"The sea breeze feels so good," Nether Mist murmured. "Who knew Hell's environment was so livable?"
He stood atop the sea, thoroughly drenched. Clammy strands of hair clung to his cheeks and neck, and his sodden shirt traced the exquisite curves of his waist and abdomen like a beauty fresh from the bath. Never had anyone embodied such an aesthetic fusion of masculine firmness and feminine grace—like a work of art crafted jointly by gods and demons, a disastrous allure born to bewitch all living beings.
The ocean beneath him had already been dyed a deep, dark red. Corpses floated upon the water; these Forgotten Ones, stripped even of their names, were once again stripped of their qualification to exist.
Yet the dead made up only a tiny fraction of the enemy. Far more of the Forgotten Ones drifted through the air and the ocean tides, and in the distance, even more white froth was rapidly multiplying and congealing.
The Forgotten Ones were not mere slaughter weapons reduced to blind foolishness. They had truly returned to their former prime, battle intellect included... They realized that piecemeal attrition tactics were entirely pointless against Nether Mist. Standing before them was no longer a stray dog scurrying away with its head tucked between its paws, but an immortal fiend that had crawled up from apocalyptic hell.
If before had been a hunt, then now was true war. They possessed world-destroying violence, but their opponent was violence itself.
Nether Mist tilted his head, his neck emitting a crisp pop.
He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, taking inventory of the power at his disposal. "Tier-one hell wings, the Soul Kingdom of Heaven, only this pathetic handful of sorcery spirits, barely a few wonders, and soul attunement is only at twenty-five percent. Facing thousands of demigods, this really is..."
Nether Mist narrowed his eyes slightly and gave a listless shrug. "Boring."
Orbs of souls flew up from the sea. Nether Mist clapped his hands together, compressing them into ghostly blue pigment. Scooping some up with his fingertips, he lightly daubed it across the corners of his eyes, then tore open his shirt and smeared the blue pigment across his chest, abdomen, and arms, tracing an eerie, unfathomable, arcane rune across his skin.
"The skin feels amazing to the touch... No wonder Mirror Demon likes that fellow so much."
A blush rose on Nether Mist's face as he murmured, "No, I can't let Vichy have all the fun. After messing with Vichy, I'll switch over and use Vichy's body to mess with Yaxiu... Although I didn't take swapping consciousnesses into account back then, tweaking the Ruby Chains should make that possible..."
*Clang!*
A light piercing heaven and earth instantly submerged Nether Mist's silhouette, vaporizing thousands of tons of seawater beneath him, yet within the radiant pillar of light, a strange darkness emerged. This was a composite beam forged through seamless coordination by over seven hundred demigods, causing space itself to collapse until the light was swallowed inward, forming a black hole.
Never since its inception had the Second Hell shone so brightly—though never since its inception had seven hundred people existed here simultaneously. The pillar of light lasted a full ten seconds, resembling both a scorching spear bent on pinning a sinner deep beneath the sea and a purgatory of fate destined to incinerate a lowly ant to ashes!
The intense pillar of light suddenly waned, and the deep sea bloomed once more with dense, vibrant crimson. The sinner had fled the beam and was waging slaughter in the ocean depths!
Hundreds and thousands of ice curse sorcerers unleashed their wonders at once. A violent blizzard swept across the sea, freezing the entire expanse into stillness until even the surging waves turned into exquisite ice crystal sculptures!
*Crack!* Bare-chested, Nether Mist burst through the ice with wild laughter. His enchanting, maniacal cackle shook the very minds of the Forgotten Ones. Coiled all around him were countless wailing, weeping ghosts, draped over him like a heavy suit of armor. He was a thousand legions, ten thousand steeds—he was the embodiment of terror!
Without needing any sorcery spirits, merely by painting specific runes upon his body with soul pigment, Nether Mist could gather ghosts to form defensive armor. Just like a body sorcerer's "Divine Might" and an archery sorcerer's "Divine Prison," sorcerers who specialized in distinct sorcery arts would master miracles that could be triggered without sorcery spirits.
