"BOOM!!"
A red ball of light exploded on Lu Sheng’s arms suddenly. The huge force of the blast threw him back several steps.
"Seventh, detonate!" the red glow in the Officiator’s eyes grew in intensity as he swept his staff horizontally from left to right.
"BOOM!!"
Yet another red ball of light exploded on Lu Sheng’s body. The force of the blast was immense even for Lu Sheng. Despite his deep cultivation in hard body skills, the blast opened up a wound on the left side of his waist. Blood seeped out from his charred wound, adding the acrid stench of blood into the air.
"Sixth, detonate!" this time, the entire length of the Officiator’s staff, from one end to the other, began glowing a faint hue of red. Soon, the entire copper staff hand turned red throughout and was still growing in intensity and brilliance.
"BOOM!!"
Lu Sheng’s giant body was blasted backwards and slammed into a thick tree. Immediately, the trunk of the tree split and the whole tree collapsed.
"Fifth…" the Officiator glared at Lu Sheng with a mocking sneer, "Detonate!"
"KA-BOOM!!"
Another blast, this time even more powerful than the previous one, exploded on Lu Sheng’s chest. The blinding flash enveloped and buried most of his chest.
"Lastly, let’s end this. Fourth," the Officiator raised his staff and pointed it at Lu Sheng. "Deto-"
"GO AND DIE!!!"
With a deafening bang, Lu Sheng pounced before him like a wild beast suddenly. His eyes were blood-red as he slammed both his arms into the Officiator’s chest.
Almost at the same time, a ball of red light, even larger than the one before, exploded on Lu Sheng’s body.
"KA-BOOM!!"
Both of them flew backwards simultaneously.
A mouthful of blood immediately spurted out of the Officiator’s mouth from the sneak assault. Thrown into the distance, both his legs left long deep trails in the ground before he stopped himself. Stabbing his glowing red staff into the ground to support himself, his muscles began inflating madly till he had expanded to a height of over two meters in the blink of an eye.
"Third Coiled Dragon!!" he bellowed. As if they had come alive, silver beams of light shone from the dragon pattern on his breastplate onto the copper staff. Astonishingly, the silver light added a coiling dragon to the staff which wrapped itself around the length of the staff. More than a fold thicker now, he rammed the staff into the area before him like a cudgel.
"Ultimate Crimson Nine-Furies! Divine Might!!" Lu Sheng’s hulking body once again appeared before him in a flash. Clapping both his palms together, he brought them down with force like a saber.
"BANG!!!"
The ground exploded at the spot where the staff made contact with the palms. Around the epicenter of the collision, trees and shrubs broke and were blasted away. A ripple of visible, near-solid energy radiated outwards.
"You…!" green veins popped up on the Officiator’s forehead. This was his first time staring so closely at Lu Sheng. "You’ve hidden your strength so deeply. Why would a man of your power be content with being the leader of an ordinary mortal sect?"
"Heh…" Lu Sheng grinned. Shockingly, the muscles on his body began expanding even further! "You’re… weaker than I expected…" he had just detonated one drop of liquefied inner Qi. It was kicking into full effect now as a wave of heat blasted out from his body.
"!?" Before the Officiator could make heads or tails of Lu Sheng’s statement, he abruptly felt the force pushing against his staff climbing drastically all of a sudden.
Scorching wind blasted at him from Lu Sheng’s body.
"Pah."
Shockingly, Lu Sheng grabbed the staff with one hand. Then, he slowly freed his other hand and reached towards the Officiator’s head.
"You… how’s that possible!?" the Officiator’s pupils shrank as his face contorted in disbelief.
"Goodbye," a hint of a smile appeared on Lu Sheng’s bloodied face.
"BAM!"
His arm suddenly sped up, thrusting into the Officiator’s face and piercing through it till it came out from the back of his head.
"ROAR!!!"
At the penetration of the Officiator’s head, a mad, violent roar rang out from his body.
