Way of the Devil

A gray world.

Gray skies.

Lu Sheng’s and Xiao Zizhu’s vision blurred as their surroundings changed. When they came back to their senses, the two were in a completely different, creepy world.

Numerous gray clouds blew past them as if part of a rippling river.

The ground was just gray concrete. There was nothing, and there was no end. No life, trees, stones, not even air.

The only movement in this world were the noiseless, floating clouds.

“You actually dare!! To open the Door of Pain!!” Xiao Zizhu’s features were twisted in rage, his huge knife still stuck tightly between Lu Sheng’s four arms.

“You forced me to. Perfect, I wanted to check it out anyways. I want to see what the legendary World of Pain looks like.” Lu Sheng was calm, his expression indifferent.

Xiao Zizhu stopped talking. As a high-level Devil born into one of the oldest Starry Sky Noble tribes, he had heard of the World of Pain before, just never been inside it.

Rumor had it that everyone who went inside either died or went mad. Most people, however, just disappeared without a trace.

No matter how powerful or how strong they were.

Now, he deeply regretted coming to make trouble for Lu Sheng. It hadn’t been impossible for him to get out of this mission from the king, but it was too late now.

“You still want to fight?” Lu Sheng threw the knife to the side. He wasn’t Xiao Zizhu’s match. Just by blocking one such strike, around fifty percent of his muscles had been shattered, and it would take him at least ten breaths to repair all of them.

If they continued fighting, Xiao Zizhu definitely would not give him time to heal.

“Fight my a*s!” Furious, Xiao Zizhu slashed again. Huge amounts of Devil Qi shot toward Lu Sheng, but what frightened him was that as soon as the black Devil Qi left him and fused into the knife, he immediately lost connection with it. Mysterious forces in the air completely swallowed his Devil Qi.

So, the slash just became a normal knife slash without devil aura supporting it.

“They even limited Laws?” Xiao Zizhu’s expression changed. He could feel his core Divine Technique, Nine Ghosts Devil Qi, instantly vanishing.

The main reason he broke through to Divine Lord was fusing his spirit into an ancient devil aura called Nine Ghosts Devil Qi that he created himself many years ago. From there, he completely harnessed the power in this type of Devil aura.

Nine Ghosts Devil Qi was a unique devil aura only he possessed. After fusing it with his spirit, he could cultivate even more of it, and formed a bloodline that could control the gravity of things. Even Xiao Zizhu’s body was slowly affected, turning into an extension of this Devil Qi. One could say that he became a spokesperson for the Nine Ghosts Devil Qi. The Nine Ghosts Devil Qi was him, and he was the Nine Ghosts Devil Qi.

But right now, the Devil Qi he released had immediately dissipated.

Xiao Zizhu finally felt a sense of extreme fear.

It had been many, many years since he felt such a great threat.

He looked up to that human.

Bits of gold lit up on Lu Sheng, but then those gold flecks also got devoured by gray, shapeless things.

“Can we not use any supernatural powers here?” Lu Sheng retracted his hand and sighed.

“Pure body?” Xiao Zizhu glanced at the muscle definition on Lu Sheng, feeling worse by the minute.

Even though he had a strong body, when compared to this human…

“I heard that once you enter the World of Pain, it is extremely hard to exit. Only very few have succeeded. Even those who did went mad soon after. Do you know why that is?” Xiao Zizhu took a deep breath, forcing down his anger and anxiety. He decided to call it quits for now. This place destroyed his strengths, and if he fought again, he might not win. He should look to work together for now and finish the battle once they got out.

He was here to kill people, not to kill himself. Although the World of Pain was mysterious, there were still ways to get out.

Lu Sheng didn’t know much about the World of Pain. Hearing Xiao Zizhu’s words, he raised an eyebrow.

“What are you saying? Do you know how to get out?” He had used the pieces from the Door of Pain and the power of them both combined to open the Door of Pain. His original idea was to throw Xiao Zizhu into the World of Pain, but he accidentally also got caught up in it.

Right now, the key was not to fight to the death, but to find a way out.

“Do you know why this is called the World of Pain?” Xiao Zizhu didn’t live this long for nothing. He knew some insider info.

“Why?”

“Because… to do anything here, you must first make yourself feel pain to see hope’s way.” Xiao Zizhu whispered.

“You think I’ll believe you?” Lu Sheng snickered.

“Your choice.” Xiao Zizhu didn’t want to talk with this person anymore. He glanced around. Both of them were suspended in air. Looking down, there was nothing. Just flat earth.

“To see the real things and find the way out, you must first make yourself feel pain.” Xiao Zizhu remembered one sentence he read previously in a book.

He closed his eyes and let the devil aura within him stir up his organs. Not to the point where they would get permanently damaged, but to a certain degree. Great forces started tugging and pulling on his organs.

Waves of sharp pain shot up from his abdomen, spreading to his entire body. The creepy thing was that this pain continued upward through his veins, soon reaching his brain and into his eyes.

