Chapter 427 – Enjoying the Feast, Aren’t You

Ancestral Land Secret Realm.

Massive gray clouds gathered above, casting a profound heavy leaden hue over the skies of the entire secret realm.

The already dim suns appeared even more pale and obscure under the shrouding clouds, as if separated from the land by thick frosted glass.

Countless streaks of black aura shot up into the sky like tiny snakes, intertwining with the clouds and forming an immense vortex pattern in the firmament.

A colossal void-like space hole, distorted like a twisted sun, hung high above. The vast hand of the Demon God spread wide, with dark golden Thunder crackling and surging between its seven fingers, enveloping the entire space in an overwhelmingly oppressive and terrifying atmosphere.

Amidst this chaotic turmoil, two figures were entwined together.

One, human-shaped and engulfed in light flame, with arms stretched wide, tightly embraced the other.

The one being embraced might no longer be called human… More than half the figure had transformed into countless writhing black tentacles.

They too tightly coiled around the light flame-enshrouded form.

“So eager, are you, to merge with me, to offer your flesh and soul, and become the bait for my return to the peak?”

“Well then… as you wish.”

The somber, chilling voice of Anders echoed in Lu Yuan’s ears.

Lu Yuan saw that the mass of black tentacles he held tightly had a massive spiraling black hole-like mouth slowly opening in the middle, generating a powerful suction force, as if trying to engulf him entirely.

Those tentacles also started desperately burrowing beneath his skin, reminding Lu Yuan of a time when he and Lu Jing visited their grandfather’s house in the countryside for summer vacation. They spent an afternoon playing in the paddy fields, emerging muddy and covered in leeches on their legs.

Strangely, the faces and figures of certain people began flashing rapidly before his eyes.

“How nostalgic…”

Lu Yuan murmured softly, suddenly recalling a phrase he once read in a book.

It stated that when a person nears death, they subconsciously begin to reminisce about the past.

Does this mean… he was about to die?

“No, wait!”

Lu Yuan quickly shook off the inexplicable feeling.

Lu Yuan keenly realized that this must be Anders’ doing.

His mental power had already started infiltrating Lu Yuan’s Consciousness Space, stirring up those warm and soft memories, attempting to undermine his will to resist.

It was as if a snake bites its prey, injecting venom to numb its body and nerves, making it easy to devour.

“Alright then.”

Lu Yuan grinned, tightening his grip around Anders, his eyes dancing with a mix of madness and icy laughter.

“I was only worried you wouldn’t open your mouth!”

With that, Lu Yuan exerted more force.

His light flame-clad hands, imbued with unparalleled might, squeezed Anders’ waist, brutally crushing him into two halves…

At this moment, the shattered Mastery blood pill spun intensely in Lu Yuan’s chest, filling him with a torrential surge of life energy from the inside out.

Under the infusion of this energy, he could feel every cell in his body evolving at a pace more than a hundred times faster than normal.

His life form continually elevated, and his Strength surged wildly.

Elevating, surging.

Seemingly endless, until…

Everything combusted, reaching the end of life.

This was the true forbidden technique of “betting everything.”

A hundred times more explosive than the burst after three perfect limit breaks combined with the secret technique [the gathering of three flowers at the apex].

If not for the prompt from [chaos divination], Lu Yuan might never have considered such an extreme self-exploitative method as “pill shattering.”

He saw his professional panel, [martial arts Grandmaster (extraordinary)], begin to blur, with cracks forming along the edges, as if it could break at any moment.

This impact even spread to all his other professional panels, causing them to flicker and become unstable.

Lu Yuan remained relatively calm, not too surprised by this.

All professional panels were activated based on him as a person.

Now that his body had issues, it was within his expectations that all his professional panels would be affected.

“As long as I’m alive, the panel can’t all collapse. At worst, I could give up the [martial arts Grandmaster (extraordinary)] professional panel. Switching to cultivate Starry Sky martial arts or focusing on the upgrade path of the evil deity system isn’t impossible…”

Lu Yuan thought to himself.

