“Ao Kun, meet your end!” Dustin’s sword pointed straight ahead, his voice cold as ice.
Xuan Chengzi raised his whisk, and the Taiji diagram slowly pressed downward.
The child cracked his knuckles, eager to strike.
But just when everyone thought the battle was decided, Ao Kun’s expression twisted into something grotesque — a grin laced with madness, cruelty, and grim resolve.
“Meet my end? By the likes of you?”
Ao Kun laughed hoarsely. His gaze swept across the sealed and fallen figures of Houtu, Xuanming, and Qingmu. A flash of naked greed and merciless intent gleamed in his eyes.
“To force me to use this art… you should indeed feel honored.”
Before anyone could react, he spread his arms wide and began chanting a dark, ancient incantation — words that seemed to crawl out from the depths of the Nine Hells.
As the chant echoed, the gold and platinum light around him darkened into pure black. A sinister aura — purer, fouler, and more oppressive than any dragon’s malice — erupted like a slumbering demon awakening after ten thousand years.
“In my name, I offer the kin as sacrifice! Devour the soul, return to the source — Demon Dragon, descend!”
Boom!
Three beams of black light, each ending in a distorted dragon’s head, burst from Ao Kun’s body like chains from hell, shooting across the hall to strike Houtu, Xuanming, and Qingmu.
“No—!!”
Within the golden cocoon that sealed Houtu, a silent but soul-shaking scream tore through the air.
Xuanming’s rigid body trembled violently, the frozen look on his face twisting into pure agony and regret.
Qingmu’s eyes flew open in the pool of his own blood, a scream erupting from his throat that didn’t even sound human.
Then came a scene that made every heart stop.
The three of them began to shrivel, their bodies collapsing like punctured bladders. In the span of seconds, their life essence, soul energy, and even the dragon power within their blood were drawn out through those black beams, flooding madly into Ao Kun.
Houtu’s breathtakingly beautiful face withered into a leathery skull.
Xuanming’s graceful body became little more than skin over bone.
Qingmu’s muscular frame shrank into a dry husk.
In the blink of an eye, the three mighty guardians had been drained into horrifying mummified corpses.
Their eyes went dark — no life, no soul, only empty, endless death.
As Ao Kun devoured their power, his own body began to twist and distort.
His already massive frame swelled again, bursting through his tattered robes. His skin darkened, covered in a layer of black, metallic dragon scales that glimmered with a cold, ghostly light.
His hands became monstrous claws, sharp and deadly.
Two bulges rose from his forehead — dragon horns struggling to emerge.
Then, with a tearing sound, a pair of huge, tattered dragon wings erupted from his back, webbed with black flesh membranes.
His face warped beyond recognition — neither man nor dragon — fanged jaws gaping wide, eyes burning into vertical slits of crimson flame filled with madness and destruction.
A surge of demonic energy exploded outward, mingling with the unstable dragon powers he had forcibly absorbed. The black storm it created roared through the ruins of the Immortal Palace, devouring all light.
The shattered Penglai Palace groaned under the weight of his transformation, ready to collapse completely.
Ao Kun had done the unthinkable — devouring his own comrades to become a half-dragon, half-demon monstrosity.
“Rooooar!!”
A dragon’s roar — no, a demon’s — shook all of Penglai Island.
The shockwave turned the remaining palace ruins into dust.
Dustin, Xuan Chengzi, and the child turned pale. The sheer evil power radiating from Ao Kun now was far beyond what they had faced before, shaking even their souls.
The demonic Ao Kun stood in the heart of a howling black storm, his magic mixed with chaotic dragon energies that tore through space itself.
Stone shattered into powder; even the air screamed as it warped under his power.
He threw back his head and let out a roar that was neither human nor dragon. The crimson slits of his eyes locked onto Dustin, Xuan Chengzi, and the child — eyes filled with nothing but pure, destructive hunger.
“Insects… become the nourishment for my ascension to the Supreme Demon Path!”
Ao Kun moved.
He didn’t even bother with spells — one simple swipe of his claw was enough.
That black-scaled talon ripped through the void itself, five dark gashes of distorted space sweeping forward like the scythes of Death.
Where they passed, all life withered — and even the spiritual energy of heaven and earth was annihilated. - Marinien
Comments