His irises suddenly turned pure black as if they were two black holes.

Then his body suddenly tensed, and disappeared in front of Lu Sheng’s eyes.

Lu Sheng was closely examining their surroundings to look for clues, but Xiao Zizhu suddenly disappeared. He remembered what Xiao Zizhu said.

“Make yourself be full of pain?” Lu Sheng pondered.

He looked around. The gray earth reflected the shadows of the fast moving clouds.

“I’ll give it a try.” Lu Sheng stretched out his hand, formed a knife with his palm, and slashed it across his chest.

“Hiss!”

A faint white line appeared on his scales.

‘Can I not even damage my own shell…’ Lu Sheng frowned. He stabbed his hand into his chest.

A sharp pain immediately shot into his head. Lu Sheng tried to cooperate, loosening his flesh and bones on his chest, but his frightening healing speed fixed the wound within a few seconds.

‘Having too strong of a healing power can also be a problem…’ Floating in midair, Lu Sheng frowned. After some thought, he slowly took out a small pocket from his backpack. He shook open the black bag. A round, honey-colored half-transparent object rolled out.

This was the golden feather he covered with Yang aura—the Eight-Headed Golden Lava Feather.

Yang Essence had a very strong barrier functionality. Lu Sheng also had a bit of burning in his core, from the same source as the Eight-Headed Golden Lava. So, together with Lu Sheng constantly renewing the Yang Essence around the feather, the feather did not burn through the cloth bag.

Lu Sheng slowly spread out the Yang Essence and grabbed onto the tip of the Eight-Headed Golden Lava feather.

“Hiss…”

A clear, sharp burning pain shot through his palm and into his head.

Lu Sheng frowned slightly, but didn’t move. Time passed slowly. He felt something different in his vision.

In the original empty gray sky, huge eels with long tails slowly appeared.

These gray eels fluttered their two wings and swam around in the air slowly. Their bodies were half-transparent, and with the degree of pain Lu Sheng was under, their images kept flickering and changing.

“Hiss…!”

One of the huge gray eels, over twenty meters long, swam by Lu Sheng. It made a cry as if it was weeping.

Lu Sheng glanced at it, and noticed that its abdomen was bleeding. The blood dripped downward onto the ground, then was absorbed into the gray earth immediately and vanished.

Xiao Zizhu was not too far from him. His face was deathly pale, and he seemed like he could fall at any moment. He was slowly descending.

Lu Sheng looked toward the direction he was flying toward and got a shock.

There were actually different-sized towns on the ground when there had been nothing a minute ago.

Under the floating clouds, huge shadows flitted across the gray town. It was completely deserted and silent.

Lu Sheng’s heart jumped a little. Bearing the pain, he quickly followed behind Xiao Zizhu.

Xiao Zizhu seemed to know something about the World of Pain. Since he was already here, he might as well follow him and find a safer way to exit.

Although Lu Sheng also had a backup plan, he didn’t want to use it unless he had no other choice.

Following Xiao Zizhu, they both landed at the gate of the town in ten breaths.

After landing, Xiao Zizhu was on high alert as he walked into the town. Soon, he disappeared into a house to the right.

Lu Sheng didn’t follow too closely. He was still enemies with Xiao Zizhu, and if the latter noticed he was following him, he might set a trap.

After waiting for a bit, Lu Sheng didn’t see Xiao Zizhu come out. After a bit of hesitation, he also entered the building.

This gray house was built from many pieces of rock cut into meter-long squares. There was also a gray railing around the house, forming a tiny yard.

Lu Sheng pushed open the metal door. The door opened, creaking softly.

Behind the metal door was a large, overgrown, and messy garden. Black, dead leaves formed clumps of bush-like things, giving off a very unpleasant feeling as if something was hiding inside.

Lu Sheng glanced at the clumps, then looked toward the half-open door.

The entire apartment was a square four-story building. Gray slabs fitted into each other like puzzle pieces, forming this building.

This gave Lu Sheng a feeling like he had returned to his student days. His high school building looked similar to this one.

Looking upward, he could see that every door was shut tight. Some were hidden in the shadow of the building, while some were clear and visible.

Withered black vines covered one side of this building. The vines were like a spiderweb over the right side of the building.

Lu Sheng looked down at the piece of glass in his left hand.

This was the mirror piece from the Fei Family. It was from the Liuli Mirror, an incarnation of the Door of Pain.

He had collected these mirror pieces out of curiosity. Later on, he read in the books in the Thousand Suns Sect about records of how to enter the Door of Pain, ways to open the tunnel to the World of Pain. From brief mentions in many different books, Lu Sheng finally pieced together how to open and enter the world.

This was considered forbidden knowledge. To the Great Yin and the Devil world, the World of Pain was a strict taboo.

Lu Sheng had come into contact with the Door of Pain a few times, and knew how dangerous it was. He had almost destroyed the pieces multiple times, but never actually did it. And now, they came in handy.