“Eighth, detonate!” the Lord Officiator growled.
BOOM!! A red sphere of light erupted across Lu Sheng’s arms, the force hurling his massive frame back several steps.
“Seventh, detonate!” The red gleam in the Officiator’s eyes intensified as he swept his staff in a vicious arc.
BOOM!! Another burst of red light tore into Lu Sheng’s body. The impact was brutal—even for him. Though tempered by countless hard-body cultivations, the blast ripped open a wound along his left waist. Blood seeped from the charred flesh, filling the air with its metallic tang.
“Sixth, detonate!” This time, the entire length of the Officiator’s staff began to glow, from end to end, the copper turning a deep, pulsing red that grew brighter by the second.
BOOM!! Lu Sheng’s enormous body was flung backward into a towering tree. The trunk split upon impact, cracking apart before the whole tree toppled to the ground.
“Fifth…” The Officiator’s lips curled into a mocking sneer. “Detonate!”
KA-BOOM!! A thunderous blast engulfed Lu Sheng’s chest, the blinding flash swallowing half his upper body.
“Lastly, let’s end this. Fourth,” the Officiator raised his staff, its tip aimed squarely at Lu Sheng. “Deto—”
“GO AND DIE!!!”
With a feral roar, Lu Sheng lunged forward like a maddened beast. His eyes blazed blood-red as he drove both arms straight into the Officiator’s chest.
At that same instant, an even larger red sphere detonated across Lu Sheng’s body.
KA-BOOM!! The two of them were blasted apart, thrown in opposite directions.
Blood sprayed from the Officiator’s mouth from the sudden assault. Skidding through the dirt, his feet carved deep trenches before he managed to halt himself. Jamming his glowing staff into the ground for support, his muscles swelled violently, expanding until he towered over two meters in height within a heartbeat.
“Third Coiled Dragon!!” he roared. Silver beams burst from the dragon pattern etched into his breastplate, snaking toward the copper staff in his hands. The light formed into a coiling dragon that wrapped tightly around the staff, thickening it severalfold before he smashed it forward like a massive cudgel.
“Ultimate Crimson Nine-Furies! Divine Might!!” Lu Sheng’s hulking figure appeared before him in a blur, palms clapping together before descending like a falling blade.
BANG!!! The moment staff and palms collided, the ground erupted. Trees, shrubs, and stones were blown outward from the force of impact, while a near-solid shockwave rippled across the battlefield.
“You…!” Green veins bulged across the Officiator’s forehead as he stared at Lu Sheng from only an arm’s length away. “You’ve hidden your strength so deeply. Why would a man like you remain the leader of a mere mortal sect?”
“Heh…” Lu Sheng grinned as the muscles along his entire body swelled even further. “You’re… weaker than I expected…” The single drop of liquefied inner Qi he detonated surged into full effect, radiating heat from his body in a scorching wave.
“!?” Before the Officiator could process his words, the pressure against his staff spiked overwhelmingly.
Hot wind blasted against him—
“Pah.” Lu Sheng seized the staff with one hand, fingers sinking in like an iron trap. His other hand slowly lifted, reaching straight for the Officiator’s head.
“You… how’s that possible!?” The Officiator’s pupils shrank, his expression twisting with disbelief.
“Goodbye,” Lu Sheng murmured, a faint smile cutting across his bloodstained face.
BAM! His arm shot forward, piercing through the Officiator’s face and bursting out from the back of his head.
“ROAR!!!” A violent, maddened roar tore from the Officiator’s body. The dragon motifs on his breastplate suddenly detonated, the explosion obliterating both of Lu Sheng’s arms.
In a flash, Lu Sheng pulled back, retreating—just in time to see the copper staff whipping down toward him from overhead.
Caught off-guard, Lu Sheng threw his arms up and blocked the descending staff head-on.
BOOM!! The sheer force sent both men staggering a step backward.
“HAHAHAHA!! DAMN FINE! DAMN FINE!!” Lu Sheng’s right arm dangled uselessly at his side, fractured beyond movement. Charred wounds crisscrossed his body, each one deep enough to expose glimpses of bone beneath scorched flesh.
The Officiator, meanwhile, had no head—only a pulped ruin desperately trying to regenerate. But the scorching inner Qi raging within his body relentlessly burned his tissues, thwarting any attempt at recovery.
“IT’S EITHER YOUR DEATH OR MINE TODAY!!” A thunderous bellow tore from the Officiator’s half-regenerated throat as he lunged forward, staff raised high.
Laughing madly, Lu Sheng hurled himself into the charge.
BAM BAM BAM BAM!!
A tempest of violent impacts erupted as the two crashed into each other again and again. There was no room for dodging—at their explosive speed and under the pressure of their secret arts, evasion meant vulnerability. Both men abandoned all defense and answered every blow with a more savage one.
Blood splattered across the ground. Flesh tore and flew.
Nearby, Zhang Peng dragged his mangled body through the dirt, desperately trying to crawl far enough away to heal before escaping. But before he could get anywhere, a stray sphere of energy from the Officiator’s staff slammed into him, worsening his injuries and pinning him helplessly to the ground.
He could only stare in horror as the two monsters ripped and shredded each other’s flesh amid the burning woods.
Savage. Cold-blooded. Unrestrained.
Even for a Nobleman accustomed to slaughter, the raw brutality of this battle made his scalp prickle.
Trees toppled one by one. The earth split, leaving charred craters scattered everywhere. Flames spread through the forest, dark smoke rising as the blaze thickened.
Lu Sheng and the Officiator’s battle had reached its peak.
