clouds spread out, covering everything in sight.