Chapter 345 – Welcome to… My Underworld Kingdom!

Three mechas, each over ten meters tall, surrounded Lu Yuan from three different directions.

Two were azure blue, embodying the forms of a predator and a beast respectively.

The third one was pure black, resembling an ancient western knight.

All three mechas were Earth level, with combat prowess fluctuating around the high-stage of the fifth-stage.

Lu Yuan thought he might have had a chance to escape perfectly before the three Earth level mechas could encircle him.

Provided that…

Nobody was dragging him down.

Lu Yuan looked down, his calm eyes under the Crystal Mask reflecting a large hand woven from countless silver threads.

This hand was tightly gripping his ankle.

With a swift strike of his greatsword, Lu Yuan managed to cut through a few silver threads, but more threads immediately came to replace them.

Frustrated, he decided to disintegrate his death energy greatsword and the underworld garment around his ankle, taking the opportunity to flap his wings and temporarily break free from the silver hand’s restraint.

Looking further down along the silver hand, he saw the brown-haired man he had just knocked down was now standing up again.

His eyes were blood-red, staring at Lu Yuan with a cold, beast-like intensity.

Half of his face and body was decomposing, turning into countless silver threads.

Each silver thread was enveloped in a layer of crystalline, faint blood-red hue, which was quickly spreading across his body.

“It’s been a long time since I felt… this much pain.”

The brown-haired man gave Lu Yuan a cruel, beast-like smile.

In the next moment, he disappeared.

Lu Yuan’s pupils contracted, the Divine Flower rotating in his mind trembled slightly.

His body instinctively sidestepped.

“Crack–“

A crisp sound echoed.

Time seemed to slow down… Lu Yuan’s expression showed a hint of surprise as he watched the pitch-black, luxurious underworld garment on half of his body shatter like fragile crystals, alongside part of his exquisite garment.

The right side of the disappearing brown-haired man’s body morphed into a massive cleaver covered in a faint blood-red hue, slicing past Lu Yuan’s body.

And then he quickly vanished into the air again.

Not giving Lu Yuan any chance to catch his breath, the brown-haired man reappeared in the next moment.

“Swish–“

This time, however, the brown-haired man’s attack missed its mark. The blood-red silver blade slashed through the air, leaving a frightening ripple, but Lu Yuan, eyes glinting gold, narrowly evaded it.

“Huh?”

The brown-haired man was surprised to see Lu Yuan, wrapped in death energy, the intense death energy quickly repairing the fractures in his luxurious armor.

But soon enough, his surprise was completely overshadowed by an even more intense killing intent and savagery.

With a low growl, the remaining portion of his body disintegrated into silver threads.

A large number of silver threads reshaped into a new and grim form.

His body swelled to nearly four meters, resembling a monstrous beast. Each finger and joint sprouted cold, sharp blades.

He transformed into a perfect human-shaped weapon.

“Rip–“

The now human weapon brown-haired man, emitting a faint blood-red light, tore through the air with a horrifying shrill sound, appearing in front of Lu Yuan almost instantaneously.

In this form, his speed and lethality increased significantly, pushing his terror levels through the roof.

As the brown-haired man reappeared, Lu Yuan’s forehead shone brightly.

A massive surge of Platinum Qi and black death energy erupted from within him.

The two forces intertwined, quickly sketching the form of a gigantic underworld crow behind him.

A body and wings darker than night, cold eyes and claws shimmering with platinum light…

A sense of apocalyptic demise, a deathly calamity descended upon the scene.

“Grandmaster Underworld Crow Style: Dead Nation of Penglai!”

As soon as the underworld crow dharma form appeared, the shattered underworld garment on Lu Yuan’s body was swiftly repaired by the surging death energy.

He tore the air in front of him with his arm, synchronized with the action of the underworld crow dharma form at his back.

That aura of decay, death, and rot manifested in his hand.

A seemingly ethereal claw penetrated through the brown-haired man’s body, as if tearing through it directly while also taking away his soul.

The savage expression on the brown-haired man’s face froze instantly, the blood-red glint in his eyes dimming, and his body fell straight onto the ground…

“Damn it!”

In the meeting room, among the leaders of various forces who were closely watching the battle, someone couldn’t help but shout anxiously.

“Who the hell is this guy with such formidable Strength?

Even Haines, at the sixth-stage, isn’t his match? He’s being repeatedly knocked down!?

Quickly, get the three Earth level Mechas and everyone else to engage. We can’t let him escape!”

“No! Large-scale concentrated fire might damage the mysterious acorn we want…”

“This isn’t the time to worry about that. I’d rather destroy it than let it fall into someone else’s hands!”

“I disagree!”

“Enough.”

The head of the Distant Star Federation raised his hand to stop the argument in the meeting room. He, too, felt a twinge of awe at the combat prowess demonstrated by the mysterious “Hidden Star” on the screen.

But he didn’t show it. Instead, he looked at Dean Cassel and said firmly, “Let’s hear what Dean Cassel has to say.”

At that moment, Cassel was quietly watching the light screen, his expression hardly showing any change.

“Dean Cassel.”

Someone in the meeting room couldn’t help but lightly tap the table, signaling to draw his attention.

Cassel turned his head slightly towards the voice, casting a brief, indifferent glance at the speaker. He didn’t say much, only murmured, “Keep watching. You all still don’t know Haines… well enough.”

