Chapter 643: Skill: Forbidden Black Lotus

The black lotuses instantly expanded, covering nearly a thousand kilometers. Forbidden Runes flowed across their surfaces—marks stripped from the skeletal remains of powerful beings who had perished from ancient times to the present!

Ancient Fiend Skill: Forbidden Black Lotus!

What Annihilation Heaven hadn’t expected was that his opponent’s reaction speed could actually match his own surprise attack!

The instant before the black lotuses closed, Shi Ming vanished. Taking the thorns and roses on his body with him, he teleported outside the lotuses’ range, reaching a safe area!

Annihilation Heaven’s opening killing move had missed.

What a joke…

Ever since he decided to go for the big score and activated his devour mode, Shi Ming had been prepared for things to turn ugly, always on guard against a sudden move. He wasn’t the least bit surprised by the ambush. The moment he sensed a fluctuation in Annihilation Heaven’s power, he had instantly vanished, relying on the power of [Void] to retreat to safety.

But he found that Annihilation Heaven’s reaction was even more extreme than he’d imagined.

Instantly, they had entered a state of absolute, irreversible hostility.

This reaction didn’t seem like anger over having his power devoured and stolen. It was more like he had perceived the real truth hidden far beneath the surface, realizing that the being before him was a fake Ancient Fiend—the mastermind seizing their power, an enemy to be fought to the death.

This rendered the rebuttals Shi Ming had prepared useless.

‘How did he find out?’

‘How was I exposed?’

The pressure from a complete Ancient Fiend left Shi Ming little room to think. Thorns formed a suit of dark green, barbed armor over his body. His voice was self-possessed, completely lacking the reverence a low-level aberrant species would have for a high-level aberrant king.

“Annihilation Heaven, what is the meaning of this?”

“Is this your so-called ‘help’? Ambushing me right as I’m about to succeed, all to seize my Origin Power?”

“This forces me to suspect that the Flower of Vile Thoughts fell to the same kind of ambush, and you then shifted the blame onto the creatures of the Star Sea to lower my guard!”

The guilty party strikes first.

Annihilation Heaven floated above the black lotus, which slowly began to bloom once more after having closed.

“Inferior star beast.”

“Star beast” was the aberrant species’ collective term for the creatures of the Star Sea.

If looks could kill, Shi Ming would have died ten thousand times over. The newly reborn Annihilation Heaven had left the Sea of Chaos full of ambition, only to be duped by a cunning star beast as his very first act. The resulting fury far surpassed the sum of his anger over the past hundred thousand years.

“To impersonate my race! Die!”

…

…

…

‘Just as I thought. He saw through my disguise.’

‘Was it the Colorful Insect?’

Shi Ming had always been wary of the former Ancient Fiend. Although it was suppressed and feigned allegiance to him, its mind was always active, constantly searching for an opportunity. That was why, before launching his plan, he had placed the insect under the tightest surveillance and lockdown.

‘But I’m not a real Ancient Fiend, after all.’

It was impossible for him to guard against the special connections between aberrant species without any possible oversight. What’s more, this place was the Colorful Insect’s original lair.

There are no impenetrable secrets in the Star Sea.

The fact that he’d managed to keep the deception going this long had already exceeded his initial estimates. He had even reaped some unexpected rewards: Paradise Heaven and Annihilation Heaven had split up, and he himself had devoured a portion of Annihilation Heaven’s Origin Power. With the balance of power shifting in his favor, Shi Ming had no fear of a one-on-one confrontation, even though his opponent was a complete Ancient Fiend.

And, quite obviously,

at this moment, Annihilation Heaven’s mind was clouded by rage and bloodlust.

If it were Shi Ming in his position, he would have played along, continuing the charade until Paradise Heaven returned, then settling the score with a two-on-one advantage. But the Ancient Fiends were amalgamations of negative emotions, filled with chaos and brutality. Expecting them to remain rational was asking the impossible.

Shi Ming was under no obligation to teach him that lesson.

Annihilation Heaven let out a low roar.

“Explode!”

Atop the black lotuses, the forbidden inscriptions lit up. They linked together and then detonated across the ancestral land of the Star Spirit Race, shattering into an uncountable number of fragments. The complete Ancient Fiend skill, [Forbidden Black Lotus], was unleashed with its full power.

Shi Ming felt as if every fragment of the black lotuses was the soul or heroic spirit of someone who had died in a past slaughter. They assembled into an army as vast as an ocean formed from grains of sand, surging toward him on the shockwaves of the explosion.

War, slaughter!

A complete Ancient Fiend… truly terrifying!

Amidst the endless torrent of slaughter, he stood unshaken, a pillar in the midst of a raging sea, largely unaffected. He had used the numbered skill [Time] to briefly place himself on a different timeline, thereby insulating himself from the current attack.

But [Time] alone could not counter the [Forbidden Black Lotus].

The power of an Ancient Fiend was greater than Nirvana but less than a god.

He would have to use other means.

…

…

…

As the black lotuses erupted, they formed a black tide that swept over everything.

Out in the Star Sea, this black tide would have had no problem engulfing and destroying an advanced civilization. But the current ancestral land of the Star Spirit Race was like a desolate eggshell; aside from those illusory bubbles, there was nothing worth slaughtering.

Annihilation Heaven sensed that the star beast’s aura before him had vanished.

He knew, in truth, that his best strategy would be to wait for Paradise Heaven to return.

But the King of Slaughter had his pride. To deal with a star beast that had deceived him, he had to wash away this humiliation with blood, and he had to do it himself!

Slaughter was the most efficient way to solve problems.

The tide of black lotuses receded.

A three-hundred-meter-tall, ice-cold mecha appeared in Annihilation Heaven’s field of vision. It was clearly a creation of a Star Sea Civilization, not a biological entity. Yet every inch of it radiated an unyielding resilience and a pressure no less than his own. Every detail carried an air of indifference and pride, as if this cold machine were even nobler than an Ancient Fiend.

This was another one of Shi Ming’s trump cards.

The Apocalypse Divine Artifact.

The Apocalypse Divine Artifact was not originally created as a reward from the gods to motivate their subordinates. The Star Sea needed stability, and a divine artifact capable of annihilating any Nirvana-level being would undoubtedly shatter that stability and cause endless conflict. The true purpose behind the Apocalypse Divine Artifact’s creation was to counter the aberrant species from the future. For this reason, the gods set an astronomically high exchange price for it. Only when fate and reality converged could it possibly be acquired to fulfill its destiny.

At this moment, the twelve-winged divine artifact stood proudly, holding a greatsword in its hand that seemed to be forged from pure Spiritual Power.

Its destined moment had arrived.

A voice emanated from within it—a synthesized, emotionless tone, carrying only a cold, electronic quality.

“Thank you for your gifts these past two months. But I’ve never been one to be easily satisfied, especially when it comes to my enemies.”

“A complete Ancient Fiend?”

“Let’s see what you’re really made of!”