He was already fighting at full strength, the detonation of a liquefied drop of inner Qi pushing his body to its limits. Even so, he and the Officiator remained locked in a brutal deadlock—both fighting with everything they had, both suffering wounds and trading blows in an unforgiving battle of attrition.
He understood one truth clearly: now that the Officiator had exposed his identity, he could not allow the man to leave alive. If he escaped, Ashoka Manor would undoubtedly unleash its full might to hunt him down.
Against the entire Ashoka Manor, he would stand no chance.
There could only be one ending to this fight—victory, never defeat.
Another thunderous impact split the air as they clashed and then broke apart once more.
A fresh wound, as wide as a wrist, marred Lu Sheng’s thigh. The flesh inside had been blasted away as though something had torn it out. Another explosion from the Officiator’s arts.
The Officiator fared no better. A gaping hole pierced straight through his abdomen, inflicted by Lu Sheng’s palm as it tore through flesh and bone alike.
“Hoo… hoo… hoo…” Lu Sheng’s breaths came heavy and ragged as he stared across at the rapidly regenerating Officiator.
As expected of a peak Six-Vein expert—despite the severity of his injuries, the man’s body was mending itself with astonishing speed. He did not even look like someone embroiled in a life-or-death battle.
‘So this is a Nobleman… a realm beyond Bind…’ Lu Sheng glanced down at his fractured arm and the gaping wound on his thigh.
His own body showed no signs of regeneration.
The Officiator noticed as well. A flicker of surprise crossed what remained of his expression.
“Your black membrane… I didn’t break it… why aren’t you healing?”
Lu Sheng raised his head, an odd smile curling across his bloodstained lips.
“You guess?”
“ARE YOU HUMILIATING ME!?” the Officiator roared, fury shaking his wounded frame.
“Humiliating?” Lu Sheng straightened slowly—and shockingly, the muscles across his entire body began to swell once more. His already massive three-meter frame rose even higher, casting an even greater shadow across the burning forest.
“You and I have fought to this point. To humiliate you would be to humiliate myself. Do you think I’m that bored?”
Looking at the Officiator’s bewildered expression, Lu Sheng suddenly let out a low, chilling chuckle.
“The real reason why I can’t heal is because…”
RIP!!
Both sides of his head bulged violently, his temples swelling outward and forming horn-like protrusions—one longer than the other. The muscles across his back expanded and burst open, a row of grayish-black spikes ripping through his skin like emerging bone blades.
His height climbed rapidly—five meters tall within a single breath.
RIP!
The corners of Lu Sheng’s mouth split open unnaturally wide, revealing rows upon rows of tightly packed, razor-sharp white teeth. No longer human—more like the fanged maw of a carnivorous dragon.
“The real reason… naturally… it’s because…”
Without warning, his monstrous figure vanished—reappearing instantly before the Officiator, their faces less than half a meter apart.
“…I AIN’T GOT ANY BLACK MEMBRANE!!!”
KA-BOOM!!!
The ground trembled as if struck by a falling mountain. Within ten li, every living creature felt the earth violently shake.
In the woods, Lu Sheng’s massive blackened arms—each nearly two meters long—slammed the Officiator into the soil, pinning him with overwhelming force.
A vast crater, seven to eight meters wide, collapsed into the earth beneath them.
At its center, the Officiator’s body had been crushed into a grotesque pulp, leaving only a barely regenerated head and two intact legs. His copper staff lay twisted beyond recognition. Blood, flesh, and the remnants of his armor were mashed together into an indistinguishable mess.
“You think you’ll be safe after killing me?” the Officiator snarled, his nearly destroyed face writhing with hatred. “The Manor Lord will avenge me! And you will die! Very soon! Very soon!! I’ll be waiting for you!!”
“Were those your last words?” An invisible surge of inner Qi burst from Lu Sheng’s palm, igniting the Officiator’s remains in an instant.
With a roar, flames shot skyward. The Officiator’s body melted gradually within the crimson blaze. Even as he burned away completely, his eyes remained locked on Lu Sheng, venomous and hateful until the final moment.
At last, Lu Sheng shifted his gaze toward Zhang Peng.
BAM!
He snapped a towering tree beside him clean at the trunk, swung it overhead, and hurled it toward Zhang Peng. Branches and leaves whirled through the air as the massive trunk smashed brutally into Zhang Peng’s body.
His black membrane had long since shattered. The impact made him convulse violently; he lifted his head only to vomit several mouthfuls of black blood. His pupils widened and lost all focus as death claimed him.
Exhaling deeply, Lu Sheng’s towering, mutated frame began retracting—first settling into the ordinary Yang Extreme Mode, then shrinking swiftly until his form returned to a more natural, muscular size.
From the center of the crater, he carefully picked up a piece of dark yellow copper, faintly embossed with an enigmatic pattern.
This was all that remained of the Officiator and his copper staff.
Unlike the Emissaries he had slain earlier—who left behind no Yin Qi items, likely burned to nothing under the scorching force of his inner Qi—the Officiator had finally left behind a tangible piece of loot.
Clutching it, Lu Sheng strode to Zhang Peng’s corpse, stripped the man’s clothing, and wrapped it around himself. Then he swiftly made his way toward the Crimson Whale.
After running at full speed for nearly an hour, he reached the vessel. The moment he crossed its threshold and shut the door behind him, the last thread of restraint snapped.
Bam!
His vision darkened, and he collapsed face-first onto the ground.
He was completely spent.
And in unbearable pain.
After detonating the first drop of liquefied Qi, he had gone on to detonate the remaining two. Even with a body refined by hard-body techniques, the burden was staggering. Coupled with the frenzied, flesh-rending duel against the Officiator, it was a miracle his body had endured long enough to return at all.
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