Chapter Ninety-Five: Falling Into Demonic Madness

“Kill! Kill!”
“Die! Die!”

Over Tianxing Lake, Yan Longyuan and Sikong Xuan had already gone completely mad with bloodlust. At this moment, even Zuo Qingfeng, a martial artist of the Heavenly Dipper Realm, felt an unprecedented crisis.

His opponents were like tireless war machines; every time they were driven back, they came surging in with even greater ferocity.

“Eightfold Destruction Finger!”

Hair whipping, white robes stained with blood, Yan Longyuan did not care in the least. With a clear cry, he thrust out a bloody finger from afar.

“Boom!”

Zuo Qingfeng was suddenly struck with dread. The void before him trembled violently, then a spatial fissure burst open, and a streak of ancient, earthy-yellow light rapidly expanded in his eyes.

“Pfft!”

Within the flickering yellow radiance, an ancient finger slammed heavily into his chest. Zuo Qingfeng was sent flying hundreds of yards at once, spitting blood wildly from his mouth.

By this point in the battle, even someone as strong as he had been forced to bleed. As he staggered back, he glanced fearfully at Yan Longyuan, pale-faced and a hundred yards away.

That strike had been terrifying beyond measure. Had he not shielded himself with abundant spiritual power, his chest would have been pierced through on the spot. Even so, he was still injured by the force of that ancient finger’s aura.

“Thunder God, Extinguish Heaven!”

Just as Zuo Qingfeng had barely steadied his footing and had yet to regain balance, a vast ripple of thunder shook out behind him, accompanied by Sikong Xuan’s roar of fury, almost a bellow.

“No good!”

Poor Zuo Qingfeng had just barely endured Yan Longyuan’s sharp finger in haste and was already injured. At this moment, his old strength was spent and new strength had not yet arisen.

Endless thunder swallowed him instantly. Myriad bolts crashed down, shaking his body violently.

“Die!”

Beyond the boundless lightning, Sikong Xuan’s killing cry echoed. Zuo Qingfeng’s eyes flew wide open, and within his pupils a thunder sigil enlarged at impossible speed.

Clang! The slaughtering cry rang on and on as Sikong Xuan, like the lord of thunder, drove the thunder sigil with savage force into Zuo Qingfeng’s chest.

“Boom!”

The thunder sigil erupted on Zuo Qingfeng’s chest in an instant. The thunder path was hailed as heaven and earth’s rightful law, inherently fierce and yang, a power of slaughter that shocked the world. Even for a Heavenly Dipper Realm martial artist, being struck by thunder at such close range meant grave injury; much more so now, when his strength had already been badly reduced.

“Pfft! Pfft! Pfft! Pfft!”

Myriad lightning bursts flashed. The void exploded on a massive scale, and Zuo Qingfeng was left utterly miserable, his body shattered under the thunder.

His chest was blackened and deeply caved in; the entire breastbone had been utterly pulverized. Blood kept surging from his mouth, blood mixed with fragments of flesh and flickering strands of lightning.

“Impossible! Impossible!”

Zuo Qingfeng clutched his chest and retreated again and again, panic-stricken. As a Heavenly Dipper Realm martial artist, he had actually been defeated, and in such a wretched state, by two younger ones who had only just broken into the Blood Gathering Realm.

“There is nothing impossible. The moment you ambushed him, you were already a dead man.”

Yan Longyuan and Sikong Xuan’s eyes were bloodshot as once again a tide-like might crushed down upon Zuo Qingfeng.

Zuo Qingfeng coughed blood in great mouthfuls. His state of mind had already been broken, and under the two men’s joint life-or-death onslaught, he was forced back step by step. By contrast, Yan Longyuan and Sikong Xuan’s aura grew ever more terrifying, and faintly, it seemed their cultivation was on the verge of another breakthrough.

On the other side, the battle between the Purple-winged Thunder Python and the middle-aged man from West Mountain Ridge finally reached its end. Though the Purple-winged Thunder Python had withdrawn, the middle-aged man was also in an appalling state.

