322: Chapter 322 Awakening of the Emperor's Mark, Physical Body Withstands a Level 5 Spirit King

Crack.

That wasn't the sound of chewing flesh, but more like a hydraulic press snapping a high-strength industrial alloy.

Dark golden slurry dripped down Lu Sheng's chin onto his chest, burning a row of charred black holes.

This thing's texture was terrible; it didn't have the fresh sweetness of high-tier sea beasts nor the chewiness of abyss monsters, but felt like gulping down half a ton of nuclear waste mixed with rust, engine oil, and aged corpse water.

Fishy. Astringent. Spicy.

And a surge of "arrogance" that rushed straight to the top of his head.

It was a high-and-mighty rule-based will, an absolute taboo that allowed no mortal touch.

The moment he swallowed it, Lu Sheng's stomach no longer belonged to him.

His insides were in turmoil; the fragments of that semi-mechanical heart weren't digested but instead "came alive" within him. Divinity and the Abyss, a pair of arch-enemies entangled for ten thousand years, actually turned Lu Sheng's internal organs into a battlefield, initiating a final meat-grinder mode.

No transition, no warning.

Lu Sheng's torso suddenly expanded, and the blood vessels beneath his skin bulged like over-inflated water pipes, appearing in an eerie purple-gold color.

On the left half of his body, the originally smooth muscle lines began to proliferate wildly. That was the rampage of divinity. Every cell was screaming as it evolved, deciding its growth direction without the host's permission.

"Puchi!"

The left shoulder blade pierced through the flesh, extending outward with dripping blood; it wasn't for flight, but for some deformed aesthetic. Golden feathers forcibly grew on the bone, each as sharp as a knife—this wasn't a wing, but an instrument of torture.

Simultaneously, a grand, holy, yet hollow chanting exploded within Lu Sheng's skull. It was the muttering of some ancient deity, attempting to format his consciousness and reshape him into a Puppet that only knew how to kneel.

The right half of his body was a different picture of Hell.

The pollution of the abyss required no reason. Black rotten flesh spread rapidly like mold, devouring the healthy skin. Bloodshot eyeballs with only whites opened one after another on his right arm and chest, rolling, peering, and letting out snickers that made one's sanity drop.

Pitch-black bone spikes drilled out from his joints, dripping venom capable of corroding space.

Divinity wanted him to ascend; the Abyss wanted him to fall.

The two forces used his spine as a boundary, engaging in a brutal tug-of-war.

"Creak... Snap..."

Lu Sheng's proud Ancient Desolate Divine Body was currently as brittle as a soda cracker.

Newly grown divine flesh was rotted into pus by abyss venom as soon as it appeared; the abyss's newly built defensive works were burned to ash by the domineering golden light of divinity.

This pain wasn't like being slashed by a blade, but like someone dismantling your body into parts, putting it back together with the wrong blueprint, then dismantling and reassembling it again.

Round and round, without end.

"Lu Sheng!!"

Luo Tianfei wanted to rush over but was pinned in place by the chaotic gravity field, forced to watch as the man's body gradually turned into a mass of indescribable rotten flesh amidst the intertwining light and darkness.

Li Xiaoyao lay on the ground, his old face pressed against the cold floor, biting his lip until it bled. It's over. Completely over. That was the Origin of the Sea God; even if it was a defective product, it wasn't something a human stomach could digest. This kid was too arrogant, so arrogant he'd bloat himself to death!

Dao Yi closed his eyes, unable to watch. A Prodigy of a generation, ending up with this kind of death? Being blown apart alive?

However.

On that face—already distorted, cracked, half holy as an angel and half hideous as a demon—there was no fear as everyone expected.

The left eye that could still Move—that ash-gray Cross-shaped Pupil—was trembling violently.

Not because of pain.

But because of excitement.

Because of... greed.

"So this is... the taste of a god?"

Lu Sheng's throat was already torn; the sound he made was like two rusted iron plates rubbing together, leaking air yet carrying a ferocity that made one's scalp tingle.

"Quite a kick... pity..."

He suddenly raised his hand—the right hand that had turned into a black claw—and clawed at his mutating left chest, his nails sinking deep into the meat, forcibly ripping out a chunk of rotten flesh with golden feathers.

"Pity, on my turf, even a dragon must coil and a tiger must crouch!"

