Chapter 604: Main Text 604. Alienated Immortal, Demonic Fire (6)

Book 604. Alienated Immortality, the Fiery Essence of Demonic Nature (6)

Soul-consciousness logs in from a foreign locus. Lin

Lu Sheng awakens within another body.

“Huuu—”

Lu Sheng exhales slowly, expelling a thick breath, swiftly acclimating himself to this new vessel—forged entirely from alienated cells.

Compared to his last descent, the alienated avatar’s power has surged yet again.

“Twelfth-tier peak—nearly on the cusp of breaking into Thirteenth!”

Lu Sheng senses the terrifying might coiled within this form, and a complex tide of emotion stirs in his chest.

It was utterly absurd.

Out there, he labored ceaselessly, never pausing his cultivation—even for a moment—and had only just barely stepped into Twelfth Tier. Thirteenth still felt impossibly distant, like a horizon receding with every stride.

Yet this avatar? It lay idle, doing nothing but lounging—and yet its strength shot upward like a comet, hurtling toward Thirteenth Tier with alarming speed.

Truly, comparison between men could kill.

Since Lu Sheng’s last visit, the alienated avatar’s body had grown vastly larger—though its fundamental shape remained largely unchanged: still that colossal black clamshell.

Lu Sheng now resided at the very core of that shell. Around him, grotesque, twisted organs sprawled in chaotic profusion—distorted eyeballs, writhing tentacles, jagged teeth—all pulsing with unnatural life. The sight was deeply unsettling, even repulsive; Lu Sheng himself felt a flicker of revulsion toward his own creation.

Had it not been possible to generate a partial humanoid form, he’d likely have refused to “log in” to this secondary identity altogether.

With a thought, Lu Sheng commanded the clamshell before him to open—slowly, deliberately.

To his surprise, what unfolded before his eyes was not the abyssal depths of the Bottomless Sea of Azure Star.

Instead—a world wholly unknown.

This realm possessed no sun. Its sky churned in chaos and murk, a swirling maelstrom of black, ink-green, and deep crimson hues—like clotted, viscous pus drifting through the heavens.

Every inch of space reeked of disorder, entropy, malice, ruin, and annihilation.

Suddenly, clarity struck Lu Sheng like lightning.

“This is… the Shadowside Universe!”

His spirit trembled faintly.

The Shadowside Universe—the entity that had devoured countless cosmoses, hunted infinite multiverses as prey, and stood as his ultimate adversary.

And now, he stood within it, flesh and soul.

Lu Sheng surveyed his surroundings. He found himself upon an endless expanse of land—vast, desolate, and alive.

The ground writhed with blood-red tentacles, dense and countless, lashing wildly into the air, sometimes shrieking with piercing, ear-splitting cries.

From Lu Sheng’s vantage, the entire terrain resembled a gargantuan crimson carpet—alive, throbbing, monstrous.

A defining trait of the Shadowside Universe: revulsion.

“Ah… right. With near-Thirteenth-tier power, my size has swelled beyond containment. The tiny abyss beneath Azure Star can no longer hold me.”

“Was *It* who brought me here?”

The “It” he referred to was, naturally, the entity of the Shadowside Universe—the one that had nurtured his alienated avatar with tireless devotion, raising it from infancy to its current state.

“The invasion of the Celestial Serpent System, launched via Azure Star as a foothold, was spearheaded by a Fifteenth-Tier Lord of the Shadowside Universe. As a subordinate of such a lord, *It* must be Fourteenth-Tier.”

Lu Sheng reasoned.

After his battle with the Sovereign of Oblivion, he had glimpsed the raw power of a Fourteenth-Tier being. His perception of *It* had shifted—no longer shrouded in absolute mystery or unreachable awe. The fear that once gripped him had greatly diminished, and his control over the alienated avatar grew increasingly relaxed, natural—no longer trembling with dread of exposure, as in those earliest days.

“So… does *It* expect me to ascend to Thirteenth Tier *within* this world?”

Lu Sheng sifted through residual data embedded within the avatar’s consciousness, piecing together the circumstances of his arrival.

“Then let us see.”

The alienated avatar was merely a “spare move” in Lu Sheng’s grand strategy—whatever path it took, the outcome could only benefit him. Even if it strayed, faltered, or collapsed entirely, he would feel no loss.

Thus, the avatar’s ascension to Thirteenth Tier carried no psychological weight for him. Let it break through—or not. He cared little for the final form it might assume.

“To reach Thirteenth Tier—the rank of General—in the Shadowside Universe, one must still grasp the essence of Law.”

“What kind of Law, then, might this avatar comprehend?”

After a brief contemplation, Lu Sheng swiftly pinpointed the path forward: continue delving into the Dao of Shadowfire—pursue the Way of the Shadowside Stars.

“Of course, the first step remains the same: accumulate energy. One must feast before one can transcend.”