He had a “second life.”

The Phoenix Essence within him, not yet absorbed or digested, was his greatest reliance for making this “crazy move.”

“Before the Phoenix Essence is also exhausted, I have to deal with this guy. Then everything… will still have a chance.”

Lu Yuan took a deep breath, and at this moment, the life energy surging from within him was almost solidified into crystal form.

With this power, he tightly gripped Anders, and suddenly with a “squelch,” pierced through Anders’ skin and forcibly reached into his body.

In an instant, Lu Yuan felt as if his hands had plunged into a mass of cold, slimy, sticky, and nauseating sludge.

“Roar!”

Anders suddenly let out a low growl.

The sound seemed to carry a hint of hidden shame and anger, making Lu Yuan’s skin crawl with goosebumps.

“Damn, better not have struck some private part…”

The life structure of the Spirit Devourer Clan was entirely different from that of normal humans, and who knew what part of Anders he had just “stuck” his hands into.

In an instant, Lu Yuan felt those black tentacles tightly coiled around him as if stimulated. They all went berserk, rushing towards him relentlessly, forcing their way into his body one by one despite the burning light flame on his exterior.

Before the pain of being pierced by countless spears attacked him, Lu Yuan felt a wicked, powerful mental power suddenly invading his mind.

Countless chaotic images flashed across his mind, as if something was rampaging inside his brain, giving him a headache that felt like it would split open.

“Damn it!”

The pain triggered Lu Yuan’s inherent fierceness, and in an instant, veins bulged on his face, contorting it into a ferocious expression.

Although Lu Yuan had willingly sought absorption by Anders, it didn’t mean he wasn’t putting up a fight.

His hands, plunged into Anders’ body, began to thrash around wildly, trying to give Anders an unpleasant experience in return.

In that moment, Lu Yuan and Anders were like two fiercely battling beasts, locked onto each other, each trying to devour the other-waiting to see who would kill whom first.

But clearly, Lu Yuan’s impact on Anders was far less significant.

The black tentacles penetrated his body in dense numbers, devouring the rampant energy brought on by the pill shattering in large gulps.

Lu Yuan’s already short life span seemed to be burning even faster.

Suddenly, a tentacle stabbed directly into the shattered blood pill within Lu Yuan’s chest.

“Hiss-“

As life energy drained rapidly, Lu Yuan felt a wave of weakness wash over him.

He could faintly hear Anders’ cold laughter.

Then came a second tentacle, and a third…

More and more black tentacles broke through, searching for Lu Yuan’s life core, plunging into the massive energy cluster produced by the shattered blood pill within him.

What was once an energy core as bright as a blazing star started to visibly shrink.

In tandem, the Strength Lu Yuan could muster and exert began to diminish swiftly.

The deadlock and balance that had existed seemed to tilt decisively at that moment.

Anders’ cold laughter rang out.

Unlike Lu Yuan’s rapid decline, Anders’ Strength was surging sharply.

Lu Yuan’s hold on him weakened, becoming more and more feeble.

He felt like a milk carton being rapidly drained, becoming emptier and more hollow by the minute…

At last.

The life potential brought by the shattered Mastery blood pill was completely drained.

The multitude of black tentacles, after having tasted the sweetness, naturally discovered the Phoenix Essence located behind the blood pill.

“Ha-“

Anders’ laughter became unabashed.

“I didn’t expect there to be the essence of a mythic life…”

“I haven’t encountered such a delightful surprise in a long time-someone voluntarily offering themselves and being so delicious,” Anders exclaimed sincerely.

At this moment, his true form, a massive black flesh mass composed of countless tentacles, had expanded to several times its original size.

He stretched his body in pleasure, floating in the air, with numerous black tentacles dancing freely.

He could feel the strong, vibrant energy continuously being injected into his body.

His aura continued to rise steadily.

