Chapter 313 – Blood Sea and Demon Mountain

“Grandmaster Divine Elephant Style: Dragon Devourer!”

Lu Yuan’s six arms punched out, and his already thick and strong arms suddenly bulged even more.

A series of black ripples compressed and overlapped in front of him, finally forming six fist imprints that resembled black holes.

The imprints exploded, transforming into six black Whirlwind-like shockwaves that swept out in all directions.

“Boom-“

The Strength of his body, compressed to the limit, exploded in the air. The resulting horrifying tearing force rampaged through the crowd like a dragon.

It was also like six ferociously rampaging black giant elephant trunks, wantonly lashing out.

The group of elephant men and ancient elephant deity creatures surrounding Lu Yuan were smashed to pieces like straw, with flesh and blood flying everywhere.

“Hiss-“

Lu Yuan took a deep breath.

The blood-red sphere pattern on his chest glowed, emitting a terrifying suction from every pore, drawing the essence from the dismembered limbs at his feet. It formed a huge blood-red vortex around him.

Lu Yuan’s mental power wasn’t idle either. Invisible force crushed one elephant man heart after another, collecting the black spectral light that escaped from these hearts.

The Grandmaster blood sphere within him was constantly growing, and the experience progress bar on the [Elephant Deity: Ming King Stance (Extraordinary)] panel was slowly but steadily rising.

“Crack-“

Nourished by the two types of energy, the densely packed cracks on Lu Yuan’s six arms quickly closed up and healed.

Using the Divine Elephant Style martial arts in the Ming King Stance, especially Dragon Devourer, a move that requires extremely high muscle exertion technique, was a great burden even for his current three heads and six arms form.

But the Effect was outstanding.

With just one move, a large area around Lu Yuan was cleared of all enemies.

“It feels like even using the Elephant Deity Dharma Form wouldn’t be more powerful than this…”

But…

There were still many enemies.

Within just a few breaths, the area around Lu Yuan that had been cleared was filled again by dense crowds of elephant men and ancient elephant deity creatures.

“Did all the monsters in the entire Elephant Deity Secret Realm get drawn to me?”

Now standing nearly eleven meters tall, Lu Yuan towered over the mass of monsters like a crane among chickens.

Because of this, he could see the dense horde of monsters coming at him from all directions, shrouded in black fog that stretched endlessly. The weakest among them were at least level S in strength.

Anyone else witnessing such a scene would likely feel their scalp tingle with fear.

But to Lu Yuan, what he saw… were countless experience points.

“I love these experience games the most.”

Lu Yuan sighed softly, raising his six arms and unleashing thick black ripples, crushing the ancient elephant deity creatures nearby like they were made of tofu.

The blood-red vortex around his body seemed to grow even larger, and the red sphere pattern on his chest showed signs of expanding.

“Resources! These are the best resources to nourish my Strength growth!”

Lu Yuan took a fierce step forward, charging through like a rampaging elephant, smashing and sending flying countless monsters that stood in his way.

A hapless four-armed elephant man was caught up in his charge, brutally slammed into a massive cairn.

Lu Yuan couldn’t be bothered to change direction. With a “boom,” he crashed directly into it.

“Boom!”

The over-hundred-meter-tall cairn exploded under his ferocious, domineering force.

Emerging from the collapsed cairn with shattered elephant man remains on his front, several black boulders rolled to his feet.

While digging out hearts from the remains and crushing them to absorb, Lu Yuan blew air to clear the dust from the boulders.

Several rock paintings on the stones came into view-

They depicted a three heads and six arms elephant man being besieged by countless four-armed elephant men and ferocious beasts.

In the distance was a black mountain, upon which another three heads and six arms elephant man coldly looked down.

“Roar!”

A gigantic ancient elephant deity beast, tens of meters tall with the body of a tiger and the head of an elephant, bellowed as it charged at Lu Yuan, its stench of blood wafting like a storm cloud.

Just as it was about to pounce on him, Lu Yuan’s two uppermost arms grabbed its upper and lower jaws, while the other four arms seized its limbs, rendering it immobile.

Lu Yuan kept his gaze fixed on the rock painting beneath his feet, not even glancing at the evil beast right in front of him. His eyes were slightly bright, but his face showed a thoughtful expression.

“It seems… this is the path one must take to ascend the Demon Mountain and claim the Throne. The old king needs the blood of the new king to solidify his throne.

The new king must completely overthrow the old king’s reign to be crowned… Every generation of the elephant man king… follows this pattern.”

“Ah-“

Lu Yuan sighed softly and muttered to himself, “Understood.”

“Riiip-“

He exerted force with all six arms, the muscles on his Ming King’s Body rippling like mountain ranges.

The ancient elephant deity creature, which had reached level SSS, was torn into six pieces by his immense Strength.

The foul-smelling blood and flesh splattered over Lu Yuan like rain, then got absorbed through his pores, making the blood sphere pattern on his chest even more sinister.

The concentrated smell of blood in the air further agitated the surrounding ancient elephant deity creatures, as well as those newly awakened elephant men.

Like fearless guards driven by some will, they desperately tried to whittle away Lu Yuan’s Strength and resolve.

Lu Yuan stretched his six arms, his central head facing the sky with a calm expression. His heads on either side had lowered eyes, their expressions grim and ghost-like.

He whispered, “Come… offer your flesh and bones to pave my path to the top of the Demon Mountain.”

“Boom!”