His left sleeve hung empty, and blood kept dripping down. His body, too, bore many wounds torn open by thunder, wounds so deep that bone showed through.

“Brat, I will see you dead and without a burial place, to avenge this severed arm.”

Clearly, the middle-aged man had laid all blame on Luo Hao. Though one arm was ruined, hatred blazed fiercely on his blood-streaked face.

“Boom!”

The void beneath his feet suddenly exploded, and then the middle-aged man vanished from where he stood, racing toward the green crystal lotus at the lake’s center.

Blood dripped all the way, but even that could no longer stir a trace of pain in the middle-aged man, whose heart was consumed by vengeance.

He was only tens of yards from the green crystal lotus, yet the surging earth-flame weak water was like an enraged primordial beast. The churning weak water, resembling howling flood dragons, was met by fire giants dozens of yards tall that kept launching attacks at the group.

Even under such dense assaults from the fire giants, however, the gazes of the three men and one beast remained fixed and grave upon the belly of the fire giant.

Hidden within the weak water in that belly was a mass of black qi. Occasionally, a wisp of aura leaked from it, and when it did, all three felt a chill crawling over their bodies.

It was a cold more cutting than an ice hell, cold to the marrow, freezing the soul.

“Hm? What is that?”

Zuo Qingfeng’s battle with Yan Longyuan and Sikong Xuan had long since vanished from sight, and the middle-aged man encountered no trouble at all. The only third-tier demon beast present, the Earth-Splitting Divine Bull, was cowed by the Black Flood Dragon King’s might and dared not advance.

When the middle-aged man saw the fire giant dozens of yards high, he drew in a sharp breath.

But when he saw, beneath the giant’s belly, that cluster of black qi leaping like dark devil-fire, he felt a shudder rise from the depths of his soul.

“Faster, faster!”

With the Purple-winged Thunder Python gone, with Yan Longyuan gone, and with Sikong Xuan and Zuo Qingfeng locked in battle, the human martial artists who had been held back all rushed extraordinarily swiftly toward the green crystal lotus.

Because of Elder Qingyang and the silver-haired elder, the earth-flame weak water on Tianxing Lake had already shrunk dramatically in range. It could be said that those warriors who had been blocked before could now almost walk as though on level ground.

“Roar! Roar!”

Just as many human martial artists reached the center of the lake, a roar carrying boundless tyranny and destruction suddenly rose from beneath the belly of the fire giant.

Those roars were like the cold wind of hell, chilling the blood. Even Elder Qingyang and the silver-haired elder showed great solemnity when they first heard them.

“A fiend, an unparalleled fiend!”

At that moment, such a thought arose in the hearts of the two old men simultaneously.

Within that mass of black qi beneath the fire giant’s belly, there was absolutely something of terrifying evil, and it was exceedingly powerful. To survive within weak water was itself a miracle.

Feathers sink and birds cannot cross; that has always been the understanding of the River of Weak Water. Though the weak water within Tianxing Lake was not pure, its might shook heaven and all realms.

Only the dragon clan, long said to have vanished from the ancient world, could survive in weak water.

“Dragon clan? No... impossible, the dragon clan has disappeared. It cannot appear again.”

As a flood dragon race most closely related by blood to the dragons, the Black Flood Dragon King, upon hearing that roar, revealed extreme shock in its eyes, those eyes ever glinting with cold light.

Within that roar there was clearly the majesty of the dragon clan, and that majesty was absolutely not something an ordinary dragon could possess.

Perhaps the many human martial artists present could not feel it, but it, carrying dragon blood itself, could distinctly sense the terror of that roar’s oppressive force.

“Bang!”

Just as the Black Flood Dragon King and the many human martial artists were still reeling, a ring of black radiance suddenly swept out from the belly of the fire giant dozens of yards high, like the scythe of death.

“Retreat!”

Faces aghast, all the martial artists sensed the threat of death at once and withdrew hundreds of yards in a flash, yet still some were cut cleanly in two by that black halo like a death scythe.

“Pfft, pfft, pfft”

The severed bodies suddenly burst apart. Blood mist filled the sky, mingled with tiny white fragments of bone, splashing across Tianxing Lake. Such a bloody scene made even battle-hardened martial artists feel a chill in their hearts.