Pain?

It's nothing.

As long as it doesn't kill me, I'll eat until I die!

Lu Sheng didn't think about harmonizing these two forces at all; things like Yin and Yang balance or the harmony of water and fire were for sissies.

Since this body had become a battlefield, let the battle be even rowdier!

He grinned savagely, and in the depths of his nearly shattered Dantian, in the gap between the two forces of god and demon, he boldly detonated his own third force.

Desolation.

It was the end of everything, the destination of all things, an eternal void where even gods and demons must fall silent.

"ancient desolate heaven swallowing furnace—start the meal for me!!!"

Buzz—

Space vibrated.

A phantom of a giant ash-gray millstone didn't manifest outside but formed directly within his body.

If divinity was the spear and the abyss was the shield, then this furnace was an unreasonable industrial shredder.

It didn't care if you were noble ancient god rules or filthy abyss Origin; once in this furnace, all beings are equal—all are fuel.

Rotate!

The gray millstone roared in reverse, generating a domineering centripetal suction.

The golden divine light and black abyss energy that were fighting madly were like fish caught in an undersea whirlpool; no matter how they struggled, they were forcibly dragged, torn, and stuffed into that greedy "stomach."

Along with Lu Sheng's own broken bones and rotten flesh.

Using the body as the furnace, and life as the coal.

Refine!

"AAAAHHHH—!!!"

A roar that didn't sound human exploded from Lu Sheng's mouth, the sound waves carrying a terrifying Spiritual Pressure that instantly ground the floor within ten meters into powder.

His body completely disintegrated at this moment.

Not with flesh flying everywhere, but turning into a group of Chaos, intertwined with gold, black, and gray high-energy nebula.

The nebula didn't disperse; instead, it was tightly bound within a humanoid silhouette by that suction, collapsing and reorganizing at a frequency of tens of thousands of times per second.

With every reorganization, Impurities were filtered out a bit more.

With every collapse, the Origin became twice as condensed.

This was a gamble. The stake was his life; win and take all, lose and not even ash remains.

Just as Lu Sheng's Divine Soul was about to dissipate in this extreme tearing and his consciousness was on the verge of falling into darkness.

In the distance.

In the center of the altar, the eight Ancient Emperor severed fingers that had been circling the heart wreckage stopped.

They seemed to have sensed something, as if they heard the deepest call from the source of their Bloodline.

Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!

Eight clear, resonant vibrations drowned out all the noise underground.

Without hesitation, without delay.

Eight black-gold streaks of light tore through the air, ignoring spatial distance and the violent energy storm surrounding the chaotic nebula, and crashed straight in.

This wasn't an attack.

This was... coming home.

"Puff! Puff! Puff! Puff!"

The eight severed fingers accurately entered that Chaos, pinning down eight key nodes: the limbs, spine, skull, and heart.

Like eight Sea-Quieting Needles, they instantly suppressed all the riots.

At that moment.

Into Lu Sheng's nearly dissipating Sea of Consciousness, a memory fragment so grand it was indescribable was forcibly stuffed.

He didn't see any Cultivation Techniques or Secret Manuals, nor did he hear any great Dao truths.

He only saw a person.

A back.

That person sat alone at the end of the galaxy, surrounded by mountains of abyss corpses. That person was very tired, his armor long since shattered, but he simply broke off his own fingers to use as fuel, throwing them into the nearly extinguished lamp before him.

To leave a lamp... for future generations.

That will—independent through the ages, desolate yet extremely domineering—was like a heavy hammer, smashing hard onto the top of Lu Sheng's head, waking him up and "settling" him.

This was an Ancient Emperor.

This was the spirit once possessed by the true owner of this body.

"Damn..."

Lu Sheng's consciousness reconsolidated in the Void Realm; he looked at that back and cursed, but his eyes felt a bit warm.

"Old man, you're ruthless."

"However..." Lu Sheng's will took over the nebula, and the ash-gray Cross-shaped Pupils relit in the center of the Chaos, brighter than ever before.

"Since I've taken your bones, I'll keep this fire going for you!"

Condense for me!

Rumble—

The rotation speed of the heaven-swallowing furnace instantly broke past its limit, letting out a groan of being overburdened, but it held.

The eight severed fingers turned into the purest marrow, merging into the new skeleton.

