Way of the Devil

Mu Rong felt that her eight decades of life had been wasted.

10 years old… If Lu Sheng had not mentioned this, she would not have remembered that this child before her eyes was only 10 years old.

Mu Rong glanced at the disciples in the pagoda who were gazing at them with stunned expressions. If she had allowed Pang Sicheng to take Tang Qingqing away, she would be insulting the name of the Taiyi Path.

She considered stopping this child, but his force was not much inferior compared to hers. He was almost at the rank of a Martial Emperor. Wait! Martial Emperor!?

The look in Mu Rong's changed. When she returned her gaze to Lu Sheng, she was giving him a different look.

A 10-year-old Martial Emperor? This was impossible!

Although there had been geniuses brimming with natural endowments throughout history where some of them were born with super strength, none of them were as mind-blowing as this.

When she was struggling with her thoughts, Lu Sheng stomped on the ground, which exploded with shattered rocks and scattered sand. The white tiles cracked under his feet and rocks shot everywhere.

Riding on the reaction force, Lu Sheng shot forward, passing Mu Rong in the blink of an eye.

Mu Rong extended a hand to stop him, but when she thought about Pang Yuanjun, her heart shuddered. She did not follow through.

Pang Yuanjun alone was scary enough. Now, he had a son, Pang Sicheng, who was born with super strength…

The Green Dew Altar was like the sun at high noon. It was not a force the other 16 clans could contend with.

Her moment of hesitation gave Lu Sheng the best opportunity. He shot into the distance in the blink of an eye like a great crane which spread its wings. With Tang Qingqing on his shoulder, he swiftly disappeared among the mountain forest.

The people of the Hequan Sect were silent.

Xiao Honglei's jaws were opened wide. As the great senior apprentice sister and the disciple with the most formidable cultivation base, she could understand why the pagoda master had hesitated.

'But, now, how can the Hequan Sect show its face… Perhaps you've made a mistake, Pagoda Master…' she said helplessly in her mind.

Mu Rong stood riveted for a moment. A few Hequan Sect elites landed around her. She snapped back to her senses.

"Send them back. The reason behind today's incident is because Tang Qingqing has yet to sever her ties with the secular world. It does not matter that we let Pang Sicheng go. There is no need to take this to heart, and no need to feel shame."

That was what she said, but the other disciples felt their faces go hot all the same. After all, one of their members had been snatched away right before their very eyes. Moreover, that member was a Martial King elite who was said to be the second greatest elite in the pagoda!

The others could not help but whisper to each other. The Martial Kings who had just arrived looked puzzled. Mu Rong merely gave a soft sigh. She did not regret letting Pang Sicheng go. In this situation, regardless of whether Pang Yuanjun had approved of this or not, keeping Tang Qingqing here would only bring more harm and no good.

***

Lu Sheng carried his charge as he sped through the forest. He stepped on the extended branches and pushed lightly. He shot out as easily as an arrow and covered more than 10 meters with a single leap.

Descending the mountain went smoothly. He was too fast. The others could only see a fleeting shadow when he passed them by.

At the foot of the mountain, a horse carriage was already waiting for him. Lu Sheng had arranged for this beforehand.

He charged into the carriage with a swoosh and closed the door behind him. He tossed an ingot to the chauffeur.

"To Clear Dew City. As quickly as possible!"

"Alrighty." The chauffeur had been dozing off when he was awakened by a shake and slight drop of his carriage. When he came to, there was already an ingot of silver on the wooden armrest before him.

His little heart leapt. Without another word, he took his whip and gave it a loud crack.

"Crack!"

The two healthy steeds neighed and pulled the carriage behind them along.

In the slightly shaking carriage, Lu Sheng carefully laid Tang Qingqing on the mattress he prepared beforehand.

Then, he swiftly produced a set of steel cuffs as thick as an arm and bound Tang Qingqing's hands together behind her back.

Then, he bound her feet with a finger-thick rope previously soaked in oil.

"Ugh…" Tang Qingqing was a Martial King expert, after all. With her cultivation base, she was rightly considered a prominent person in the martial world, one in a million. The flying tree trunk before this merely caught her off guard and she had misjudged its impact force. However, it did not cause her much harm.

She regained her consciousness two minutes after the incident.

"Mother! Mother! Are you alright?" Through her blurry eyes, Tang Qingqing could faintly make out a swaying silhouette.

She forced her mind to focus and immediately recognized that this was her son, Pang Sicheng.

"You…" Her throat felt dry, and her voice was hoarse.

"We're on our way back home." Lu Sheng inspected his knots and found them satisfactory. He jabbed some of Tang Qingqing's meridian points for good measure so that she would not be able to unleash her strength as easily.

Tang Qingqing was silent.

For a time, nobody spoke in the carriage. Tang Qingqing felt as if her brain was a puddle of goo. She could not process the fact that she had been had.

Lu Sheng was not a chatter to begin with. He merely did this to settle the karma.

Although Tang Qingqing did not personally wish to go home and be reunited with her family, Lu Sheng decided that he would bring her person back first, and work on her heart later.

He was sure that she would have feelings for them once they spent some days together.

The wheels of the carriage rumbled as they turned. The horses in front would snort loudly every now and then as their hooves tapped rhythmically on the road.