Combat. Consumption.

These were the eternal themes of the Shadowside Universe—laws so deeply etched into the avatar’s genetic code that they had become primal instinct.

Lu Sheng loosened his grip slightly—and instantly, his consciousness was drowned beneath a tidal wave of ravenous hunger.

Eat! Eat! Eat!

Upon the crimson carpet, beneath the colossal black clamshell, countless massive tentacles erupted—propelling the shell forward at blinding speed, surging across the wasteland like a devouring storm.

During this process, Lu Sheng managed to glimpse the visages of the native creatures inhabiting this world.

They were largely identical to the exotic beasts that had invaded the starry sky of his original universe, all possessing bizarre, sickening, and terrifying countenances.

Of course, Lu Sheng’s current appearance was far worse than theirs.

Countless thick, long tentacles extended from within the black clam shell, plundering everything they encountered along the way.

Refusing nothing, they stuffed everything into the clam shell to be chewed and swallowed.

Lu Sheng allowed his mutated clone to exercise free rein along its path of savage growth.

He, meanwhile, remained in the center of the clam shell, helping to smooth out the dark-side stellar path that the mutated clone had comprehended on its own.

This step was actually not complicated; he only needed to mimic the developmental direction of his main body, drawing a gourd according to the model.

"Corresponding to immortal cells, continuously evolving individual mutated cells!

From now on, let us call them mutated immortal cells."

In fact, the number of mutated immortal cells within the mutated clone’s body was not small, already approaching thirty million.

Although the quality of a single cell could not compare with the immortal cells of his main body, the quantity was truly vast.

When Lu Sheng was absent, this fellow had indeed not been lazy in the slightest.

"No wonder it comprehended the dark-side stellar path, yet after grasping the protostar state, it has been unable to enter the main sequence star state.

It turns out all the energy was used to expand the base number."

.....Begging for flowers.........

A clone was a clone after all, and its cultivation could only be driven by a sliver of vague instinct; things that were too complex became impossible for it to understand.

Lu Sheng felt that if he had not "logged in."

The mutated clone would likely have piled the number of mutated immortal cells in its body to an unbearable limit before it ever thought to continue upgrading the quality of a single mutated immortal cell.

Thereby entering the main sequence star state.

Now that he had arrived, he could greatly advance this step.

Lu Sheng immediately began to control the energy that was continuously being swallowed into his body, stopping it from flowing to the lower levels to generate more mutated immortal cells.

Instead, he redirected it to nurture the mutated immortal cells that already existed.

Vast amounts of energy surged into a single mutated immortal cell.

This mutated immortal cell immediately began a frantic metamorphosis and evolution.

At a speed visible to the naked eye, the entire cell slowly emitted a dark purple glow.

It was as if an extra dark purple sun had appeared inside the body!

"Huu——"

When the metamorphosis and evolution reached a certain extreme, a wisp of dark purple flame suddenly rose from this mutated immortal cell.

…

"Success!"

Lu Sheng’s eyes flashed slightly, knowing that this first step had been smoothly taken.

Looking at that eerie purple flame, Lu Sheng muttered to himself: "Corresponding to the divine fire of immortal cells, that which is ignited upon a mutated immortal cell... let it be called the demonic fire."

This just so happened to echo the name of the "Demon-Summoning Scripture," the primary cultivation technique Lu Sheng had previously chosen for the mutated clone.

With the generation of the first mutated immortal cell to ignite the demonic fire, the subsequent second, third, fourth...

One hundredth, one thousandth, ten thousandth...

Became far smoother.

Upon the boundless continent of the crimson blanket.

At the center of the giant black clam shell, a handsome, strange young man with long black hair and dark purple eyes sat quietly, his entire lower body connected to the clam shell, his expression appearing quite focused.

Around him, dark purple flames gradually began to birth.

These dark purple flames were few at first, only a few wisps.

With the passage of time, however, they grew brighter and brighter, fiercer and fiercer.

In the end, they nearly spread throughout the entirety of the black clam shell.

In the places covered by the dark purple flames, large chunks of flesh and organs began to fall off the black clam shell with a clattering sound.

The entire structure began to shrink rapidly.

Yet the aura emanating from its body soared crazily at a terrifying speed, becoming increasingly horrific.

This was like a process of discarding the dross and retaining the essence.

And the black clam shell seemed to become even hungrier, even more frenzied.

At a certain moment, the countless tentacles inside the clam shell all fell off at once, and then eight new black tentacles grew out, swiftly extending in all directions.

To capture more powerful prey from greater distances.

Each of these eight newborn tentacles was far more powerful than the old tentacles before them.

The tentacles were also covered with countless intricate, strange dark purple patterns; if one discerned them carefully, they would think those were eyes.

Or perhaps...

Turn after turn of twisted, deformed sun totems!

Begging for flowers and review tickets!!!! Mwah.

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