303: Lei Wuji has come back to life? A slap to straighten your head back to normal.

The pre-dawn glimmer pierced through the thin mist, cutting the ruins of the Kunlun Heavenly Gate into fragmented pieces.

Lu Sheng stood on the white marble wreckage, looking at the moon-white figure blocking his path, his eyebrows twitching slightly.

"What? Those riddles earlier weren't enough, you want an encore?"

Lu Sheng crunched the last bit of fruit flesh and casually flicked the core toward Dao Yi's face.

Snap.

The fruit core turned into dust three inches away from Dao Yi.

Dao Yi didn't move, nor did he show any Life Qi. His eyes, which contained the divine light of life and death, now revealed a strange, deathly gray.

"Buzz—"

Without any warning, Dao Yi raised his hand and waved out a streak of purple Qi.

The purple Qi didn't attack Lu Sheng but instead transformed into a semi-transparent light shield with a diameter of a hundred meters, instantly isolating the two from the outside world. Densely packed Dao Seals flowed upon the shield; it was the "Absolute Domain" that only an extreme realm Spirit Ancestor could perform.

The sound of the wind, the chirping of insects, and even the light from the outside world were all distorted and isolated.

Lu Sheng narrowed his eyes, hands in his pockets, as the Archaic Heaven Emperor Venerable deep within his spine vibrated slightly.

"Trying to trap a dog and beat it?" Lu Sheng grinned, revealing a row of bone-white teeth. "This Domain of yours is as fragile as paper. Believe it or not, I can punch a hole right through your head?"

"I believe you."

Dao Yi spoke. His voice was no longer aloof, but instead carried a raspy exhaustion that had been suppressed to the limit.

"Lu Sheng, do you think that because you won the preliminaries and consumed the Ancient Emperor's finger bone, you are the Game-breaker?"

Dao Yi turned around and looked directly into Lu Sheng's eyes, his gaze actually carrying a hint of pity.

"You are nothing more than... a pig being fattened up."

The smile on Lu Sheng's face slowly faded.

He hated being called a pig.

Even as a metaphor, it was unacceptable.

"Speak human," a dangerous gray light flashed in the depths of Lu Sheng's eyes. "While I'm still in a decent mood, you'd better give me a reason not to beat you to death."

Dao Yi took a deep breath, as if he had made a certain decision.

"Rip—"

He abruptly tore open his moon-white Daoist robe, which symbolized the highest glory of the Holy Land, revealing his originally jade-smooth back.

In the next second, Lu Sheng's pupils constricted slightly.

On the center of Dao Yi's back, a fist-sized black eyeball was actually growing and slowly writhing!

The flesh around that eyeball had already rotted, and countless black blood vessels were rooted into Dao Yi's spine and Meridians like tree roots. With every heartbeat, the eyeball would greedily suck the purple-polar spiritual energy within Dao Yi's body and then spit out strands of foul black Qi, feeding back into his body.

That was no ordinary parasitism.

It was a forced Fusion with the Abyss Will.

"Do you see it?" Dao Yi's voice trembled with both pain and humiliation. "This is the so-called 'extreme realm'."

"Every Prodigy who wishes to Breakthrough the limits of the Spirit Ancestor realm and step into the extreme realm is bestowed with this 'God's Eye'."

Dao Yi pulled his robe back up, covering the nauseating sight, his face as pale as paper.

"Kunlun... has long been rotten to the core."

"From the Sect Master Supreme to the Law Enforcement Elders, all the high-ranking officials have already been demonized."

"This so-called Holy Land Grand Competition is not for selecting talent at all, but is a meticulously planned... Sacrificial Ceremony."

Dao Yi stared intently at Lu Sheng, speaking rapidly:

"The essence, energy, and spirit of ten billion spectators, and the blood, flesh, and spirit source of tens of thousands of Geniuses will eventually converge on the battlefield of the finals."

"And the ultimate winner will be refined into... the strongest vessel to carry the descent of the Abyss Mother!"

Dead silence.

Absolute silence.

Lu Sheng stood in place, digesting this shocking conspiracy.

If anyone else had heard this, their Dao Heart might have shattered from fear. But Lu Sheng only rubbed his chin, a thoughtful expression appearing on his face.

"No wonder," Lu Sheng muttered to himself. "I was saying those old fogies were looking at me with the wrong eyes. Turns out they were looking at me like I'm braised pork."

He looked up at Dao Yi with a playful gaze. "Since you're their chosen vessel, why tell me all this? Want me to help you gouge that eye out?"

"You can't gouge it out," Dao Yi shook his head, a flash of despair in his eyes. "It has already become symbiotic with my Soul. I sought you out because you are the only variable."

"You consumed the 'Desolation Fruit' left behind by the Ancient Emperor; that is the only power capable of restraining the Abyss."

Dao Yi reached out toward Lu Sheng, a damaged Jade Slip appearing in his palm.

"Let us cooperate."

"During the finals, I will hold back those demonized Spirit Kings at all costs. What you need to do is obtain the champion's prize—the 'heart of the true sea'."

"That was a backup plan left by the Ancient Emperor back then, and also... the key to completely blowing up this Abyss passage."

Lu Sheng looked at Dao Yi's outstretched hand but did not take it.

He only gave a sneer.

"Cooperate?"

Lu Sheng took a step forward, and his overbearing Desolation aura erupted, forcefully squeezing Dao Yi's Domain until it creaked.