After a long pause, Tang Qingqing finally regained her sight. She turned to look at Lu Sheng.

"How many men has Pang Yuanjun given you to kidnap me?"

Lu Sheng was dozing off at the side. He was awakened by the question.

"Men? What men? I've run away from home. Nobody knows that I'm gone," Lu Sheng replied casually.

"You've run away from home?" Tang Qingqing could not understand this.

From her viewpoint, the force contained within that tree trunk was equivalent to the Martial Emperor-rank. It had the strength of 100 elephants, at least. That was why she was knocked out on the spot.

She would never believe that he could achieve that amount of force without an elite supporting him.

"Is it Xiao Jinfan? Among the Four Great Martial Emperors of the Green Dew Altar, he's the only one known for his brute strength."

"Are you referring to Uncle Xiao? He's still with father, supporting him in the attacks on the Northern Blade King of Feng Family Villa," Lu Sheng replied casually.

Tang Qingqing did not get the answer which she expected to, and she knew that Lu Sheng would not give her any straight answers. She decided to look up at the ceiling of the carriage with a calm expression.

Lu Sheng did not attempt any conversation, nor did he have any intention to. The two of them spent the rest of the journey in silence.

Until night.

The horse carriage stopped at an inn on the road to rest. Lu Sheng did not even leave the carriage. He ate his meals inside and ordered the waitress of the inn to tend to Tang Qingqing's needs.

Early next morning, the horse carriage continued on its way again.

By noon, they finally arrived at the Clear Dew City, where the altar's branch was located.

Back at the branch, the members and elites were searching everywhere frantically. When they suddenly saw that Lu Sheng was back, though noticing that he looked slimmer, or less fat than he had been, they were more worried about whether he had been injured in his absence.

They were very much surprised to find that Lu Sheng was not only unharmed, he brought another person with him. It was an important person who the branch altar master had met many times, Tang Qingqing.

The main altar master's wife, Tang Qingqing, was said to have left him many years ago. Publicly, she had died. In truth, she was secluding herself to cultivate.

When Lu Sheng handed her over to the servant girls, the older members of the branch immediately recognized Tang Qingqing. They were startled so much they started.

Lu Sheng, however, returned to his quarters, cleaned up, and went to have his meal.

In the few days of his journey, he managed to raise his Straggling Star Path Toad Method to the peak of stage-7. He merely spent more than 2,000 Mental Energy units.

The strength he possessed was now equivalent to 200 elephants, which was the rank of a middle-phase Martial Emperor. This was also the peak of strengthening achievable with the Straggling Star Path Toad Method.

At this stage, this meant that this Marital Emperor cultivation method no longer had any effect on Lu Sheng.

Lu Sheng returned to his courtyard to shower. He stepped out of the shower room and changed into a clean set of clothes.

The night was thick with a slightly cold breeze. The branches above the courtyard's walls swayed with the wind, casting eerie shadows on the walls and floor.

'This crude cultivation method of one's strength is simple and rapid, but does nothing to prolong one's life. No wonder there's no one older than 200 in this world even though its power rank is so high.' A realization dawned on Lu Sheng.

He clapped his hands together.

With a swoosh, a green figure appeared beside him with lightning speed on bent knee.

"Your orders, Young Master?"

"Is my mother safely confined?"

"Uh… we've secured her…" the subordinate replied in a helpless tone. That was the main altar master's wife they were talking about. If they accidentally bumped her onto a piece of furniture, many of them might be losing their heads.

"You must use 10 times the dosage of Aromatic Bone-melting Potion. If that's not enough, replace it with Life-ending Potion. Don't worry, my mother has a solid constitution. If we don't do something about her cultivation base, nobody here can hold her down," Lu Sheng said with emphasis.

"Also, give her the best food and clothes."

"…About the Corpse-making Potion…"

"Don't worry. It's alright if we only use half of it. I'll be away for a while. Take care of things here." Lu Sheng was considering obtaining two more sets of Martial Emperor cultivation methods to cultivate. After a few days of adapting, he began to understand part of the most basic rules. At the very least, his spirit-prompting threads could now nourish him.

"That will be all. You may leave. If the other uncles are here, let me know right away," Lu Sheng said as he waved his hand.

"Understood." The subordinate vanished into the night in the blink of an eye.

Lu Sheng dried his hair with a towel and went into his bedroom. Two young and beautiful maidservants were fidgeting as they waited in the room.

"Good evening, Young Master." The two girls quickly greeted him.

"Get out." Lu Sheng remembered that Pang Sicheng liked to warm his bed with virgins before going to sleep himself. However, he had no such habits.

The two girls hastily grabbed their clothes and ran out of the room in their undergarments.

Lu Sheng closed the door and at down. He began studying the martial path system of this world carefully.

'The Straggling Star Path Toad Method mentioned a concept called the Human Body Stars.'

Although he raised his cultivation base to the Martial Emperor-rank in one go, he had yet to study the martial path system of this world.

'Human Body Stars, that's the core of every cultivation method. The more Stars I unlock, the higher my martial path tier will be, and the greater the might I can unleash. Ordinary Strong Men are only at the level where they're training their bodies. Once their bodies are at their limits and break through those limits, they'll earn the right to unlock the first Star, the All Star, located at the heart.'

Lu Sheng carefully went over the records on the Straggling Star Path Toad Method carefully.