Way of the Devil

Quinnmani quickly swept its gaze across the other heads. It wanted to find out which head was not supposed to be there.

 However, no matter how it looked, the other eight heads looked the same. None of them was any different.

 It was born this way. Besides the main head, the other heads were nearly identical. Many a time, it would not even be able to differentiate them itself.

 After checking for half a day, it was still unable to tell which one was the extra head. Suddenly, it had an idea.

 “By the way, who was the one who was the most eager to sign the name?!”

 Quinnmani did not sign its name with its fingers, but its tongue. The tip of its tongue was more flexible than its fingers. By wetting the tip of its own tongue with the sticky goo on it body, the goo could be used as a corrosive ink to write on scrolls.

 When it thought about this, it immediately remembered about the scroll which it just signed.

 “That’s right, that scroll!”

 It suddenly had a bad feeling. A chill crept down its spine and spread toward all parts of its body.

 “I…”

 “Contract established.” Suddenly, a vast and muffled voice came from the depths of hell.

 At the same time, an indescribable power originating from the void came upon it without taking form. This power was not suppressive; it was more of a kind of binding and communication.

 Quinnmani was stunned. However, when a new piece of information surged into his mind, its brains almost went haywire.

 “I… I’ve become the sacrifice for the contract?!”

 It shuddered in cold. It suddenly remembered the scroll just now. There must have been something fishy about that scroll!

 Suddenly, a strange voice spoke, “What’s wrong? We should be happy that the contract is established, no? Why’re you all looking so devastated?”

 Quinnmani’s numerous eyes looked up at the same time. They looked at the head that spoke.

 “It was you!” it said through clenched teeth.

 The sixth head from the left was displaying a faint smile right now. It was looking at Quinnmani’s main head, feeling secure in the knowledge that it had backing.

 “Yes, it’s me. I did some meddling during the signing of the contract, but that’s nothing. Even without a contract, the Transport Door is now complete. You won’t be able to escape from me.”

 As it spoke, the sixth head slowly broke away from Quinnmani’s body. The lone head with a part of the neck separated from the body and melted into a ball of flesh.

 The flesh ball wriggled for a while and quickly morphed. A few seconds later, it turned into a big and tall handsome man who looked strong without equal.

 “I’m Lu Sheng. You may address me as your lord, boss, or big brother, I won’t mind. Naturally, from this moment on, you’ll be directly under my command and will do my bidding.” The man was Lu Sheng who had sneaked into this layer of hell.

 Initially, he’d planned on summoning the feudal lord of hell through conventional means, and would later decide if he would actually eat it. However, he changed his mind.

 This was also inspired by his experience of having his meal interrupted by the abyssal consciousness. If the great lord of hell charged out and fought him as well, he would suffer too great of a loss.

 Hence, he chose another, gentler path.

 He signed a contract with Quinnmani while its mental waves were extremely stable.

 As long as the feudal lord’s soul did not put up a fierce resistance, the great lord of hell would not be able to sense it. This way, he would gain control of a feudal lord without alerting the powers that be.

 Also, this feudal lord seemed foolish enough. Lu Sheng merely used his body-controlling art and illusion arts, and he was able to fool this feudal lord in no time.

 What a pitiful child.

 Lu Sheng looked at Quinnmani with a pitiable look.

 “Rargh!”

 The eight-headed gecko was infuriated. It had been duped into signing a contract under baffling circumstances. It had now offered itself up as a sacrifice to this monster who resembled a human before him!

 A sacrifice! That was an absolute contract which stated that it was willing to offer up its own life and soul. The void and hell also bore witness to this.

 Quinnmani could not suppress the rage it felt.

 Even if it was a contract of sacrifice, if the difference in strength between them was too huge, it could still forcibly break free from the bond of the contract.

 It wanted to make this little maggot understand that power was everything in these parts. Power would crush everything! In the face of absolute power—

 “Puh!”

 Suddenly, an unimaginably powerful force suddenly rammed into Quinnmani’s abdomen.

 The force was so powerful that it felt like a compressed mountain range crashing against its own abdomen.

 All eight of Quinnmani’s head spat out blood. Its body bent like a bow as it reeled from the intense impact.

 “Rumble!”

 An intense vibration suddenly spread out from the inner wall of hell’s tunnel. The dull vibration spread in all directions.

 Some of the transparent souls which had just fell in from above were instantly shattered by this strong vibration. They were granted release from their suffering.

 After a long while, the eight-headed gecko slowly got to its feet on the inner wall of the tunnel. If its body had not been covered in sticky goo, it would have most probably directly fallen down like the other souls from that blow.

 “You lowlife!” it roared. “Are sneak attacks all that you’re capable of?! A maggot from the main plane dares to make a fool out of the great master Quinnmani! I’ll have your soul—”

 “Boom!”

 Another beam of yellow light reached it. Like a cannonball, it crashed heavily against the middle of its chest.

 “Crack…”

 A crisp sound of bones cracking could be heard from Quinnmani’s body.

 It looked down with fear at the gaping, bloody hole which was opened up in its own chest.

 ‘That’s it. I’ll kill you!’ Quinnmani shouted angrily within its own heart.

