Chapter 102 - Monsters Rise (Part I) (Patreon)

Purple water splashed against Lucian’s boots, burning through them while he ran across the rooftops, avoiding pillars of water and incoming waves. All around, the crimson light cast by the descending drop of blood deepened further, painting everything in darker shades of red.

Since the battle began, the water level had risen. The Purple Qi produced a sea in the Domain of Pride, flooding the streets and broken buildings, making it hard for Lucian to move.

Meanwhile, in the middle of the purple sea, Elder Black Scale stood atop the waters, sweating and breathing heavily, his black robes tattered and scorched by the increasing heat.

From time to time, Lucian glanced toward him, observing the two rings and the strange trinket hanging from the elder’s pouch, all of them radiating Qi and revealing themselves to be artifacts.

“Are you even human, demonic bastard?!” Elder Black Scale roared, waving his hand and sending a pillar of water crashing through the house Lucian had just occupied.

As always, the attack missed. Lucian had already appeared atop another rooftop, preparing himself to evade the next barrage of burning tides.

“You damned body cultivators!” the Elder shouted again, his fake outrage gradually becoming genuine fury.

Throughout the battle, Elder Black Scale had repeatedly baited Lucian into attacking directly, deliberately exposing openings. At first, Lucian had indeed rushed forward aggressively, cornering the elder in the center of the district while purple saltwater flooded the surrounding streets and buildings.

However, after some time, Lucian changed tactics.

Now he merely dodged while maintaining close enough distance to pressure the elder, leaping across rooftops, beams, and shattered walls without fully committing to another exchange.

During the battle, Lucian noticed how the Qi surrounding Elder Black Scale continued diminishing, gradually dispersing into the waters as though fading away. Even so, Lucian's instincts continued screaming warnings at him, while the salty scent in the air only intensified.

He believed Elder Black Scale was deliberately stalling to prepare a stronger technique or final attack.

Just like him.

The Crown’s range is smaller than I calculated, Lucian thought, glancing at the crimson space surrounding them and at the drop of blood suspended within its glowing red sphere.

Although the technique was not functioning exactly as he intended, several streets remained beneath it, and every trace of blood within that area continued spiraling toward the floating drop overhead. Also, the blood drop had slowly descended from its original position high in the sky until it now reached around the height of the city’s tallest pagodas.

And just as Elder Black Scale wanted Lucian trapped within range of his endless tides, geysers, and crashing waves, Lucian likewise wanted the elder to remain inside the crimson domain.

Both clearly recognized the other’s intentions, and both possessed enough confidence in their own strength and preparations to continue.

As Lucian leapt over another collapsing wall, he frowned upon noticing that near the edges of the crimson domain, purple waves were destroying random houses and shops.

Moving swiftly, he enhanced his body further with Blood Essence and shifted the battlefield toward another section, this one filled with sturdier stone buildings.

Watching him relocate, Elder Black Scale sneered inwardly while manipulating the purple sea. For him, the longer the battle lasted, the better. The Purple Qi he wielded did not truly belong to him, but had instead been bestowed by the Core Formation Three-Headed Serpent itself, making it vastly more potent than the ordinary Water Qi or Fire Qi.

And while Elder Black Scale could not determine Lucian’s exact cultivation realm, every attack Lucian unleashed remained within the limits of peak-stage Qi Condensation, never truly reaching Foundation Establishment level.

That fact gave the elder confidence that he could eventually suppress Lucian.

Suddenly, Elder Black Scale smirked. Every building along the perimeter had collapsed, and the streets had become completely submerged beneath the waters. Inwardly, he decided it was time to act.

At that same moment, Lucian flipped over another crashing wave and then somersaulted aside to evade a sudden pillar of purple water.

Then the ground trembled violently.

Sensing the drastic shift in Elder Black Scale’s Qi flow, Lucian focused toward the center of the flooded streets and saw a massive image manifesting behind the elder’s back.

Frowning, Lucian briefly glanced toward the sky, instinctively feeling the timing was not yet right, before preparing himself for the incoming attack.

In seconds, the image behind the Elder stabilized into a gigantic black serpent with three heads. One head possessed burning crimson eyes, another possessed deep blue eyes, and the final one glowed with eerie purple light. The three heads opened their mouths simultaneously in a silent roar while Elder Black Scale shouted toward the heavens.

“Abyssal Sea, Everlasting Upheaval!”

