Chapter Ninety-Six: The Supreme Demon
Crash!
A vast expanse of black energy surged up behind Luo Hao like a churning cloud of demons, then spread into an boundless sea of fiends.
Within that demon sea, which blotted out heaven and earth and was more terrifying than the abyss itself, one could clearly see countless dragons roaring and competing in fury.
Water dragons, fire dragons, horned dragons, winged dragons, azure dragons—countless dragonkin sank into the sea of demons, and as they roared and howled, they shed everything they had once been and became one black demon dragon after another.
Roar, roar, roar...
Those thunderous cries shook the soul. The spectacle of ten thousand dragons in uproar stunned everyone on the spot, so much so that they even forgot the Azure Crystal Lotus.
“The fallen dragon race!”
The Black Flood Dragon King in Heavenstar Lake trembled, only feeling his heart turn cold with dread. Elder Qingyang and the silver-haired elder saw terror burst in their eyes.
Each demon dragon in the sea of demons seemed alive. Their black scales gleamed with a luster like divine armor, their sharp claws like giant hands reaching out from the abyss. An ancient and overwhelmingly tyrannical aura radiated from their bodies.
Thud!
Suddenly, a footstep echoed in everyone’s inner world. Then they saw the surging demon sea behind Luo Hao shift with wind and clouds, as if countless realms of time and space were interwoven within it. The demon dragons seemed to be guarding something, as though some mysterious existence was lying dormant behind the massed dragons.
“What is that?”
Watching the changing demon sea, many human cultivators murmured in a hushed voice, only feeling a chill run through their bodies. He was clearly only a Qi Spirit Realm cultivator, yet at this moment he gave them a sensation even more suffocating and terrifying than a Heavenly Dipper Realm expert.
Thud!
Another heavy footstep sounded from within the demon sea, as if trampling directly on the hearts of the human cultivators. Many of them instantly turned deathly pale.
That sound entered their ears once more, and the silver-haired elder, Elder Qingyang, and the Black Flood Dragon King all sensed that something seemed about to descend from that vast sea of demons behind Luo Hao.
Pffft, pffft, pffft, pffft, pffft!
With the third footstep, many human cultivators on Heavenstar Lake suddenly sprayed blood in torrents. They fainted on the spot and fell into the Earthflame Weakwater below; after a single breath, only a pool of blood remained, surging to the surface.
“What is this?”
The silver-haired elder’s pupils suddenly shrank. His face showed an expression of terror he had never displayed before. The same terror appeared in Elder Qingyang’s eyes, and at some point the hand with which he held the jade mirror had begun to bulge with veins.
The churning demon sea roiled as if countless spaces and times were colliding within it. At the center of that convergence, a figure of eternal darkness appeared, like a lone peak standing at the end of the world, yet also like someone gazing from the far edge of another time and place.
Boom!
At that moment, heaven and earth shook violently. The firmament for a million miles rang out like thunder, and a vast and terrifying aura erupted in the skies above.
No heaven, no earth, lawless and beyond law, domineering without equal, murderous beyond anything in the world!
The entire Azure Sky Mountain Range trembled under the sudden pressure, and countless beasts flattened themselves to the ground, their bodies shivering uncontrollably.
“D-demon dragon!”
The Black Flood Dragon King in Heavenstar Lake did not dare meet that sight. After tremblingly forcing out those two words, he actually prostrated himself toward Luo Hao of his own accord.
The human cultivators could scarcely believe their eyes. The Blackwater Demon Flood Dragon, a peak existence among ferocious beasts, had actually knelt before a human.
As a flood dragon clan with the bloodline nearest to the dragon race, the Black Flood Dragon King also possessed a pride beyond reach. But the fear carved into its soul, etched into its blood and bones, made it impossible to control itself.
“Kill!”
Suddenly, Luo Hao on the sky above burst out with a killing cry. That sharp, resonant shout was overbearingly forceful, shaking Heavenstar Lake until water splashed a thousand feet high. Then, with a sonic boom in the air, a black figure shot forward like a furious roc, the blood-light flashing for three thousand miles.
His fist struck like a dragon, carrying unmatched fierceness and power. Under the black draconic force, great stretches of space were blasted apart, and the black power surged ahead like ancient demon dragons devouring all in their path.
“Retreat, quickly, retreat!”
An unprecedented crisis engulfed the human cultivators. In the next instant, they fled in panic toward the shore. Even the most foolish among them could now see that Luo Hao’s strength had become monstrously terrifying; whoever blocked him would die.
“Bind!”
Luo Hao stepped out as if chasing stars and the moon. Behind him, black draconic power roiled in the sea of demons, and the dark figure within that sea gave a furious roar. Then the bodies of the human cultivators who had been scattering in all directions suddenly stiffened, unable to move.
