Way of the Devil

Lu Sheng stared at the sudden increase of Essence Qi swirling around him in cloud and mist form.

‘What happened? There wasn’t this much before—’

“Come out!” A commanding shout came from underground.

“Whoosh!”

The ground split apart at the edge of the lake, and a gray light shot out toward the sky. It landed on the shore with a boom, forming a black-robed woman surrounded by silver blue dots of light.

The woman’s skin was deathly pale and her lips purple. Her black hair was coiled high with a black robe covering her lower body. Instead of legs, she had dense tree roots.

“You dare use the young one to disrupt my Essence Qi absorption, but don’t have the courage to face me, is that right?” A sliver of anger and embarrassment flickered across the woman’s face.

Robbing someone else’s Essence Qi once the Essence Qi pillar was already formed was basically akin to ****ing them. It was like someone had licked her with their tongue—that kind of sensitive feeling.

Su Ningfei had lived for thousands of years, yet this was the first time that someone dared to embarrass her like that.

“Get out!” She looked around and abruptly waved her sleeve.

Instantly, a black cloud fell from the sky, firmly slamming into a field of grass.

“Boom!”

The grass field exploded. Everything from dirt to grass was corroded into a black liquid, emitting a faint, sweet fragrance. A dot of black light darted out from the liquid, then went into the woman’s back, and disappeared.

Her delicate face was icy cold as she continued to swing her sleeve.

“Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!!!”

The lake and woods around suffered her wrath. Explosions were everywhere, and everything was instantly corroded and turned into black water. Countless beams of black light flew around, and then disappeared into her body.

After venting her anger for a bit, she finally noticed Lu Sheng not far away.

Su Ningfei slowly walked up, and asked, “Young one, do you know who strengthened your Essence Qi pillar?”

Lu Sheng retracted his Essence Qi pillar, and stood up the moment he saw her.

He shook his head with a confused expression when he heard the question.

“No one strengthened it? I was the only one around, is senior sure of this?” he answered truthfully as he inspected the black-robed woman in detail.

The woman’s face and body were beautiful and superior to most. Her long, black hair hung loosely behind her, spreading around her body. Her chest rose high, full, yet not exaggerated. Her waist was thin, but only her legs…

There weren’t legs under her tight black robe, which instead held a vast amount of roots.

Luckily, Lu Sheng had seen many anomalies of this world, so this little abnormality wasn’t enough for him to lose his mind. He reacted quickly, and answered seriously when Su Ningfei asked.

“Is that so?” Su Ningfei frowed. The roots below her spread out, slowly exposing a pair of long, slim, and perfectly round legs that were white as jade as she stood there barefoot.

She stood there nonchalantly on the dirty grass with her bare feet. The black liquid around her avoided her as if she was insulated—not a single drop was able to reach her body.

Lu Sheng’s eyelid jumped as he swept his eyes across the woman’s legs. It gave him a strange feeling, so he only looked at them briefly before moving on.

The woman’s black robe wasn’t long, and only covered halfway through her thigh. The black robe would have been a black skirt if it weren’t for the roots that were surrounding it.

“Did you came from the outside, young one? Did someone bring you in, or was it teleportation?” Su Ningfei continued her questions. As if she wasn’t at all worried about her exposed body, her black robe turned into a black dress as the roots spread out below her to support her body.

Meanwhile, her feet dangled in the air like she was sitting on a chair. She casually crossed her legs.

“Yes, Senior, I came from the original world through the teleportation formation,” Lu Sheng responded respectfully.

He could feel an unknown, enormous, and horrifying current hidden in the woman’s body.

The current was so strong, it was even stronger than the skeletal hand of the Devil Master. It didn’t require too many brain cells to figure out that this woman was one of the strongest in the secret area. She might’ve been a senior master who ranked very highly in the Thousand Sun Sect hierarchy.

He was nervous too. He wasn’t afraid of anything apart from her seeing through his disguise. But, as of now, it seemed like she hadn’t noticed anything.

Su Ningfei let out a cold humph in disbelief, then closed her eyes.

“Whoosh!”

A strong, ice-cold wind instantly started to bellow all around her.

Dark clouds gathered in the sky. The white Essence Qi all around turned gray, and then black as if they were dyed in ink.

The sky instantly turned dark.

Lu Sheng felt a bone-chilling cold creep up starting from his feet, and slowly higher up along his body. In a few breaths, his lower body had been frozen stiff.

His body was going to automatically circulate Inner Qi to resist the cold, but he repressed it to let the chill spread.

“SU NINGFEI!” a booming voice roared in the distance. “ARE YOU MAD??!”

“Who the hell are you? And how dare you call me by my name?” Su Ningfei said in an ice-cold voice.

“YOU!! …What do you want to find? Retract your senses now, the young ones that came through this time are about to freeze to death!” The voice came from far away and emitted waves of faint, yellow light simultaneously. There was a vague wave of heat spreading around, but compared to the chill, it amounted to merely a cup of water among the ocean, and could only protect a small area. The area was even shrinking quickly.

Su Ningfei finally noticed that half of Lu Sheng had been frozen in ice. Only his upper body was exposed, and starting to freeze over as well.