“Aah... aah...”

Suddenly, a nearly mad howl rose once more from within that mass of black qi. What followed made everyone’s souls tremble.

Beneath the fire giant dozens of yards high, that cluster of black qi abruptly erupted with endless black radiance.

Every streak of black light seemed to contain a domineering force that devoured vitality, not even sparing the light of the divine sun in the heavens.

Under the horrified eyes of the assembled martial artists, the fire giant formed from earth-flame weak water actually shattered in an instant, finally becoming two streams of qi, one red and one white, swallowed by the black qi.

The black qi, surging like demonic flames, was at last truly revealed before everyone. It billowed like a churning cloud of devils, within which black dragons seemed to rise, lifting their heads and roaring.

“How can it be him? He is not dead!”

“Luo Hao!”

“It’s that boy!”

“Luo Hao? Why does that name sound so familiar?”

As the face within the black qi came clearly into view, every martial artist gave a cry of shock in his own way.

Clang!

Luo Hao’s eyes in the black qi suddenly opened. The black aura rose, and everyone was horrified by what sort of eyes they were. There was not a trace of white in them, only endless darkness.

When such eyes swept over the crowd, everyone felt as though their souls had been laid bare.

“I remember now. Luo Hao—that was him. He is actually still alive!”

Suddenly, a martial artist on Tianxing Lake pointed at Luo Hao, whose body was wrapped in black qi, and cried out.

“Does everyone remember the Blood Spirit Secret Realm from half a year ago? It was said that this person’s body was borrowed by a senior of the human race to fight the blood race, and in the end he collapsed along with the Blood Spirit Secret Realm and vanished!”

Once this was said, everyone remembered. Half a year ago, the human elders had fought the blood race in the Blood Spirit Secret Realm, shaking the entire northwest.

Now the original figure in that incident had appeared. That could only mean he had survived under the protection of a human senior, and perhaps even inherited that senior’s legacy.

At that thought, the eyes of every martial artist brightened. Seeing so many of them react this way, Elder Qingyang and the silver-haired elder let out secret sighs.

Could it be they could not tell that Luo Hao was currently in an extremely terrifying state, yet they still covet the inheritance on him? It was simply courting death.

“The inheritance of our human ancestors belongs to all human martial artists. Luo Hao, hand over the inheritance!”

“Exactly. Luo Hao, surrender the inheritance, or do not expect to leave today.”

...

On Tianxing Lake, one human martial artist after another began denouncing Luo Hao. Though they looked righteous and solemn, which one of them was not acting for himself?

Luo Hao’s face within the black qi was like an eternal block of ice, showing no fluctuation at all. His black hair still gave off a faint icy-blue sheen in the sunlight.

“Hahahahaha!”

Laughter, wild and frenzied, suddenly spread across Tianxing Lake. Luo Hao, within the black qi, threw back his head and laughed wildly, his face full of unbridled arrogance.

Yet the instant that laughter died away, the many human martial artists only saw a streak of black light flash before them, and then the human martial artists who had been the most clamorous in their denunciations had their bodies suddenly explode.

Countless streams of blood sprayed out, staining the waters of Tianxing Lake red. Luo Hao, wrapped in black qi like a demon king, was cold and tranquil, chilling to the bone.

He allowed the blood to spatter over his body, while drops of blood slid through his icy-blue hair.

That crimson blood caused a flicker to appear within Luo Hao’s dark eyes—a violently eager urge for slaughter, a thirst for blood.

“Heh!”

With a ferocious grin, the black qi like devil clouds surged and roiled once more. In the next instant, a black sea of demons rose behind Luo Hao, and countless dragon roars and howls suddenly rang out as innumerable dragons fell and sank within that sea of demons.

“Dragon! A dragon demon! He has fallen to demonic corruption!”

Looking at Luo Hao at this moment, the Black Flood Dragon King’s eyes flashed with a fear it had never known before, even more fearful than being cast into the netherworld, its voice trembling as it spoke.