Way of the Devil

“So hungry…”

“So thirsty…”

If Lu Sheng had had a mirror in front of him, he would’ve seen that both of his eyes were emitting a clear green glow.

A glow filled with thirst and greed.

He was too hungry, hungry to the point where his vision was blurry, to the point where every cell in his body roared in anger, signaling a need for more Devil Qi, more food.

Breaking through to Devil Master and restructuring his body each required an immense amount of energy, and the only way to get that energy was through food.

Even before all this, Lu Sheng’s appetite was ten times that of a normal human’s. Right now, he felt like he could swallow an entire elephant.

“Bam!”

He took a step, but didn’t realize that his body had unknowingly bulged and turned back into his original form.

“Snap!”

A pair of thick fleshy wings grew out of his back. On it were two eyeballs as big as fists, darting around, watching everything around it.

The look the eyes contained revealed only evil and cruelty, bringing with them the purest desire to consume.

Lu Sheng walked in front of the altar, back in his original form. The three meter tall body had four horns curling backwards. Both of his eyes were flashing green and his lower body was bloated, and had a giant tail swaying behind his back.

“Bam!”

He kicked the altar apart, exposing another wooden door that was emitting black smoke.

The door was only as tall as a person, about two meters wide. Not at all enough for his original form.

But Lu Sheng had completely lost his mind because of his hunger. He wouldn’t snap out of it unless met with critical danger.

He grabbed the wooden door and violently pushed it open.

“Boom!!”

The wooden door instantly shattered.

A scarlet monster with a goat’s body and a scorpion’s tail with flames all over its body charged out of the door.

“MUHAHAHA! Finally! It’s been 300 years!!! I, Aben’Hagen Dimo, finally— what the…” The devil raised his head, laughing frantically. He suddenly turned his head and saw Lu Sheng’s giant form, drooling as he stood there.

His body, which was only about the same height as a normal human, looked like a kid in front of Lu Sheng.

“Whoosh!!”

The black claw landed with a boom. Countless black jets exploded outward, covering up all of the possible escape routes.

The goat bodied devil was astonished. He opened his mouth to beg for mercy but it was already too late. The hard goat horn that he held as his pride bent and shattered like tofu underneath Lu Sheng’s claw, and his whole body was rolled up into a ball.

Lu Sheng rolled around his hands again, then squeezed hard, turning the devil into a meatball. Dark-red blood leaked through his fingers.

He opened his mouth, the mouth that one second ago was the size of a normal human’s, but now expanded to more than a meter wide as if it was made of rubber. The row after row of sharp teeth glowed with a cold light like a meat grinder.

“Snap, snap!”

One bite.

Lu Sheng stuffed the entire meatball into his mouth, and chewed only once or twice before swallowing.

“Gurgle.”

Lu Sheng’s stomach rumbled: it first bulged, but then started to deflate at a visible rate.

He grabbed the wooden door with both hands and tugged at it violently.

“Boom!”

The wooden door was torn off with a single pull, bringing the ground around it along with it.

Lu Sheng promptly jumped down the dark hole.

The level below had the exact same cavern. However, unlike the previous ones, the air here was freezing cold, and there was a layer of ice covering the wall while the ceiling was covered by countless icicles.

Lu Sheng landed with a loud slam, his body becoming noticeably bigger. He flapped his wings again. Those weren’t even for flight, but for hunting.

The wings that grew out of extreme hunger had a slim row of claws along the tips for grappling and tearing prey, while the eyes on them would attack anyone that they stared at with a mental attack that would induce confusion.

These were originally the powers of Lu Sheng’s Snake of Bitterness Yin Devil, but after his Devil Qi had been improved many times, these power turned into inherent abilities.

First, use the Sinister Stare to stun the prey, then approach it slowly to rip it apart with the claws, and finally, stuff the pieces into his mouth.

This was the body of the evolved Devil King.

Lu Sheng walked around the cavern. There was the clear scent of lives all around, but none of them dared to approach him.

The scorpion-tailed goat devil that charged out first was one of the strongest among them, but was still squished into a ball and eaten by Lu Sheng in a single bite.

This immediately made all the devils in the cavern think again. They were all intelligent, and some of them were even guardians before they were corrupted.

But no one dared to try to stop Lu Sheng.

“Food… Food…” Lu Sheng’s eyes defocused from hunger, looking all around, trying to catch the strongest scent around him.

Normal food could no longer quench his hunger… his insatiable hunger.

Soon, he sensed a huge, obese devil. He felt its presence appear near him.

This fat devil’s obese stomach was made out of tissues containing potent energy similar to fat. Its bones were impossibly hard, made out of dense substances that were very difficult to digest: which meant that they contained vast amounts of energy as well.

Lu Sheng waited a bit before slowly walking towards the fat devil.

“Splash!”

The two eyes on his wings looked around and immediately caught the devil in the shadows, the evil gaze used emitted a strong mental attack onto it.