The instant the words echoed out, the entire purple sea became unnaturally still.

And Lucian felt genuine danger to his life.

Gritting his teeth, he made a pulling motion while stepping in the direction of the burning acidic waters, his attention fully locked upon Elder Black Scale.

“Converge,” Lucian muttered.

As he spoke, only a single thorn remained upon the Rune of Pride etched across his forehead.

Then chaos erupted.

Blood exploded downward from the heavens, forming temporary pathways above the waters for Lucian to step upon, and multiple rivers of crimson liquid tracing arcs through the air.

At the same time, gigantic serpent heads rose from the purple sea and lunged toward him, spitting geysers of corrosive water and streams of purple flames.

Despite the enormous quantity of blood surrounding Lucian, it vaporized rapidly beneath the assault, offering almost no lasting protection.

Crimson and purple steam billowed upward, obscuring the battlefield and forcing Elder Black Scale to narrow his eyes and depend on his Qi perception.

Even so, he could still track Lucian through the obvious distortion caused by his Qi deviation, watching as the man zigzagged across the battlefield atop fleeting blood platforms that existed for less than a second before exploding into vapor.

After ten seconds passed, dozens of giant serpents filled the sea, the water level visibly lowering as more and more of the technique manifested.

Seeing Lucian rapidly approaching, Elder Black Scale retreated farther away, maintaining distance between himself, Lucian, and the descending blood drop overhead. In his view, Lucian would eventually be forced to touch the purple waters directly and either burn alive or be corroded away.

To him, victory was truly a matter of time now.

Meanwhile, Lucian found himself in a situation where the smallest mistake would mean a terrible fate. Above the sea of purple water, he sprinted across temporary sheets of blood that solidified beneath his feet for mere instants before erupting into steam. At the same time, he continuously manipulated the surrounding blood to form barriers around himself, intercepting the flames and attacks spewed by the serpents.

Unfortunately, he could not simply charge directly toward Elder Black Scale because more and more serpents manifested in his path, forcing him to alter his route constantly.

Nonetheless, Lucian had already anticipated the difficulty of reaching the elder and prepared multiple curved trajectories in advance.

His biggest real concern was the amount of blood available to him.

Within this environment, the blood could not remain in liquid form forever, and the more blood Lucian used, or allowed to fall into the waters below, the faster it evaporated away.

Time to change plans, he thought.

Commanding his Blood Essence while simultaneously replenishing part of it with the blood descending from the sky, Lucian activated the Rune of Sloth.

Within his left pupil, the image of a half-closed eye formed from three lines shimmered in crimson light, surrounded by a circle of shifting sigils.

Devilish Arts: Boon of Sloth — Body Over Mind

Using blood to surround himself and generate more steam by intercepting the serpents’ flames, Lucian exploded apart.

Then, three bats emerged from the steam.

One flew toward the edge of the domain, while the remaining two darted toward Elder Black Scale along different trajectories.

Meanwhile, the elder was startled after losing his target.

“Did he die?” he wondered aloud, unable to believe it.

After all, the crimson drop of blood remained suspended above the battlefield.

Then, Elder Black Scale spotted a creature illuminated by the crimson light flying directly toward him.

Feeling goosebumps spread across his entire body because of the creature’s complete lack of Qi, he immediately commanded half a dozen purple serpents to intercept it.

Although the bat was incredibly fast, the surroundings had been flooded by the purple sea, and the serpents could travel beneath the waters while fused with them. So, they could strike almost anywhere within seconds.

Without surprise, waves of purple flames scorched the bat.

Growing more alert, Elder Black Scale retrieved a black coin from within his robes and tossed it into the air while channeling Qi into it.

The coin spun rapidly, and sheets of black water splashed outward from it, scattering droplets in every direction through the air.

Remaining tense, Elder Black Scale only relaxed slightly several seconds later when nothing else appeared in his view, and the artifact didn't detect anything.

“There’s no one hidden,” he said, narrowing his eyes. “What was that thing? Some kind of life-saving technique from that demonic bastard?”

After speaking those sentences, he noticed the second bat, which was much closer to him.

While the first bat had flown openly through the sky, the second had traveled silently through the steam and shadows, and Elder Black Scale only noticed it because almost all shadows nearby had been erased by the crimson glow.

Fearing the serpents would not intercept it in time, he immediately poured Qi into the ring on his left hand. Then, a blazing crimson shield materialized before him, solidifying into a wall of fire.