Bang! Bang!
Black draconic force flowed over his body as Luo Hao charged into the crowd like a peerless savage wolf. Within his two arms, countless scourge dragons howled and roared, and his fists, wreathed in black power, smashed through the air.
With every punch he threw, a cloud of blood burst over Heavenstar Lake. The scattered blood mist flew in all directions with torn flesh and gleaming white bone fragments.
It was a one-sided slaughter. Under the black draconic force, Luo Hao was like a peerless war demon, killing without cease. Every time blood splashed across his face, his expression would reveal an even hotter madness.
At this moment, blood was flowing. It streamed in torrents, threading through the countless gullies in the ground and pouring directly into Heavenstar Lake. A faint redness surfaced upon the lake. To stain a lake with blood could scarcely be more than this.
“Hahahaha!”
Wild laughter echoed through the mountains. The human cultivators who had been fortunate enough to survive on the lake’s surface fled for their lives, while Luo Hao, wrapped in black draconic force, was like death itself, harvesting them from behind one after another.
Pfft!
“You are a demon!”
“Demon, may you die a miserable death!”
“I curse you to be denied rebirth for a hundred lifetimes!”
...
“Aaaah...”
Another great burst of blood flowers exploded. These human cultivators, at the moment of death, were filled with terror, and the most venomous, most cruel curses tangled together endlessly.
“It must be the inheritance of some human senior that made him so powerful! Human senior, open your eyes and see what kind of person you passed your inheritance to!”
More than one human cultivator, chased down by Luo Hao, issued unwilling roars.
“Stop!”
Elder Qingyang and the silver-haired elder shouted at the same time to halt him. This slaughter truly shocked them beyond measure. Luo Hao, who was only in the Qi Spirit Realm, had actually massacred so many human cultivators on Heavenstar Lake, including experts at the later and even peak stage of the Blood-Congealing Realm.
Clang!
At their shouts, Luo Hao halted his killing.
He turned to face them, his eyes like lightning, his killing intent earthshaking.
“Hm!”
For the first time, the two of them looked directly into Luo Hao’s eyes at such close range. Within those eyes, a chaos-darkness devoid of all life and completely silent seemed to contain even a hint of a will that drags others down into ruin.
Break!
A low roar sounded within their inner worlds. Their gazes became incomparably firm. Elder Qingyang looked at Luo Hao, surrounded by black draconic power, and said in a somewhat heavy voice, “Luo Hao, stop. You should not be like this. Do not let your heart be devoured by the demonic.”
“Brat, could it be you want to become a monster? Borrowing demonic power is not the conduct of a true expert.” The silver-haired elder spoke in turn, but Luo Hao across from them remained cold and expressionless, those dark and chaotic eyes showing not the slightest fluctuation.
“Give up! This brat has completely fallen into the demonic path. He will become the most terrifying demon in the history of all the heavens and myriad races, perhaps even a Dragon Demon more fearsome than the Demon Ancestor!” At that moment, the Black Flood Dragon King transmitted his voice to the silver-haired elder and Elder Qingyang.
“Dragon Demon?”
The silver-haired elder kept repeating those words, and in the next instant terror and boundless killing intent exploded in his eyes. He even wanted to strike immediately and kill Luo Hao.
He recalled a torn manual preserved in his family since antiquity, in which there were only a few fragmentary lines describing the Dragon Demon.
“The Dragon Demon is the supreme of demons, equal only to the Seven Fiends True Demon. It is the unrivaled demon!”
Just how terrifying a Dragon Demon was, the silver-haired elder did not know. But the horror of the Seven Fiends True Demon was recorded in the ancient annals of his clan.
Throughout the long ages from antiquity to the present, only one Seven Fiends True Demon had ever appeared. Merely reaching minor mastery in demonic form was already enough for it to sweep across the entire ancient era, spilling the blood of all races and shaking the heavens.
In that age, the Seven Fiends True Demon’s might was heaven-shaking and earth-shattering, unmatched across the eight directions, plunging the entire ancient world into a dark age. Later, in order to oppose the Seven Fiends True Demon, a holy war broke out in antiquity.
That was a war of the eras in which nearly every race of the heavens took part. After that battle, the Seven Fiends True Demon vanished, but the price was the near extinction of two-thirds of all the races of antiquity.
Thinking of those scattered fragments from the manual, the silver-haired elder looked once more at Luo Hao, whose black draconic power still roiled about him, and felt a shock beyond words.
If this youth continued to grow, then perhaps in the future the Ancient Heaven Continent would run with blood, and corpses would pile up like mountains. Then the supreme demon would appear once more, and the Ancient Heaven Continent, just as in the age of antiquity, would descend into a dark era.