In the next instant, Lu Yuan’s figure was swallowed by countless ferocious forms and a tsunami of evil energy waves…

“Plop-plop-“

Lu Yuan walked through a damp swamp, splashing through the mud.

His head was bowed, like a lost soul wandering through a desolate land.

At a certain moment, he suddenly snapped out of it.

He realized that he was stepping in something incredibly sticky and viscous-blood.

Within the blood, countless corpses were floating and sinking.

When he quickly looked up, he saw that everything around him was drenched in blood-red hues.

This was no swamp; it was clearly an endless, horrifying blood sea.

Before he could react, a small black pointed object surfaced abruptly in the blood sea before him.

The pointed tip ascended rapidly, transforming into an immensely towering black mountain within just a few breaths.

The black mountain stood quietly above the blood sea, seemingly suppressing its waves.

Corpses floated and sank, and blood water evaporated around the black mountain.

Before long, a colossal, menacing head was outlined atop the mountain.

This head resembled an elephant but had octopus-like tentacles at its mouth, and a single eye in the center of its forehead opened, turning into a blood moon in the black canopy.

Cold, evil, and indifferent, it gazed at Lu Yuan.

Under the gaze of that single eye, Lu Yuan’s mind went blank, his body subconsciously moving toward the distant black mountain.

He trudged through the blood sea, with ancient syllables echoing around his ears:

“Kill… kill everything… kill…”

He forgot how he got here and even forgot who he was.

His mind seemed occupied only by the desire to kill and the urge to run toward that black mountain.

Unknowingly, the blood sea rose higher, nearly submerging his body.

He seemed oblivious and continued forward.

Just as the blood sea was about to engulf him completely, suddenly…

A crow’s caw snapped him out of his daze.

“Swish-“

Lu Yuan awoke abruptly and struggled out from the blood sea, looking in the direction of the crow’s caw.

Then he saw, not far from the blood sea, a black Styx River flowing quietly.

On the riverbank, Red Spider Lilies swayed gently, and a full moon hung high above the river.

Under the moonlight, a woman in a black dress with a crow perched on her shoulder was quietly watching him.

As soon as he met her gaze, the blood sea, the demon mountain, the Styx River, and all the other strange phenomena receded from him…

“Ah-“

Lu Yuan gasped for breath.

It felt as if he had awoken from a long dream or suddenly emerged from drowning.

“Rip-“

With an unconscious movement of his hand, a large cloud of blood mist dispersed before him, and something howled and fell.

Lu Yuan made an effort to open his eyes.

All his memories seemed to rush back like flowing water.

Lu Yuan took another look around and found himself in what seemed like a battlefield straight out of a hellish nightmare.

The ground was littered with corpses-those of evil deity creatures and elephant men-so densely packed they covered every inch of the black plain.

There wasn’t a single standing opponent in sight anymore. All the elephant men and evil deity beasts drawn in by the curse had been completely slain by him.

Hundreds? Thousands?

Lu Yuan wasn’t sure of the exact number of corpses.

“When did I fall into that blood sea and Demon Mountain dream?”

“And why do these dreams appear during battle?”

Lu Yuan’s eyes gradually grew somber.

Reflecting on the dream, he didn’t know what would happen if he were entirely submerged in the blood sea, but it likely wouldn’t be anything good.

At the last moment, it seemed that the will of the crow deity had pulled him back, waking him up in time.

“Could it be that excessive killing caused me to be tainted by the will of the elephant deity lingering in this secret realm, leading to a situation like losing control during cultivation?”

Lu Yuan pondered, but felt there was more to it than that.

He scanned his surroundings, repeatedly looking at the blood-soaked corpses on the ground, while images of the boundless blood sea from his dream kept flashing in his mind.

At a certain moment, Lu Yuan suddenly thought-

This scene bore an uncanny resemblance to the blood sacrifice rituals described in evil deity cults, and he… was the emissary carrying out the ritual.

“Black soil of eternal rift… He will use blood to paint every stone of the Demon Mountain…”

Lu Yuan silently repeated the aphorism he had learned when he first encountered the elephant deity sect, and then looked at his current state.

Lu Yuan’s Ming King’s Body had unknowingly expanded to nearly fifteen meters in height.

The flesh and blood of the ancient elephant deity creatures that perished by his hands seemed to have permeated his skin and muscles.

Deep red bloodlines sprouted between the textures of his skin and flesh.

His current appearance had diverged significantly from an ordinary elephant man, almost like… a freak within the elephant man tribe?!

“No!”

Lu Yuan swung his arms, his majestic dark body exuding a blood-red aura, standing silently like the black demon mountain amidst the surging blood sea.

“Perhaps this is the true Ming King’s Body!”

Lu Yuan squinted his eyes, and information about the elephant deity sect flashed rapidly through his mind.

He realized he might have misunderstood the essence of the elephant deity power from the beginning.

He had thought that the elephant deity power represented the boundless Strength inherited from the demon mountain, but now it seemed…

It was something more.

“The demon mountain stands in the boundless blood sea…”

“Beneath the pure physical Strength lurks the most primal… instinct to kill.”

Quietly looking up, Lu Yuan’s gaze pierced through the layers of black fog, projecting into the depths of the black plain.

The scarlet pillar of light that had once risen from there was no longer visible, yet Lu Yuan could still sense its scarlet aura.

And now, it was more distinct than ever.

That aura, it so closely resembled the demon mountain and blood sea from his dream…