…

Lu Yuan was reflecting on the aftertaste of his move, Dead Nation of Penglai. A subtle feeling flowed through his heart.

Actually, he had felt this sensation the first time he executed the Grandmaster Underworld Crow Style, but it was faint then.

This time, it was more pronounced, akin to a seed buried deep in his heart gently trembling.

Stronger with each instance, although still not sprouted, it seemed close to doing so.

“Why didn’t I feel this when performing the Underworld Crow Style before?

Oh, maybe it’s because I never combined it with death energy, and my intelligence points weren’t as high as they are now…”

As Lu Yuan pondered the root of this subtle feeling, he found it very similar to when he switched to the Three-Headed Six-Armed Ming King Stance, unleashing the Six-Elephant Dragon Devourer, and pushed pure Strength to its limit – touching the Miracle Domain in a mysterious way.

“The Miracle Domain of the Underworld Crow?!”

Lu Yuan’s eyes slightly gleamed. He believed it wasn’t just his imagination.

He thought this power should have a unified name; they might have different characteristics, but they were equally potent.

Just as Lu Yuan was pondering, his expression suddenly changed. He looked down, a sense of foreboding in his eyes.

He saw a terrifying and overwhelmingly powerful aura erupting into the sky.

A monstrous figure, over five meters tall, composed entirely of floating silver threads that merged into countless blades and covered in a layer of blood-red light, roared and charged straight at him with scarlet eyes.

The immense pressure around it distorted the air beneath Lu Yuan’s feet, making it twist like flowing water.

“Not injured? It’s even stronger?!”

Lu Yuan’s pupils contracted as the underworld crow dharma form behind him activated. A torrent of death energy and Qi swirled around him…

But before he could fully unleash his move, his body suddenly trembled slightly…

“Bang! Bang!”

A shallow red-silver light, moving at supersonic speed, pierced through his body and the massive underworld crow dharma form behind him in quick succession.

The enormous Hundred-eyed Nether Crow dharma form silently disintegrated, and the underworld garment on Lu Yuan’s body shattered into pieces.

He looked down incredulously at his waist and abdomen, where a gaping wound the size of a bowl had appeared.

The brown-haired man’s burst of power exceeded his expectations. It was only his grandmaster instinct that allowed him to avoid a fatal blow at the last critical moment.

Had he not dodged, the light would have pierced through his chest.

Though Lu Yuan might not have died, he would have undoubtedly been critically injured.

The collapse of the dharma form and death energy made it hard for Lu Yuan to stabilize himself mid-air.

At the same time, a buzzing sound echoed above his head.

It was the brown-haired man in his three-stage transformation, starting a powerful kill move.

The five-meter-tall, monster-like brown-haired man’s arms had disintegrated at some point, with the silver threads condensing into an enormous drill-like weapon in front of his chest.

This exaggeratedly shaped silver drill was spinning and accelerating at a furious pace, causing silver lightning-shaped flashes to burst out from the friction with the air.

A small scarlet point flickered at the drill tip, with its dazzling sharpness seemingly capable of shredding and piercing through anything at just a glance.

As the silver drill reached its maximum speed, the brown-haired man let out a beast-like growl and, at supersonic speed, dived straight towards Lu Yuan below, propelling the insanely revolving silver drill…

“It’s over.”

In the meeting room, Cassel calmly withdrew his gaze from the light screen.

He glanced around and saw faces that reflected varying degrees of shock.

“Haines has three personalities…”

Cassel explained with a detached expression, “A normal personality, a violent personality, and… a demon personality. Each shift increases his combat power significantly.”

He cast a light glance at the screen and continued, “Under his demon personality, this move he just executed can, at its extreme, tear through the energy defense field of a sky level armament.”

“Energy defense field of a sky level armament?!”

Someone in the meeting room gasped in disbelief.

Even the head of the Distant Star Federation, who had witnessed many awe-inspiring powerhouses, showed a trace of incredulity at these words.

Cassel chuckled slightly and added, “Under normal circumstances, Haines is led by his normal personality.

Unfortunately, this person’s strength is remarkable, and his methods are unique, allowing him to launch a powerful mental attack on Haines.

He directly injured Haines’ two personalities, forcing out his most terrifying demon personality.

I have to say…”

“Boom!”

A massive explosion echoed from the light screen above. Cassel looked up, just in time to see the violent bursts in the footage.

Cassel smiled slightly, maintaining his composure, and was about to continue speaking.

Suddenly, at that moment, the explosion’s sound and light in the footage rapidly subsided.

Two motionless figures gradually emerged from the darkness, while a voice, laden with complexity and intermittent sighs, filled the entire meeting room.

“You’re so strong…”

“I made… a temporary boost… and still couldn’t beat you… I should have used… other methods to kill you right away.

But now, since things have come to this point…”

“…let’s end this perfectly in this current form…”

In the next moment, an unprecedentedly dense blackness surged from the center of the screen, vaguely suggesting that some colossal creature was spreading its wings, trying to break free.

The entire screen was then submerged in indescribable, vast, ocean-like torrents of terrifying death energy, plunging into temporary darkness.

In that brief blackout:

Everyone in the meeting room heard a cold, calm voice ring out once more.

This time, it was crystal clear.

Everyone could hear it distinctly.

“[Underworld Crow. Dual Lotus Rotation. Divine Energy]!”

“Welcome to… my Underworld Kingdom!”