Way of the Devil

‘I found the right way and opened the Door of Pain, but the only thing I didn’t account for was pulling myself in too… ‘ Lu Sheng looked at the creepy, dark school-like building, then looked at the mirror piece in his hand. He didn’t walk in.

He had a feeling that if he went in, it would be very hard to leave the World of Pain again…

The mirror piece in his hand was burning as if it was a piece of paper lit on fire. It kept burning and becoming smaller.

Lu Sheng had a feeling that when the mirror piece burned out, he would be able to leave this place.

Xiao Zizhu definitely did not expect him to be able to leave here. Even Lu Sheng himself didn’t realize the mirror pieces could be used like this.

“Are you not going in?” Suddenly, a hoarse, female voice sounded behind him.

Lu Sheng came back to his senses. All of his hair stood on his back as if he was in extreme danger.

He forced himself to calm down, then turned around. He could feel the mirror piece burning even faster in his hand.

Behind him was a woman in her middle ages, wearing short hair. She was wearing common gray clothes, with no expression on her face.

Her dead, lifeless eyes stared at him.

“You’re already here. Are you not gonna go in and check it out?” she spoke again.

Lu Sheng did not know what language she was using, but for some reason, he understood her.

“Who are you?” He frowned.

“I saw the sins you carry. They’re so thick, so dense, so heavy…” the middle-aged woman continued in a deep voice. “Only pain will be able to wash away your sins. Join us. You have the potential.”

“Join you? Who are you? What is this potential you’re talking about?” Lu Sheng immediately asked.

“We are… sinners, but we try to find our core, find everything that is real… You can call us the Black Society,” the middle-aged woman answered blankly. “Lu Sheng, we see everything about you. The Mother of All is always watching you. Come, be with us…”

She slowly stretched out her hand to Lu Sheng.

Lu Sheng glanced at her hand. There was a clear, piercing hole in her palm, and numerous scars and wounds covered her entire hand, even going up her arm.

“Black Society…” Lu Sheng’s mind was turning. “You still haven’t answered my questions. What is potential, and why do I have this potential?”

The middle-aged woman took back her hand.

“We watched all three of your encounters with us. There is no reason without fate, and no ending without fate. You could keep your soul all three times without being corrupted by the gray air. This is proof of your potential.”

Lu Sheng didn’t understand. He did come into contact with the World of Pain three times, but he’d never thought it posed a threat.

The first time it tried to trick him into walking in, he refused.

The second time he just happened to see it.

The third time, a hand reached out and tried to grab him. It was a rotten arm with a tattoo of the word “evil”, but he just broke the arm.

“Then what type of people count as having potential, and what can I get from joining you?” Lu Sheng asked.

It seemed like the other person came here specifically to find him. There was no doubt about the dangers in the World of Pain. Although he was strong, he still needed to be very, very careful.

“People who are not satisfied with the world and want to change it,” the woman answered.

This answer shocked Lu Sheng.

He suddenly remembered—when he was back at the Great Song, he did have an impulse once to change the entire world. Although it was because of other influences, that thought and desire was still captured by the World of Pain, by the Black Society…

This made him even more serious.

“This world needs to be corrected, corrected of all its wrongs,” the middle-aged woman murmured. She seemed to be talking to herself rather than to him.

Lu Sheng didn’t ask what would happen if he didn’t join. He felt that if he asked this question, something very bad might happen.

“Choose.” The woman lifted her head again and stared at him dully.

Lu Sheng watched the woman in front of him. Suddenly, a deep, terrifying fear rose up in his chest. He swallowed, his mind moving quickly, thinking through everything that might happen and how to prepare for it.

After a while, he nodded slowly.

“Okay, I’ll join.”

The middle-aged woman suddenly started smiling.

Her smile was very bright. Her face was very plain and even a little bit awkward, but the smile suddenly made her pretty. Lu Sheng even felt a faint, creepy attractiveness from her.

“Remember my name. I am Shizi Xing.” [ED/N: Her name may change or not. We went with pinyin, but it can be interpreted as Cross-shaped Star, or 10 Star, or similar. Just like author loves it—you can’t tell the exact meaning until dozens of chapters later.]

The second he heard this, the mirror shard in his hand suddenly started burning much more fiercely. In an instant, it completely disintegrated.

Lu Sheng’s vision blurred. When he came to again, he was back in the air above the Crimson River Valley.

Xiao Zizhu was also back. But the creepy thing was that his eyes were wide open, his irises unfocused, and a weird, satisfied smile hung on his lips. His entire being was suspended in midair as if he wasn’t in a battle, but looking at some transfixing, beautiful scenery.

Seeing this, Lu Sheng let out a breath, and was about to talk.

But Xiao Zizhu talked first.