"I never cooperate with the walking dead."

Dao Yi's expression changed, and he was about to speak.

Snap.

A large hand covered in bone spurs pressed onto his shoulder without warning.

"Endure it."

Lu Sheng's voice thundered in Dao Yi's ear.

Before Dao Yi could react, a terrifying gray-white energy representing "ending" and "withered silence" brutally poured into his body through Lu Sheng's palm.

"Roar—!!"

The dormant black demonic eye on Dao Yi's back let out a shrill scream, as if it had been doused with a basin of molten iron.

"Ugh!!"

Dao Yi's entire body convulsed, cold sweat instantly soaking his clothes, and his knees buckled as he nearly knelt.

It was a Soul-crushing pain, as if his Soul were being crushed on a grindstone.

"Stay... down!"

Lu Sheng's eyes turned deathly gray, and the dragon in his spine roared.

The power of Desolation was like a red-hot branding iron, firmly suppressing and sealing that demonic eye until it completely stopped writhing and turned into a piece of dead flesh.

Three seconds.

For Dao Yi, it felt as if three centuries had passed.

When Lu Sheng released his hand, Dao Yi looked as if he had been fished out of water, gasping for breath. But he was horrified to find that the demonic eye that had tortured him for years was actually... silent?

Although it was only a temporary suppression, he felt a long-lost sense of control over his own body.

"This... this is..." Dao Yi raised his head, his gaze toward Lu Sheng having completely changed.

It was the awe one would have toward a god.

"Don't look at me with those disgusting eyes," Lu Sheng wiped his hand in disgust, as if he had just touched a pile of excrement. "Consider this a down payment."

"If you want me to help you flip the table, fine."

"But that 'heart of the true sea' belongs to me."

"Also..." Lu Sheng grinned, revealing a row of white fangs, "during the finals, gather all those demonized old fogies together."

"I've had a good appetite lately, and I just happen to be missing a few main courses."

Dao Yi looked at the man before him who was arrogant beyond measure and suddenly laughed.

It was the first sincere smile he had shown in years.

"Fine," Dao Yi put away the Jade Slip, and the purple Qi dissipated. "It's a deal."

"I'll give you one more piece of information for free," Dao Yi regained his usual aloofness as his figure began to fade. "Your first opponent in the finals is the Master of the Thunder Spirit Hall."

"Be careful, he is no longer human."

"His current strength... is that of a half-step Spirit Emperor."

With those words, Dao Yi vanished.

Lu Sheng stood in place, looking at the rising sun, a flash of crazed Battle Intent in his eyes.

"A half-step Spirit Emperor?"

He licked his lips.

"That should be... very nourishing, right?"

...When Lu Sheng slowly strolled back to the Dengxian Island camp, the atmosphere there had already frozen to the breaking point.

The originally spacious perimeter of the camp was now packed tight with Disciples from the Thunder Spirit Hall.

The air was thick with the nauseating smell of blood and burning.

"Boom—!!"

A purple lightning whip lashed violently against the camp's defense Formation, striking the thin light screen until it was on the verge of collapsing.

"Li Xiaoyao! Have you had enough of being a coward?!"

An extremely arrogant laughter echoed through the sky.

Lu Sheng paused and looked up.

Above the camp, a figure was suspended in the air.

The man wore tattered Flowing Cloud Battle Armor, with a shocking purple strangle mark on his neck. His entire face was a strange greenish-gray, and his eye sockets held no eyeballs, only two flickering clumps of purple ghost fire.

Thunder Without Limit.

The useless Young Lord whose neck Lu Sheng had clearly snapped and tossed away like a dead dog.

He had actually come back to "life."

Furthermore, the aura on his body had surged from a half-step Spirit King to... a mid-stage Spirit King!

"What? Are you disappointed to see that this Young Lord isn't dead?"

Thunder Without Limit brandished his lightning whip wildly, each strike carrying the corrosive black Qi unique to the Abyss, eating a large hole into the Dengxian Island's Formation.

"Hand over that little animal Lu Sheng!!"

Thunder Without Limit hissed, his voice no longer human, but sounding like two pieces of rusted iron rubbing together.

"Otherwise, today I will skin every one of you Dengxian Island wastes alive and swallow you whole!!"

Inside the camp, Li Xiaoyao held a broken sword, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth; he was clearly heavily injured.

Luo Tianfei's face was even paler, her Nine Phoenixes phantom dim and lusterless.

Despair was spreading.

Facing a monster that had returned from the dead with soaring strength, they stood no chance at all.

Just as Thunder Without Limit prepared to deliver the final blow to the Formation and completely slaughter everyone from Dengxian Island.

"Clap, clap, clap."

A lazy sound of clapping came abruptly from behind him.

Thunder Without Limit's movements stiffened, and his rigid head slowly turned a hundred and eighty degrees to look behind him.

He saw Lu Sheng with his hands in his pockets, standing on top of a flagpole, looking at him with a mocking expression.

"Yo, isn't this that guy?"

Lu Sheng pointed at the purple strangle mark on Thunder Without Limit's neck, grinning wickedly.

"Your neck was snapped last time and hasn't healed yet? Why is your head still crooked?"

"How about..."

Lu Sheng extended a hand and made a light gripping motion toward the Void Realm.

"I help you... straighten it back?"