The dragon motifs on his breastplate exploded abruptly, the force of the explosion blasting away both of Lu Sheng’s arms. Lightning-quick, Lu Sheng pulled away and retreated only to see the copper staff swinging towards him from above his head.
Caught off-guard, Lu Sheng lifted up his arms and blocked the staff head on.
"BOOM!!"
Both of them were thrown a step backwards.
"HAHAHAHA!! DAMN FINE! DAMN FINE!!" Lu Sheng’s right arm hung limply beside him. Clearly, it was fractured. Streaks of charred wounds, each deep enough that his bones were now visible, wound all over his body.
As for the Officiator, his head had been smashed into pulp. He was now attempting to accelerate the regeneration of his head. Unfortunately, a scorching inner Qi kept damaging his body tissue without stopping, preventing him from healing his head.
"IT’S EITHER YOUR DEATH OR MINE TODAY!!" a deep bellow rang out from the Officiator’s body as he pounced at Lu Sheng, his staff raised and ready to swing.
With a mad laugh, the latter leapt forward in response.
"BAM BAM BAM BAM!!"
A series of intense deafening explosions and bangs rang out as the two continued to slam into each other without any dodging or evasion. Given their explosive speed and secret art techniques, evasion was pointless and would instead put one in a passive position. Hence, the two of them gave up on all attempts to dodge each other’s attacks and focused simply on returning blows.
Blood and bits of flesh splattered all over and landed on the ground.
On the side, Zhang Peng dragged his severely injured body with Herculean effort along the ground, intending to put some distance between himself and the fight so that he could heal enough to flee. Little did he expect that a ball of energy from the Officiator’s staff would suddenly come hurtling his way unintended, adding to his already grave wounds and thoroughly immobilizing him.
He stared in terror and shock as the two freaks tore and ripped at each other’s flesh in the woods.
Savage, cold-blooded, unfettered.
Even for a Nobleman used to scenes of slaughter like him, such primitive combat made his scalp go numb.
Large trees fell one after the other. Stretches of ground were unearthed, leaving charred black pits of various sizes everywhere. The woods were ignited in flames. Gradually, thick smoke began billowing upwards as the fire spread.
Lu Sheng and the Officiator’s fight had come to a head.
He was already fighting at full strength and had detonated a drop of liquefied inner Qi. The result was a stalemate between himself and the Officiator, who had similarly activated his full powers. Both of them had gains and losses; they were now enmeshed in a battle of attrition.
He understood that now that the Officiator had blown his cover, he must not allow him to leave this place alive. Once he left, Ashoka Manor would absolutely send all its forces after him.
The current him was powerless against the entire Ashoka Manor.
Hence, he accepted only one outcome for this battle—victory, not defeat!
With another deafening bam, the two of them pulled away from each other once more.
A large wound, the width of a wrist, was added to his thigh. The flesh inside the wound had disappeared, as if some creature had ripped it off his thigh. It was inflicted by an explosion detonated by the Officiator.
Similarly, the Officiator was severely wounded. A gaping hole had been opened up in his abdomen, all the way through from front to back. It was caused when Lu Sheng’s palm penetrated his abdomen.
"Hoo… hoo… hoo!"
Lu Sheng panted heavily as he stared at the rapidly healing Officiator.
He deserved his name as a pinnacle expert of the Six-Vein Level indeed. It was amazing that he remained able to heal himself at such rapid speed despite his grave wounds. Moreover, he didn’t look as if he was mired in an intense battle.
‘So this is a Nobleman… a realm beyond Bind…’ Lu Sheng’s looked down at his fractured arm and the wrist-sized wound on his thigh.
There was no sign of accelerated healing in sight at all.
The Officiator noticed it as well. Surprise crept onto his face as he gazed at Lu Sheng across the distance.
"Your black membrane… I didn’t break it… why aren’t you healing?"
Lu Sheng lifted his head and looked at him with an eccentric smile on his face.
