“Asura!” Lu Yun’s expression tightened when he heard the name. Asura’s reputation was too infamous—he would become the ultimate nightmare in one of the ages to come, the demon of dreams. Who would’ve thought he’d suddenly appear here!

“Legend has it that Asura was born of the Blood Sea, and that the greatest of his lineage can turn wherever he stands into a Blood Sea!” [1]

Based on his knowledge from Zhaoqing, Lu Yun knew Asura as one of the most frightening beings before Emperors Fall. He was most likely the entity that Ge Long had quartered and buried inside the four evil coffins.

“Luo Houluo is the greatest demon of the great wilderness and Darkriver is the master of the Blood Sea… No wonder, no wonder!” Lu Yun murmured to himself as he watched the newly born Asura exult in his might.

……

“Asura has emerged in the world!” At the foot of Mount Buzhou, Wahuang stood up and looked to the East Sea. “His birth means the doomsday of connate demon gods. Everything is in readiness, now we lack only Fuxi.”

……

Asura raged over the East Sea, lit with flames the color of blood that morphed into bloody shadows to dive at Lu Yun. His killing intent was pure and domineering—there was no other thought in his mind other than to kill, kill, kill!

His conviction was a faith that Lie Shan would die at his hands.

With Asura as the center, the great ocean beneath his feet turned into a Blood Sea that contained his great dao. Bloody rain also drifted from the skies, collecting and shifting direction toward Lu Yun as sheets of keen razor-blades.

In response, the shadowy image of the Sal Tree of Life and Death appeared in the void, marking an explosion of hellfire that clashed with the bloody ocean. As the two terrifying seas rammed each other on the ground and in the air, so did Lu Yun and Asura throw themselves at each other.

Lu Yun hadn’t really summoned the Sea of Hellfire. Though hellfire blazed furiously around him, it was just external leakage from the real Sea of Hellfire that the Sal Tree had summoned to the East Sea.

At the same time, Asura hadn’t really created a Blood Sea either. His great dao had just taken the form of the Blood Sea and carried its will within.

Trembling from the ferocious impact between the two combatants, the East Sea agitated and frothed into tempestuous waves. Everything that lived in its waters fled in all directions, not daring to come within five hundred thousand kilometers of the epicenter of doom.

In the Mu nation, Goumang’s expression darkened ominously and he approached the Builder Tree, calling upon it to protect his kingdom and everything within fifty thousand kilometers of it.

“I couldn’t let loose last time because Nuanzi didn’t dare fight to the death and Dijiang ambushed me instead. But since you’re here today, let me see just how my battle strength measures up to the true peak experts of the great wilderness!” Lu Yun roared.

Whoooosh.

A long streak of black flame burst from his body and surged into the bow in his hands. What had been a jade-green longbow suddenly blackened from the ignition of hellfire on it. And then… it transformed in a streak of light into a set of black armor on Lu Yun’s body!

“Rearbow is one of the great peerless-grade connate treasures in the world, one that can kill suncrow spirits corrupted by realm monsters. What it has displayed thus far can’t be all that it can do, but I never thought it possessed a second form!” When the armor settled down on him, Lu Yun felt a terrifying strength surge into his body. Combined with the support of hellfire, he suddenly felt that he could punch straight through the heavens.

“Hahaha—c’mon Asura, let’s fight!” Lu Yun roared, charging toward his opponent in a long tail of flame.

Asura’s replicas now dotted in the sky as a hundred million bloody shadows. No one could discern where his true self was. However, that didn’t concern Lu Yun at all; he covered all of the shadows with the span of a single blow.

Boooooom.

One punch blasted all shadowy forms apart and reduced them to a bloody mist in the sky. His second punch drew hellfire into his body and projected it as a huge fist, blasting savagely into the Blood Sea. That punch possessed the strength to destroy the world!

Lu Yun punched straight through the Blood Sea from that one move. The skies darkened and the sun dimmed; the center of the world seemed to be wherever he stood.

“Hahahaha—Asura, stop playing dead. Come out and fight!” Black flames replacing his eyes, the black armor on Lu Yun’s body sharpened into focus and became one with his skin.

In this moment, he finally understood what an ultimate peerless-grade connate treasure meant to a chaos realm expert. Such power, such dominance! No wonder Dijiang had set aside all concerns for face and gone after the Bell of Chaos!

Rumble.

The Blood Sea gushed back to life as a pillar of ghastly-white flame erupted out of it and made for the horizon. A giant skeletal beast with three pairs of wings on its back, two horns on its head, and wielding a black bident stormed out of the stark-white fire.[2]

A body of Hadal Bones, the trump card of the Venerated Sacrosanct Demon Sovereign!