He was not foolish enough to attempt blocking the creature directly with a defensive technique, as even Lucian’s physical strikes had shattered his shields earlier. That's why, as soon as the flaming wall formed, Elder Black Scale thrust it forward.

The technique expanded violently, merging with the purple sea and growing to ten times its original size within moments.

Because of the sheer scale of the flames, the bat could not evade it and dove directly into the purple waters below, trying to escape.

Yet that was insufficient.

The flames fused into the sea, pursuing the bat beneath the surface before completely disintegrating it.

Breathing heavily from the massive Qi expenditure while vigilant against further attacks, Elder Black Scale suddenly noticed something alarming.

The crimson drop of blood was moving.

Immediately channeling Qi into both rings on his hands, he slammed his palms together as the phantom image of the three-headed serpent manifested behind him once more.

“Abyssal Sea, Dreadful Abomination!”

Both rings shone brightly with Qi, and walls of flame merged together with countless swords formed from pale white ice. Despite their opposing properties, the freezing blades and blazing flames did not clash violently against one another, mainly because of the Purple Qi surging upward from the sea below.

Dozens of humanoid liquid arms emerged from the waters and grasped the icy swords, while the crimson flames condensed into an enormous snake-like torso. Next, Purple Qi wrapped around the construct, attaching the liquid arms to the blazing body as Elder Black Scale sent the abomination charging forward.

Spitting blood from the strain, Elder Black Scale fixed his full attention upon the descending blood drop overhead. He was certain that was Lucian’s true trump card. After all, it had already slaughtered thousands of commoners and even killed numerous cultivators!

Elder Black Scale smiled, assured as he, too, used his trump card.

The phantom image behind him surged forward, fusing with the surrounding flames and purple waters as the Dreadful Abomination fully manifested. It looked like a humanoid flaming serpent that floated through the sky while wielding sharpened swords forged from ice and possessing three monstrous purple serpent heads.

Originally, the technique had only reached the quasi-Foundation Establishment realm. However, by forcefully combining the powers of ice and fire through the Purple Qi and using the blessing of the Three-Headed Serpent, the technique was elevated to the early-Foundation Establishment realm.

Although it would not last long because of Elder Black Scale’s weaker cultivation base, he believed it would endure long enough to finish this fight!

Smiling widely while blood leaked from the corners of his mouth and drifted upward toward the crimson sky, he watched the Dreadful Abomination appear above the descending blood drop in the blink of an eye before piercing downward.

Despite its tiny size and liquid form, the drop of blood was split apart into countless fragments, its crimson glow rapidly fading.

“Ahhh!” Elder Black Scale shouted in ecstasy, no longer suppressing his laughter. “I won!”

Then his instincts screamed, and he felt death approaching from behind.

Unable to command the Dreadful Abomination without a target, he vomited another mouthful of blood, controlling Qi to activate a defensive technique.

That was when he noticed something horrifying.

His blood was still floating, but this time towards his back. And, even after destroying the drop of blood, the entire battlefield remained bathed in crimson light.

Before Elder Black Scale could turn around or summon another shield, the blood within his own body slipped beyond his control, bursting outward from his nose, mouth, and eyes simultaneously.

Because of his existing internal injuries and the strain of using a forbidden technique, his Dantian, chakra points, and meridians had been pushed far beyond their limits. He had also been drained of all Purple Qi to summon the powerful abomination.

Which all meant that he could no longer suppress his own blood or seal the openings within his body.

“H-how...” he muttered, painfully turning his head and desperately channeling Qi in an attempt to restrain the escaping blood.

Behind him, above the purple sea, a single bat hovered in the air. 

All the surrounding blood converged toward the tiny creature, entering through its mouth, where a crimson eyeball formed from blood stared directly at Elder Black Scale.

Realizing he had no chance of survival, Elder Black Scale suddenly laughed. He understood that the instant he stopped suppressing his blood to activate another technique, every drop would leave his body.

“Join me in hell, you demonic bastard,” he growled and issued one final command to the Dreadful Abomination. He had a target in his field of vision now.

The moment he did so, his Qi loosened the seal over his blood, causing every remaining drop inside of him to burst and surge into Lucian’s bat form.

At the same instant Elder Black Scale died, the Dreadful Abomination appeared behind the flying bat, dozens of white ice swords aiming toward Lucian’s tiny body.