Flesh remolded.

This time, it was no longer a flashy gold or a disgusting black.

But a black-gold that was restrained to the extreme, as if it could swallow all light.

That was the ultimate color after the Five Elements reached Perfection and Yin and Yang were reversed.

Dark purple patterns spread from the heart, crawling over his whole body, and finally converged at the center of his brows, forming a faint vertical mark—that was the "Imperial Markings," a proof of a leap in life level.

Thud.

One foot stepped out of the Chaos, firmly treading on the altar floor.

It seemed like a casual step.

Crack—Boom!

The high-strength crystal floor beneath him was instantly covered in spiderweb-like cracks, which continued to spread wildly, as if this step wasn't on the floor, but on the spine of this world.

Then, legs, torso, head... the mist dissipated.

A brand new Lu Sheng stood there.

He was bare-chested; his original exaggerated muscle mass had disappeared, replaced by a nearly perfect streamlined physique, with every inch of skin containing terrifying potential energy enough to detonate a nuclear bomb.

He didn't use any spiritual power.

Simply the existence of his Physical Body itself caused the surrounding space to produce visible distortion because it couldn't withstand this mass.

Gravitational waves.

He was now a walking humanoid neutron star.

"Whew..."

Lu Sheng slowly exhaled a breath of turbid air.

This breath condensed without dispersing, like a gray sharp sword, shooting straight up and hitting the tens of thousands of meters high dome overhead.

Boom!!!

The indestructible underground dome was forcibly punched with a transparent large hole by this breath.

Above was the deep sea.

Billions of tons of cold seawater, losing its barrier and carrying terrifying kinetic energy enough to crush mountain ranges, crashed down like the Milky Way pouring over!

"It's over!" Li Xiaoyao closed his eyes in despair. Who could withstand a natural disaster of this level?

Lu Sheng looked up.

Looking at the black water curtain pressing down from the sky, there was no expression on his face; he just casually, somewhat lazily... threw a punch.

No fancy Moves, he didn't even use much strength.

Just a simple punch.

"Get lost."

Boom——————!!!

Where the fist passed, there was no sound, because the air was compressed into a solid state in an instant and then forcibly blown apart.

The billions of tons of seawater pouring down, at the moment of contact with the fist wind, simply... vanished.

Not blown away, not evaporated.

Its existence was directly erased on a physical level by the "Desolation" and "Domineering" contained in this punch.

One punch severed the sea.

The flood that was supposed to submerge them was forcibly punched into an absolute vacuum zone with a diameter of a thousand meters above his head.

Drip.

A drop of cold sweat slid down Dao Yi's forehead. He stared blankly at this scene, his worldview shattered. Is this still a Spirit Ancestor? This is a freaking humanoid weapon!

Lu Sheng withdrew his fist and looked down at his palm, which glinted with a cold metallic luster, and clenched it with some satisfaction.

His knuckles let out crisp explosions, a cheer of power overload.

"The taste was a bit poor..."

Lu Sheng licked the corner of his mouth, the gray light in his eyes slowly receding, "But this nutrition is indeed substantial."

With a thought, a light blue data panel expanded before him.

[host: Lu Sheng]

[Rank: Level 38 Spirit Ancestor (Peak)]

[Physical Body Intensity: 16% (Evaluation: Has reached the ceiling of the Spirit King level, equivalent to a Level 50 Physical Body!)]

[Strength: 32 tons]

[Speed: 30 m/s]

[Body Strengthening: Ancient Desolate Divine Body (Minor Achievement), Imperial Markings (1/9), Five Viscera Shrine (Level II).]

[Dharma Image: Archaic Heaven Emperor Venerable (Substantiated, 1000 meters, three heads and six arms)]

[Special Skills: Emperor's Grip, Desolation Domain, Five Elements Reversal Wheel (Grand Refinement).]

[energy points: 28,000]

Level 38.

Yet his Physical Body could already go head-to-head with a Level 50 Spirit King.

A curve spread across Lu Sheng's mouth as his gaze moved past the messy altar and looked into the deeper darkness.

There seemed to be something else there.

And the Ancient Emperor finger bone that had just merged within him was slightly heating up, transmitting a vague but urgent warning.

"Be careful... of 'Homecoming's'..."

"...'Him'..."