Volume 4: Super-Tier Awakening & The Ancient Capital Calamity
Chapter 374
Sharlock's Madness: Forced Demonic Transformation
The atmosphere inside the ancient underground hall had grown so dense and oppressive that it felt as though it could be sliced with a blade. Bursts of chilling wind, thick with the heavy stench of blood and sulfur, shrieked through the gaps in the obsidian flagstones, emitting haunting wails reminiscent of ten thousand weeping wraiths.
Lin Feng stood tall, his dark gray cloak fluttering in the surging shockwaves of escalating magical energy. His eyes were as sharp as drawn sabers, locked intently upon the figure kneeling on one arm not far away—Sharlock.
At this moment, Sharlock’s face was completely twisted and distorted under the fierce backlash of the forbidden art and sheer, unadulterated despair. Thick, black, viscous blood leaked from his seven orifices, curling upward into foul, gray smoke. In his trembling palm, a pitch-black stone was emitting a terrifying, sizzling sound, as if devouring the surrounding light.
That was the “Sinful Demon Stone”—an immensely vicious, forbidden artifact bestowed upon him by the Black Vatican Pope before setting out on this campaign. Encapsulated within this demon stone was not ordinary dark energy, but rather the remnant soul of an Outer-Realm Evil God buried since the chaotic era. By fusing with it even slightly, the user instantly sacrificed body and soul in exchange for heaven-shaking power. The price, however, was forfeiting their sanity forever to become a mindless killing machine, ultimately reduced to mere dust.
“Lin Feng... You forced me to this extremity... You actually forced me to resort to my final trump card!”
Sharlock’s voice rasped from his throat like two pieces of rusted metal grinding together, laden with bone-deep, venomous hatred. He knew full well the consequences of devouring the Sinful Demon Stone. Yet, under the present circumstances, failing to do so meant being cut down on the spot by Lin Feng, watching his life’s work and millennial ambitions collapse in an instant. Better to transform into a demon and bury everything than suffer the humiliation of perishing at the hands of a mere human youth!
Without a shred of hesitation, a flicker of ruthless, insane resolve flashed through Sharlock’s eyes. He jerked his head back, widened his jaw to its absolute limit, and shoved the pitch-black Sinful Demon Stone straight down his throat!
Gulp!
A dry, hollow sound echoed clearly through the silent chamber. The demon stone slid straight into his esophagus, carrying the coldest, most malicious power of the outer realms deep into Sharlock’s internal organs.
The next instant, time seemed to stand still.
CRACK-SNAP —— BOOM!!
The first sound to ring out was the shattering of countless ribs within Sharlock’s chest cage. Following closely came the snapping of sinews and tearing of muscle, erupting continuously like celebratory firecrackers snapping in the dead of night.
“Aaaaaah ——!!”
Sharlock clutched his chest fiercely, crashing onto the stone floor and writhing in manic agony. His physique began to twist in a bizarre, repulsive manner. The pale skin of a high-level mage rapidly turned deep purple, then hardened into a layer of pitch-black, jagged scales hard as cold iron. Every inch of flesh on his body bulged at a visible rate, and sticky black blood gushed from the splitting cracks in his skin. The moment it touched the ground, it hissed into white corrosive smoke, eating deep holes into the stone slabs.
In the span of just a few short breaths, Sharlock’s height shot up frantically from six feet into a towering monstrosity over fifteen feet tall! He stood immovable like a miniature peak amidst the grand hall, making the sturdy surrounding ramparts look puny before his billowing might of destruction.
Yet the mutation was far from over.
Along Sharlock’s spine, sharp, jagged humps erupted. From the torn, shredded flesh, six pitch-black skeletal arms slowly grew outward, extending razor-sharp like scythes of death ready to reap lives at a moment’s notice. At the crown of his head, two crimson devil horns curved menacingly, piercing his scalp and radiating an eerie, supernatural glow. His face elongated, exposing blood-dripping fangs, while his eyes vanished entirely, replaced by twin blazing orbs of green phantom fire that burned fiercely, piercing straight through one’s soul with bone-chilling coldness.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
The terrifying, wicked power unleashed from Sharlock’s demonic physique erupted violently like an underground atomic bomb. It completely shattered the perceived limits of an ordinary human mage, piercing through layers of spatial suppression to strike right at the threshold of the Pseudo Monarch Peak!
The malevolent pressure swept across all directions with the fury of a tempest. The nine ancient bronze dragon pillars supporting the subterranean palace began to shudder violently, spiderweb fractures spreading outward from their bases all the way up to the vaulted ceiling. Tens of thousands of luminous pearls along the walls suddenly blinked out, plunging the chamber into a gloomy, blood-red luminescence.
The half-man, half-demon monstrosity lowered its massive head, fixing its burning green eyes straight upon Lin Feng. Its exhaled breath transformed into dense, black toxic miasma that instantly withered the flagstones beneath its feet.
“Lin Feng... Look closely at this!”
Sharlock’s voice had completely mutated into a piercing, discordant sound, a hybrid between a beast’s roar and the echoes of the deepest abyss. He let out a shrill, shrieking howl that sounded like weeping ghosts and wailing deities:
“Taste the power of an Outer-Realm God-Demon! This is strength capable of leveling entire kingdoms! What could you possibly use to fight me now?!”
The moment his shout died away, Sharlock’s six sharp skeletal arms lashed out simultaneously. The space surrounding those six arms was shredded into ragged, pitch-black spatial tears, carrying world-destroying might as they slammed down toward Lin Feng’s head like a descending tempest of death!
The light from the six bone scythes merged into a gigantic character of “Death” hanging in midair, eclipsing the entire field of vision and sealing the surrounding space so tightly that movement was restricted down to a crawl. The terrifying downward pressure forced the stone floor beneath Lin Feng’s feet to instantly collapse into a circular crater dozens of meters wide, sending billows of stone dust soaring into the air.
Facing Sharlock’s ferocious, overbearing, and utterly desperate demonic form, Lin Feng stood right at the epicenter of the destructive tempest without taking even a single step back.
He stood tall, his cloak whipping fiercely in the magical gale. His handsome visage retained a terrifying, unyielding composure, completely devoid of fear. Deep within his cosmic, boundless eyes, a strange brilliance suddenly flared into existence.
It wasn’t just one or two, but eight dazzling rays of unprecedented splendor that were slowly swirling, fusing, and shining brilliantly, illuminating every corner of the darkened hall!