She let out a cold humph as a dark-gold moon flashed across her head for a moment.

The chill stopped, and the weather turned back to its mild and normal self.

But the things that had been frozen already hadn’t had the time to melt yet. Lu Sheng was one of them. His whole body was frozen like a popsicle, still in the same place with the same position, unmoving and stiff.

Su Ningfei walked up and lightly touched Lu Sheng’s forehead.

‘Good. Still breathing.’ Her face didn’t change, but a sliver of regret flashed across her eyes.

‘Couldn’t find this old man even with my Spirit Sense fully expanded. Could that actually have been an accident? An accidental Essence Qi resonance? Is that how he took my Essence Qi pillar?’ She knitted her brow, confused.

At her level, the amount of people in the Great Yin that could compete with her Spirit Sense could be counted with one hand. There were fewer people who could hide under the search of her sky-changing and ground-splitting Spirit Sense, but none of them would lower themselves to play such a tasteless prank on her.

‘Maybe it was truly an accident?’ Su Ningfei was conflicted. The roots under her started to twist into pillars to support her body. She leaned backward, lightly sitting on her chair made of roots.

‘Oh, well, maybe it was an accident. This one was harmed because of me, and has great potential. I’ll bring him back and tell people to give him some guidance as an apology for his wounds.’

She hesitated, but ultimately decided to give up her investigation. Instead, she focused her gaze on Lu Sheng.

She reached out with her index finger, and lightly touched the center of Lu Sheng’s brow.

“Hiss!”

A line of purple Essence Qi shot from her fingertip into Lu Sheng’s brow.

‘Alright. This Purple Moon Essence Qi should be enough to heal his frostbite and even help his cultivation.’

That Essence Qi was enough to last him a few month.

‘If he carefully rests and comprehends it, and completely digests this sliver of Purple Moon Essence Qi, it would greatly benefit his future development…’

Su Ningfei’s expression froze again.

The Purple Moon Essence Qi she injected into him circulated within his veins twice, and then abruptly disappeared.

Her Purple Moon Essence Qi, which was so concentrated that it was basically liquid, somehow disappeared mysteriously?

“What…?”

“Senior… I would like to thank senior for saving my life.” Lu Sheng finally “woke up” and thanked her with a grateful expression.

Su Ningfei took back her index finger, a little shocked. She stepped back and inspected Lu Sheng in detail. Finally, she noticed the faint purple tint on his skin.

‘He somehow… somehow absorbed it!?’ Su Ningfei felt like her years’ worth of worldview was collapsing.

A random Bind level sect disciple… somehow voluntarily absorbed the Purple Moon Essence Qi she released?

That was a strange Essence Qi that normal Divine Weapon Masters wouldn’t dare to touch.

Su Ningfei took a deep breath and, without changing her expression, asked, “What… is your name?”

“My name is Lu Sheng…” Lu Sheng finally broke out of the pillar of ice, and hurriedly knelt on one knee to show his respect.

From the surge of chill, he could clearly sense that the woman in front of him was more powerful than a Devil Master.

The horrifying scent on her surpassed even the Devil Master Xuan Sheng, who was behind the door at that time.

Even though he couldn’t discern how much stronger she was, his acute senses told him she was extremely dangerous.

“Lu Sheng… A road to victory?” Su Ningfei nodded. A bloodline that could absorb her Purple Moon Essence Qi… [ED/N: The previous translator, Deep Blue, had explained mc’s name at least partly, but I can’t recall if he’d explained this part too. Lu = Road, Sheng = Victory]

Could this, perhaps, be fate?

She spent two hundred years trying to find someone who could inherit her true skills, but, unfortunately, came up empty-handed.

The Purple Moon Essence Qi was too invasive, to the point where, without her control, it would eat up a living person and turn them into more Purple Moon Essence Qi in a few breaths.

And the only way to resist this corrosion was with the legendary Savage Moon Body, which was her special physique.

“You… do you feel anything wrong?” Su Ningfei continued to question Lu Sheng.

Lu Sheng was a little perplexed, but still answered truthfully, “No. I feel very good, in fact. Everything is normal.”

“Is that so?” Su Ningfei once again reached out to touch Lu Sheng’s arm.

Another sliver of Purple Moon Essence Qi dug into Lu Sheng.

Lu Sheng didn’t even notice. The sliver of Essence Moon Qi was too weak, and was absorbed by the terrifying activeness of his cells the moment it entered his body, and then quickly digested to become a part of him.

Purely in the sense of metabolism and the activeness of his cells, even Devil Masters couldn’t compete with him.

Ever since he cultivated Outer Way and Inner Techniques to an unprecedented Thousand Year of Cultivation level, the strength and metabolic activity of his body had been improved to a terrifying level.

A drop of Lu Sheng’s blood could easily corrode and eat up any normal Bind level Black Membrane.

The liquid Inner Qi and Outer Way technique did not simply just strengthen his body. Though other Bind level people also possessed super regenerative speed, extreme toxicity, and absolute protection, their actual bodies had not reached such a level.

They could only rely on Black membrane. But Lu Sheng was different.