"You guess?"
"ARE YOU HUMILIATING ME!?" the Officiator’s bellowed, enraged.
"Humiliating?" Lu Sheng straightened his body. Astonishingly, the muscles all over his body began expanding once again!
In that moment, the already three-meters tall body began rising again.
"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 puzzled face, he suddenly chuckled softly.
"The real reason why I can’t heal is because …"
"RIP!!"
On both sides of his head, his temples suddenly arched and protruded out of his head, forming two bumps like the horns of an ox, one side longer than the other. The muscles on his back ballooned and a row of grayish-black muscles broke out of his back swiftly like spikes.
His height also climbed till it reached five meters in the span of a breath.
"RIP!"
The corners of Lu Sheng’s mouth split open, revealing two densely packed rows of mutated, razor-sharp white teeth. They were no longer like human teeth. Rather, they looked more like the teeth of some ferocious carnivorous dragon.
"The real reason… naturally… it’s because…"
Without warning, Lu Sheng’s terrifying body vanished from its original spot, only to appear immediately before the Officiator, less than half a meter away.
"… I AIN’T GOT ANY BLACK MEMBRANE!!!"
"KA-BOOM!!!"
The earth shook. All living creatures within a ten li radius felt the ground quake violently.
In the woods, Lu Sheng’s thick black arms, each two meters long, pinned the Officiator down on the grass and pressed him into the ground.
A giant pit with a diameter of seven to eight meters had appeared in the ground.
Right in the middle of the pit, the Officiator’s body had thoroughly been smashed into meat pulp, leaving intact only a barely regenerated head and two legs.
The copper staff in his hand was bent beyond recognition. The bloodied flesh at his chest was mixed together with the black leather armor; it was no longer possible to tell them apart.
"You think you’ll be safe after killing me?" the Officiator gnarled, his face contorted. "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 ball of inner Qi exploded from Lu Sheng’s hand, igniting the Officiator’s body in flames instantly.
With a whoosh, the flames roared into the sky. Gradually, all of the Officiator’s body melted in the crimson flames. Till the very end, his eyes glared at Lu Sheng venomously, as if he was cursing him with his very life.
Finally, Lu Sheng looked in Zhang Peng’s direction.
"BAM!"
He snapped a tree beside him at its trunk and swung the tree at Zhang Peng. Together with all its branches and leaves, the tree spun in the air and smashed heavily into Zhang Peng’s body.
His black membrane had long since been broken. After being rammed into by the trunk, Zhang Peng shuddered, lifted his head and spurt out a few mouthfuls of black blood. His pupils dilated and lost their focus as he slipped into death.
Breathing out at length, Lu Sheng’s expanded frame began gradually returning to the ordinary Yang Extreme Mode, and then shrank rapidly to a normal muscular body size.
From the epicenter of the pit, he carefully picked up a piece of dark yellowish copper. A faint enigmatic pattern was embossed in it.
That was all that remained of the Officiator and his copper staff.
Unlike the Emissaries from previously, who did not leave behind any Yin Qi item probably because they had been burnt to ashes by the overwhelming inner Qi, the Officiator finally left Lu Sheng a piece of loot.
Grabbing it in his hand, Lu Sheng strode over to Zhang Peng’s corpse, stripped him of his clothes and used them to cover himself. Then, he departed from that place swiftly in the direction of the Crimson Whale.
After racing at top speed for approximately an hour, Lu Sheng got to the Crimson Whale. Right after stepping into his sanctuary and shutting its doors, he finally could not hold it in any longer.
"Bam!"
His world turned dark and he collapsed face down on the ground.
He was too exhausted.
And in too great pain.
Earlier, after detonating the first drop of liquefied Qi, he subsequently detonated the remaining two as well. Even for his hard-body-skill-trained body, it was an overwhelming load. Add to that the mad and frenzied battle with the Officiator in which they ripped each other apart, and it was a sheer miracle that his body lasted till his return.