Anders’ face appeared on the surface of the gigantic flesh mass, basking in the enjoyment with closed eyes.

Suddenly, he opened his eyes, the smiling face lowering.

His body parted at the center, revealing a frail human figure tightly ensnared by numerous tentacles.

This figure’s eyes were tightly shut, hair white as snow, with a gaunt face.

Wave after wave of “brightness” and “swelling” energy coursed from his body through the tentacles into Anders’.

Anders looked down at him with a contemplative demeanor.

Anders brought his face close, as if wanting to carefully savor the sight of him dying in despair.

But just as Anders was quietly enjoying the spectacle, the figure, seemingly on the brink of death, suddenly opened his eyes.

His eyes, nearly devoid of any brightness, weakly looked straight at Anders. This unexpected change caught Anders by surprise, and he blinked instinctively.

“Enjoying the feast, aren’t you?” the figure spoke weakly.

His voice was like sandpaper rubbing together, rough, hoarse, and almost inaudible.

Anders didn’t respond, only slowly curling the corners of his mouth into a smile, adopting the stance of a victor.

However, in the next moment:

The figure took a deep breath, as if mustering the last bit of strength in his body, coughed, gasped, and forcefully said,

“Now… it’s my turn.”

“Disgusting… cough cough… alien bastard…”

After speaking, a fierce gleam suddenly burst forth in the once dim eyes of the man.

With a sinister grin, he bared his teeth and bit down hard on the black tentacle near his mouth.

“Uh…”

Anders was momentarily stunned by the other’s inexplicable action.

He was just about to laugh.

But then he felt as if a sudden black hole, a vortex, had appeared within him.

An unbelievably terrifying suction emanated from the vortex, pulling him inch by inch into it.

“Damn, what is this?!”

Anders’ expression immediately changed, instinctively wanting to release the figure he had enveloped.

But the next second, his entire form began to twist and deform from the center, quickly contracting towards a single point.

“!!”

Anders’ face, filled with shock and dread, contorted instantaneously, collapsing inward like crushed pulp.

The suction was not only drawing in his body but also his mental power, everything he had.

In the last moment before Anders’ consciousness was torn apart and vanished, he seemed to vaguely hear someone murmuring in complaint.

“It took this long to succeed… were you trying to kill me?”

“My second life was nearly drained…”

“Damn…”

…

“Boom!”

A blood-red lightning bolt suddenly streaked across the murky sky.

Within the lightning surged a mysterious aura, causing the black aura pervading the muddied water region below to churn incessantly.

Yuwen Tong glanced up at the sky, then turned to look toward the depths of the secret realm, frowning slightly, as if sensing something.

But her attention quickly returned to the forefront.

Yuwen Tong pressed her lips together, eyes intently fixed on a specific spot in the distance.

There, two auras were fiercely entangled with one another.

Due to the terrifying presence emanating from the dark golden Demon God’s hand emerging from the void, Yuwen Tong could not get close or clearly see the situation within.

She could only make a vague assessment of the battle group’s status through the fluctuations of the auras.

Suddenly, one of the auras began to rapidly decline.

While the other aura grew swiftly.

Yuwen Tong’s expression slightly changed as she gritted her teeth to support herself in the air.

The assistance she had given to Lu Yuan earlier had nearly depleted all of her Strength, and afterward, she had been caught by the hand of the Mech summoned by Anders.

Although it had only lightly “squeezed” her, it had nearly shattered most of her bones.

Yuwen Tong was in a terrible state at this moment. If not for the gradually awakening Strength within her bloodline that was slowly repairing her body, she would have almost collapsed on the spot.

“Lu Yuan…”

Yuwen Tong could sense that the aura belonging to Lu Yuan, who was battling Anders, was still waning.

The ebb and flow between him and Anders was astonishingly fast.

Unable to hold back any longer, Yuwen Tong took a deep breath, and in the next moment, her eyes filled with determination. She charged fiercely toward the void in front of her, which was sealed by countless dark golden ripples.