The fat devil instantly collapsed.

“No… Don’t…” Tear and snot started to flow from his eyes and nose. He wanted to retreat, but his whole body was stiff and unable to move.

Devils around him scattered away frantically.

Lu Sheng approached step by step. He swiped the rock aside with his claw and walked in front of the fat devil.

This devil also was also about three meters tall. His body was huge, with thick skin and dense muscles, and in his hands were two huge dark-green knives. But his strong body, the muscles and scales that he held as his pride were now his most obvious burden.

Lu Sheng stood in front of him, looking at the shivering devil.

“Whoosh.”

The claws at the tip of his wings held the devil’s body. Lu Sheng’s giant mouth cracked open again, expanding.

“Hisss…”

Lu Sheng’s mouth started to expand to its limit, and soon became a meter wide. His mouth was like a giant tub of blood that contained three rows of sharp teeth as well as a coarse tongue covered in barbs.

“Puff!”

Lu Sheng somehow managed to just directly bite the upper half of the fat devil.

The entire meter-plus long upper body of the devil was completely lifted into the air and stuffed into his mouth.

His throat bulged, similar to a python swallowing an elephant. It slowly squirmed, slowly stuffing the whole devil into his stomach.

There weren’t any screams. There weren’t any cries.

There was only a spreading sense of dread.

Devils hiding all around were on the verge of a mental collapse. But, if they moved now, that would only give away their hiding spot.

No one moved. All devils that could hold their breath stopped breathing, some of them even started to repress their heartbeats.

“Bloop…”

Bit by bit, Lu Sheng stuffed the entire body of the fat devil into his mouth.

His stomach now had a bulge the size of the fat devil he just swallowed.

Lu Sheng’s body seemed to sense that the current shape was inconvenient. Black mist started to surround his body as poison fire burned all around, while his body started to expand once more, strengthening parts of his digestive system at a fast rate.

Lu Sheng was now four meters tall and three meters wide. His whole body was covered in dark-purple scales surrounded by mist, with faint glowing coming from the narrow gaps in between scales. His two wings flapped occasionally, searching for the next prey.

The fat devil he swallowed only lasted about ten breaths in Lu Sheng’s stomach before it was digested at a visible rate.

“The hunger…” Lu Sheng didn’t relent after obtaining the food and energy he wanted. The one devil was far from enough to support him through to the Devil Master level.

“Whoosh!”

He disappeared instantly from where he was standing, leaving behind an explosive mark on the ground.

“AGHHHHH!!”

In the corner, a bull-headed horse demon was caught, raised in the air by Lu Sheng’s wings, and promptly stuffed into his mouth.

The devil screamed and roared in anger, but Lu Sheng’s strength clamped it so tightly that it couldn’t move. Lu Sheng stuffed it while it flailed around into his mouth.

Devils close by could even see the bull-headed horse devil struggling in Lu Sheng’s throat.

“Gurgle…”

Some devils moved silently towards the level below, while other tried to escape to the level above.

With the first, there would always be the second and the third.

Lu Sheng hunted down prey like a bolt of lighting and devil after devil was stuffed into his mouth and digested to provide nutrients for his body.

The the Devil Qi being emitted from the devils mixed with the Devil Essence in the air provided Devil Essence needed to strengthen Lu Sheng’s body.

After wave after wave of screams—after Lu Sheng slowly swallowed 23 devils whole—there was finally nothing left in the cavern.

All the other devils had escaped.

And Lu Sheng’s body had reached six meters in height. A giant blood-red symbol started to appear on his back, emitting a stable red glow.

But the evolution process of the Cheating Device still hadn’t ended.

Lu Sheng’s body was still evolving. This was the first time he ran out of Mental Energy for his evolution.

The first time that he had to find a new source of energy by himself.

Before this, he’d always thought that using Mental Energy to evolve martial art and secret arts didn’t require him to find other forms of energy.

He realized now that he was wrong.

The only sanity he had remaining drove him towards the entrance to the next level.

“Bam!!”

The altar was smashed to pieces, exposing the white wooden door to the next level.

But this time, the wooden door was already open. A leopard-headed humanoid devil slowly rose up from the door.

But as the devil flowed up, the body he displayed became longer and longer.

Underneath the devil was another leopard-headed humanoid devil with the same appearance. The two devils were connected head to feet. The feet of the devil on top was connected with the head of the devil below, seemingly as if they had grown together like that.

As time passed, one after another leopard-headed devil continuously emerged. One, two, three, five, ten, twenty…

Finally, all these devils coiled up like a giant serpent, with their tens of pairs of eyes staring at Lu Sheng.

“Outsider, this is the Devil’s Abyss, the Devil’s Abyss that runs through everything and connects countless worlds. These levels are all territories of I, the Ancient Serpent Mornu! How dare you intrude and prey upon my subjects!” The serpent made out of of leopard-headed devils stared at Lu Sheng with a cruel and greedy expression.