 “Death Goo!” It struggled and roared. Its skin quickly excreted a huge amount of poisonous goo which exuded toxic fumes.

 The toxic goo became emerald green in color, and emitted black toxic fumes. It grew in quantity and thickness. In no time, it formed a layer of thick gooey armor on its body.

 “Go!” it shouted furiously. The sticky goo all over its body erupted at the same time.

 The emerald-colored toxic liquid sprayed everywhere like raindrops. It came from all directions, seemingly leaving no blind spots.

 Lu Sheng hovered in midair with his arms crossed before himself.

 “In the name of the contract, all of your attacks will naturally be weakened by 99%. There’s no way that you can harm me…”

 Naturally, Quinnmani was aware of this. However, it was betting on the fact that the remaining sliver of strength it was left with would still be extremely powerful against a mere mortal. Even with the weakened strength, it could still easily wipe out a legendary expert.

 This was Quinnmani’s plan. However, when it saw that the goo was automatically repelled by a formless airflow around Lu Sheng, the hope it harbored in its heart gradually fell to the bottom of despair.

 “Alright, play time’s over. Shrink yourself. We’re leaving,” Lu Sheng ordered with a hint of impatience.

 “Bzz…”

 A formless power in the void immediately covered Quinnmani’s eight heads.

 It raised its head, intending to roar, but its body obediently shrunk under the control of this unexplainable power. It morphed into a little emerald lizard and rested on Lu Sheng’s shoulder.

 “Let’s go.” Lu Sheng turned around and stepped into the Transport Door. In no time, the red light of the Transport Door swiftly dimmed and darkened. The entire Transport Door shrunk again, this time becoming a ball of red light. Then, with a poof, it vanished without a trace.

 ***

 Over four consecutive days, Lu Sheng ordered men to investigate the whereabouts of the seven-colored dragons while he continued to summon feudal lords from hell for his own consumption.

 Besides Quinnmani, whom he did not eat, he summoned another five feudal lords. He left two tactful ones as his servants and ate the other three.

 One of them was Barnes, who was in charge of torture hell. It was the standard three-headed hellhound king.

 The other one was Scheernighting, a humanoid feudal lord with a trunk of a venomous serpent.

 These two feudal lords were tactful enough. After Lu Sheng led a feudal lord of hell and an abyssal feudal lord on an assault against them, the two of them wisely signed the contract of souls with Lu Sheng. Like Quinnmani, they became his helpful servants.

 With this, Lu Sheng managed to gather the Abominations and four feudal lords under his command. His extremely powerful organization in the main plane was basically established.

 However, due to the natural suppression of the main plane’s will, the strength of the feudal lords was only at the divine region rank.

 However, there were not many divine region-ranked beings in the main plane.

 The Golden Dragon Tribe and the Black Dragon Tribe were the two most powerful tribes among the dragons. The number of divine region dragons they had were only in the single digits.

 The large churches had some, but there were not many. After all, the divine region rank was the upper limit of the ranks attainable by life in the main plane.

 Once a divine region being pledged himself to a deity, he would be able to transform into a divine spirit at the very least. If a divine spirit was granted Godhood, he would be able to ignite God Fire, establish a god nation, and become a true god in no time.

 For ordinary living beings, even if the legendary experts were granted Godhood, they would have to experience countless trials and hardships to ignite God Fire. They would only be able to assimilate their souls with the Godhood and become a true god after amassing huge amounts of Divinity.

 “The divine region is the rank attained by a being at the peak of the legendary rank. They are demigods without God Fire.”

 Within the great hall underneath the cursed land.

 Lu Sheng sat on his high perch. To his left sat a row of Abominations. To his right sat the feudal lords of hell and the abyss.

 The feudal lords instinctively held the Abominations in contempt and disgust. However, the Abominations were different. They were not at all afraid of the natural suppression of the main plane. They were naturally immune to this.

 Hence, if they fought one-on-one, any single one of these Abominations could take on a group of feudal lords.

 “If that’s the case, does this mean that we’re very powerful now?” After Lu Sheng listened to the hellhound king, Barnes’s explanation, he gained some understanding about the divine region rank.

 “We’re powerful, unprecedentedly so.” Barnes was a sly character. He would set the helm according to the wind, but he was also well-learned. In terms of knowledge, none of the monsters present here could be his match.

“Now that the Light Church and the Shadow Church are at war, their most powerful individuals are none other than their archbishops and their popes. Other than that, there are military officers such as the presiding judges. In the Light Church, they have three divine regions, and 10 to 13 legendaries, at most.” Barnes gave a detailed analysis.

 “If they summon an angel on a short notice and offer up their bodies as hosts, they could produce at least three to five demigods in no time. In our case, our Abominations alone are equivalent to eight demigods and four divine regions. On top of that, we have us four feudal lords, who are at the peak of the divine region. That’s almost the strength of two Light Churches!” Barnes face was filled with passion.

 When the others heard this, they nodded slightly.

 If they looked at it that way, it was true that they were almost unparalleled in the main plane. They could practically act as they pleased.

 They had this power and their master Lu Sheng, who was unfathomable.