The closest Forgotten One swooped down with a roar like a hammer of judgment, seeking to punish the sinner who had broken free from the ice.
A cruel smile curved on Nether Mist's lips. He clapped his hands, and the "Soul Shriek Sonic Wave" erupted and compressed from both sides like two invisible giant hands, squashing the body sorcery demigod into bloody mush like a fly. Then, with a casual grasp, Nether Mist snatched a silent soul from the bloody slurry.
Smiling, he kneaded the soul forcefully. The soul was torn apart bit by bit in his grip yet held back from dispersing entirely. Finally, intense agony completely shattered the boundaries of reason, and the soul let out a hoarse, shrill wail before merging into Nether Mist's Ghost Armor.
While Nether Mist tormented the soul, the other Forgotten Ones had already unleashed another world-ending cataclysm. Tens of millions of tons of seawater completely defied gravity, surging upward from below like an avalanche and tsunami crashing toward Nether Mist. Apocalyptic wind, fire, lightning, and light showered down as densely as torrential rain. Looking out, killing intent was laid bare everywhere between sky and sea.
*How nostalgic... this life of making an enemy of the entire world.*
Mist welled in Nether Mist's eyes, and he was so moved he could almost cry. Even the urge to go back and play with Vichy was temporarily suppressed. Right now, he wanted to reminisce about his bygone youth, to savor once again...
The sensation of trampling everything in sight into mud!
The wonder "Refraction Guard" blended seamlessly with the "Ghost Armor" Nether Mist had woven offhandedly. Now, Refraction Guard was no longer limited to nullifying a single attack; instead, it could negate all damage for a set duration, during which all damage was converted into agony inflicted a thousandfold upon the ghosts on the armor. Only when the ghosts were tortured and ground down until they melted would a charge of Refraction be consumed.
Nether Mist swept recklessly through the storm of wonders like a dusky-blue petrel. When his consciousness swept across the Soul Kingdom of Heaven, every sorcery spirit trembled and prostrated on the ground. The Substitute sorcery spirit even shielded key sorcery spirits like Heart Sword, praying not to catch Nether Mist's notice.
"Soul Reflection, Soul Shriek Sonic Wave, Soul Pressure, hmph..."
Nether Mist wore a look of utter disgust. The superior wonders relied upon by demigod organizations were worse than trash in his eyes. "There are still quite a few key sorcery spirits for Demon Form left... I suppose they'll have to do."
With a shift of Nether Mist's mind, a new wonder was erected within the Soul Kingdom of Heaven at an inconceivable speed. One had to understand that if any single node of a wonder became unbalanced, it would collapse instantly. Even with detailed wonder sorcery procedures, it typically required dozens of failures before one could be successfully constructed; to build a wonder from scratch, the construction time was measured in years.
Yet using a heap of sorcery spirits he was seeing for the very first time, Nether Mist casually threw together a brand-new superior wonder involving hundreds of sorcery spirits within the Soul Kingdom of Heaven, as easily as playing with mud. The new wonder looked like the statue of a woman nailed to a stake. Her appearance was not hideous; rather, she possessed a pitiful, tender beauty. Yet without exception, every sorcery spirit spectating fainted dead away.
Inside the wonder, the sorcery spirits looked haggard. After all, they had only just overloaded to the point of running the "Demon Form" project into bankruptcy; without sufficient rest, there was no way they could operate a new large-scale project.
To Nether Mist, however, this was no problem at all. What he excelled at most was persuasion—whether toward people or toward sorcery spirits.
A ghost within the armor melted quietly, channeling despairing soul energy into the wonder. Massive terror swept away all the sorcery spirits' fatigue. As Nether Mist poured in source power, every sorcery spirit squeezed out its last shred of energy to give everything. The new wonder instantly answered his call, and the Ghost Armor across his body morphed once more, turning into a sheer, gossamer dark robe that complemented the dusky-blue patterns across his upper torso.
Wonder: Dark Soul Form!