However, this version was plainly a hundred million times stronger than the demon sovereign. Hadal Bonefire blazed on it in a crazed inferno; even the Blood Sea and hellfire in the air showed signs of freezing over.

“Lie Shan!” Asura roared, flinging his bident through the air to nail down Lu Yun. At the same time, his ponderous body lifted off in a spray of fiery sparks and shot at Lu Yun from another direction.

Despite the murderous glints of the two points bearing down on him, Lu Yun stared calmly back at the weapon and answered back with a fiery punch.

The bident that would spell inevitable doom for any other demon god shuddered from the force of a human’s punch and… fell into the ocean as a hunk of scrap metal. At almost the same time, Lu Yun twisted around at an impossible angle and kicked out with his foot, connecting solidly with the bony body’s waist.

Craaaaack crack crack.

The indestructibly sturdy skeleton broke apart in two and flew off in opposite directions!

……

“This strength is incredible!” Up in the void, Nuanzi scanned Lu Yun with significant shock. Last time he faced off against the human, the youth had also summoned the Sea of Hellfire, but his battle strength hadn’t been anywhere near as exceptional as what he was displaying now!

“It’s Rearbow!” Dijiang manifested a replica beside Nuanzi. “I hadn’t known that Rearbow was this astounding, it’s second only to the Bell of Chaos! …in that case, I should’ve paid a visit to the sun star and taken the bow from Xihe when I could.”

“Hmph!” Nuanzi snorted when he saw the other demon god and ignored him.

He’d just acknowledged Lie Shan and the human race in front of all the experts in the great wilderness when Dijiang ambushed Lie Shan and Tushan in broad daylight. That had been a slap straight to his face!

But now that Dijiang possessed the Bell of Chaos, his strength was almost on par with Taiyi and Leize’s. Nuanzi didn’t dare overtly express his displeasure, but wouldn’t cower before Dijiang just because of that. He was one of the oldest experts of the great wilderness!

“It’s not just Rearbow.” A being sparkling with golden luminescence materialized out of the void—a connate demon god who looked rather weird. He looked a bit like the humans did, but long white fur covered his body. He had four limbs like a tiger’s and stood on the backs of two dragons.

Rushou!

The ruler of the Jin nation to the west!

“Lie Shan’s battle techniques aren’t something that we can measure up to!” Rushou’s pale-golden eyes sent out sparkling beams that were three meters long as he sized up the human. “He’s less than Asura in terms of absolute strength, but could snap Asura’s body in two with one kick due to the frightful might of his battle techniques. Even we would be the losing side if we faced off against him.”

Connate demon gods venerated strength; the great daos and various combat arts they possessed centered around strength as well. It was thus a very uncomfortable feeling to see Lie Shan defeat one of their own through ingenuity instead of strength.

It wasn’t that they disliked this display of skill, but that they felt an innate rejection of something new. Nuanzi felt the same way, despite having given his approval of the youth.

……

Asura’s skeletal body swiftly regathered above the East Sea and his hideous wounds quickly healed. However, his presence was a touch weaker than before.

“Again!” Lu Yun roared, his body flashing to Asura in a blaze of black flame. This time, he punched out at the demon god’s head.

“AhhhhHHHHHH!!” Asura shrieked, beckoning his hand to summon two murderous swords from an unknown location. They instantly landed in his palms—the two connate swords that’d once belonged to Darkriver. They had been the basis on which he’d conquered the netherdark and called himself the patriarch of it all.

With those two weapons in hand, Asura’s strength skyrocketed thirty percent greater. The Blood Sea hovering over the East Sea shifted into light form, shooting toward Lu Yun as streaks of deadly radiance.

Behind Lu Yun, the Sal Tree of Life and Death slowly became more substantial, like it’d truly arrived on the scene. Refusing to give a single inch, he grasped at thin air and materialized the bow that’d turned into his battle armor. It appeared as a black bow made of light and landed in Lu Yun’s hand.

A black arrow of flaming hellfire was already notched on its strings, and it twanged three times in quick succession, arcing three arrows through the sky with one in front.

Asura’s skeletal figure waved the two swords in midair, slashing out with streaks of bloody light and smashing the arrows to pierces. But before he could pivot into another move, another three flaming black arrows broke through the air and made for his body.

“So fast!” Asura gasped; the new attack had arrived when he was still finishing his earlier swings.

Donk!

Donk!

Donk!

Craaaack!

The three arrows pierced him through in the next breath.

1. Asuras are a class of beings in Indian religions described as power-seeking clans related to the more benevolent Devas in Hinduism. In its Buddhist context, the word is sometimes translated "titan", "demigod", or "antigod". Asuras are described in Indian texts as powerful superhuman demigods with good or bad qualities.

2. I literally googled “trident with two prongs”, and it’s literally “bident”. Lol.