“I’m not really used to this body, but it doesn’t matter. I just need some time. I’m going back first. Remember, come to the annual sacrifice. If you don’t, there will be severe consequences.”

Still carrying that creepy smile, Xiao Zizhu turned around a little stiffly, then flew down toward the Devil Army.

Watching him leave, Lu Sheng felt cold—Xiao Zizhu’s voice sounded exactly like that of the creepy woman, Shizi Xing…

He suddenly realized that maybe opening the Door of Pain was not the wisest decision. Xiao Zizhu was no longer Xiao Zizhu. He had been replaced by another soul.

“An extremely powerful Devil Lord just got replaced silently like that?” Lu Sheng finally understood why the three tribes and the Great Yin, and even the Devil World, were so cautious of this other world.

Their power and strength were literally not on the same level.

Still floating in air, Lu Seng looked down at his hand. The mirror shard was gone, but the word “evil” appeared on his hand.

He tried to use his Yang Essence to wipe out this black word, but to no avail. The “evil” word stayed on his skin clearly. He could feel some sort of power in this word, one that could pull him right back to the World of Pain.

He needed to find places with mirrors.

“Sh*t…” Lu Sheng’s heart sank. He got out of one tricky situation, but joining the mysterious Black Society might not have been a good move.

“Oh, one more thing: everyone in Black Society can conduct high secrecy conversations through this word. But keep in mind, you cannot reveal it in front of a Weapon Grandmaster. Remember that.” Shizi Xing’s voice sounded again, this time right through Lu Sheng’s brain.

Lu Sheng’s expression was dark. Floating in the air, he saw the three sects’ armies start to rejoice. He raised his hand.

“Retreat!” With this command, all disciples from the three sects started backing up, flowing back into their respective camps like waves, leaving behind a battlefield full of dead bodies and carcasses.

“And remember, although Laws are very powerful, they cannot compare to the Origin Power. Weapon Grandmasters are those that have touched the Origin Power, so do not reveal this word in front of them…” Shizi Xing’s voice once again came through the “evil” word.

Lu Sheng took a deep breath. He ignored the respect and joy of the disciples and elders beside him, barely nodding before leaving the Crimson River Valley and flying back toward Autumn Moon City.

He got out of one tricky situation, but the Black Society’s sudden appearance put him in another.

He needed more information to see if there was any way to break the spell. The originally simple situation become much more murky and complicated after the appearance of the Black Society.

Power…

Lu Sheng’s power seemed less and less. Devil Emperor Vera, Xiao Zizhu, the Black Society… all these troubles were out of his league.

If he only maintained his current power, who’d know what would happen next. He could only listen to fate.

***

Many days later.

In the battle of the Crimson River Valley, both Lu Sheng and the top-tier Devil Lord were greatly injured. Lu Sheng won by a slight margin, and forced back the Devil Army. This news spread like wildfire around all the cities next to the valley, even reaching the prefecture.

Lu Sheng gave some random answers to Chen Jingzhi’s questions, and went straight to the library. He started scouring through every manuscript and record about the Black Society.

Soon, the lockdown on the Secret Area was also lifted. At this time, the two Divine Weapon Masters from Blood Moon finally came, and asked kind of awkwardly if he would still like to meet the Divine Lord. But Lu Sheng turned them down. The place they were taking him was called Golden Waterfall, a place within the Secret Area right next to Weapon Grandmasters.

If his current condition was found out accidentally by a Weapon Grandmaster, he would be screwed.

In the Great Yin, everyone hated the Black Society. Although it was mysterious and powerful, it was also the number one target of every police or security force.

From what Lu Sheng found out in the monastery, when the Black Society first appeared, they announced that the world was full of filth, and that every life was born in the sin. Only pain could wash away these sins, so to teach this to the world, the Black Society formed an organization called the Black Gospel, and started spreading their weird ideology.

At the time, the Great Yin just saw them as another religious group. It was just that their ideology was a little weird.

But an incident later on made the whole human and devil world realize what the Black Society really was.

It happened in a winter, in an unrecorded year.

The Black Gospel gathered fifteen thousand people. One by one, they stripped naked, and in a valley, clambered together with their bodies, writhing and bonding.

More than fifteen thousand people, men and women, young and old, used their bodies like puzzles and built a huge, human ship.

A priest within the Black Gospel used a type of black flame called Gamma, and lit up the ship. Thousands of people vanished mysteriously within these flames, without a sound.

This type of evil ceremony was known as the human ship. After that, it happened many more times. And the people involved were no longer just commoners, but powerful people with bloodlines at the Snake level. Some were even at Earth Prime.

This finally rang alarm bells in the Great Yin and the three sects.

Large amounts of population were vanishing, along with some very strong people. This had become a severe hindrance to the Great Yin’s control.

So, the cleansing of the Black Society started.