The raging sorcery wonders whipped the hem of the dark robe around, yet failed to cause even the slightest ripple upon it, only deepening the robe's hue.
Nether Mist's figure accelerated abruptly, streaking across the sky like a dark wisp to plunge into the Forgotten Ones' casting ranks. As he let loose a wild howl, a Soul Shriek sonic wave—condensed almost into substance—instantly shattered all surrounding demigods into a bloody mist.
The slaughterer unfurled his void wings with abandon, closing his eyes amid the blooming blossoms of blood to relish this sublime ecstasy.
The surrounding Forgotten Ones froze for a moment, unable to comprehend what was happening before their eyes. They needed to reassess Nether Mist's power.
Nether Mist's true strength hadn't actually changed. It was still the same sorcery spirits, still tier-one hell wings. The only variable was the ghosts he had just gathered, but the Forgotten Ones' numbers should have been enough to disregard such a trivial factor. Yet if numbers alone worked, what would be the point of realms of power?
The wonder he constructed, "Dark Soul Form," wasn't inherently overwhelming, but its uniqueness lay in perfectly synthesizing "Ghost Armor" and "Refraction Guard." When Nether Mist took damage, Refraction Guard absorbed it, the tormented ghosts provided energy, and the absorbed damage was stored within the sheer robe. Whenever Nether Mist cast soul sorcery, this stored damage would detonate alongside the soul attack!
Torture, absorb, detonate, then gather more ghosts!
Relying solely on the haphazard wonders Yaxiu had thrown together, Nether Mist had constructed an infinite-sustain combat system capable of facing an army of thousands alone!
The only flaw was that it was too slow, far too slow!
Having gathered the surrounding ghosts, Nether Mist spread his void wings and charged toward the demigod legion. Yet facing a single solitary enemy, these demigods capable of destroying heaven and earth actively pulled back. Not one dared face his edge head-on; ten thousand troops parted before the dark robe!
Yet this did not mean the Forgotten Ones were retreating. Monsters without names did not even have the qualification to fail. They fully transitioned to long-range assaults, denying Nether Mist any opportunity for melee combat, attempting to kite and grind him down to death!
It was the most shameless, underhanded tactic, yet the fact that over a thousand demigods had to resort to a war of attrition against a single enemy was proof enough that they had given up all hope of crushing Nether Mist directly.
Nether Mist grew irritable. A mere sliver of his resentment translated into agonizing torment upon the Ghost Armor, causing the wails and shrieks in the air to become all the more harrowing. Any demigod with insufficient soul foundation who heard the ghosts' screams suffered dizziness at best, and complete cognitive collapse at worst!
His current situation was like facing a massive swarm of flies with ranged attacks: you could beat them, but whenever you moved in, they scattered; if you ignored them, they harassed you again. Nether Mist despised this feeling... because usually, *he* was the fly.
Moreover, source power was depleting too fast, and source crystals were running low; if this continued, he might genuinely be ground to death. In truth, he didn't care whether Yaxiu lived or died, but the thought of a fair, tender, and lovely Vichy waiting for him in reality meant that, if only to indulge his twisted sense of humor, Nether Mist had to hold out until he returned to the real world.
He no longer wanted to save any world. He just wanted to experience every pleasure he had abandoned in the past, and... tell Vichy to cherish the little time she had left, to stop chasing power, to truly feel the beauty of the world, and if possible, to taste what happiness felt like.
Nether Mist took out several bottles of knowledge essence and poured them straight down his throat.
The alternation between extreme agony and extreme pleasure had no effect on him whatsoever. His hell wings quickly grew to the second tier. Besides the elongation of his hell wings, his silver wings also extended by a quarter, maintaining equal length with his hellish void wings.
When Nether Mist wanted to drink more, however, he found his hand gripping the knowledge essence tightly, unable to bring it to his mouth.
Thinking for a moment, he understood that this knowledge essence was already reserved for other purposes. He couldn't help but sneer, "Dumbass. If you keep that bunch of women weaker than you forever, wouldn't you be able to toy with them however you please?"
Chapter 1068