Chapter 3525: Chapter 3525: Intelligent Blood Vessels

The Diabolic Earth flowed quickly along Zen's body. It was as fluid as water, and as red as blood.

The two kings of Diabolic Demons held on to Zen, dragging him all the way up. Soon they emerged from the ground.

Zen quickly looked around him. Nearby, he caught sight of an object that looked like a triangular flower petal. The moment he confirmed his position, Zen's lips curved in a bitter smile.

He had managed to dig for dozens of miles underground—but he dug in the opposite direction. He was now right in the center of the Land of Diabolic Demons.

“Drag him in,” ordered the king of Diabolic Demons in the lead.

The two kings who had Zen in their grasp dragged him towards the triangular petal.

There was a series of sharp cracking sounds.

As Zen came closer, he realized that the triangular petal was in actuality an enormous living creature. The triangle shape was the mouth of some kind of monster. It was ringed with huge spikes.

The kings dragged Zen directly into the triangular petal, and tendrils as thick as fingers suddenly stretched out from the depths of the mouth. The tendrils snaked around Zen until they were wrapped tightly around his whole body.

“Don't try to struggle,” one of them told Zen.

“This is the most painless way to die,” said the other king. “If you try to struggle and escape, we will ensure that you suffer a fate worse than death.”

Zen calmly listened to their warnings.

Curiously he asked, “Aren't you going to eat me?”

The kings snorted with disgust. One of them snapped, “We don't eat humans.”

With that, they checked to see that he was secure in the grip of the tendrils. Then they turned and walked away from the triangular petal.

The four kings of Diabolic Demons stood in a circle around the petal and Zen. They stretched out their thin arms, waving their sharp claws as they communicated to each other in their own language. As Zen was held immobile, the kings were soon accompanied by other Diabolic Demons, and they all began to sing and dance.

“If they're not planning to eat me, then what? Is this petal-mouth going to swallow me?” Zen asked the Primeval Lord of Heaven.

“Even if they devour you, they won't be able to inherit your bloodline power. So naturally they won't do such a thing,” replied the Primeval Lord of Heaven. “The formation of these death lands isn't a coincidence. The residents all have their own methods of sacrifice.”

“Sacrifice...” For a moment Zen was puzzled. Then he understood what the Primeval Lord of Heaven meant. “Swallowing Eternal Realm warriors?”

“Yes,” admitted the Primeval Lord of Heaven. He explained, “Sacrificing Eternal Realm warriors will increase the strength of their entire race, so every Eternal Realm warrior is the prey of all the Other Shore creatures in the Three Purities Stage. And this is what makes the stage dangerous.”

Not much was known about the Three Purities Stage in the Oneness Sky Palace. None of the warriors of the palace, even Libby, knew much about it. Libby was well-read and had learned that the vicious beasts of the Three Purities Stage had a deep enmity towards Eternal Realm warriors, but she did not know why.

“To whom do they make their sacrifices? The Four Spirits Sect?” Zen asked.

“I am not wholly certain. I know that the recipient is outside the Abstruse Energy World, because whenever they offer up a sacrifice, they open a passageway that looks remarkably like the Eternal Scroll Painting. I didn't know about the Four Spirits Sect before, but now it seems like the most likely conclusion,” said the Primeval Lord of Heaven.

Zen sighed. “So I was targeted to be their sacrifice as soon as I entered the Three Purities Stage...” He trailed off, sounding depressed.

A series of strange cooing sounds suddenly issued from within the triangle petal.

The noise grew louder. Abruptly, the corners of the triangle petal folded inwards, as the mouth closed in on itself. The spikes on the petal clustered together in the center of the mouth as darkness enveloped Zen completely.

He could see only pitch blackness, but he heard a buzzing sound.

The darkness lasted for only a moment. Then, to Zen's surprise, complex Sanskrit words began to appear on the inner walls of the petal. A beam of light shone upon him, cloaking his entire body in light. The beam shot upwards, into the depths of the sky, as though it was establishing a connection with the Abstruse Energy World. ꭆ𝓪Νỗ𝐁Ëș

Meanwhile, more and more of the slender tendrils snaked around Zen's body. The tendrils had tips made of hollow thorns. These thorns were intended to pierce through skin to absorb all the blood in the body of the prey.

Zen's lips tightened. “It seems that this so-called sacrifice is just a way to obtain the bloodline of the Eternal Realm warriors,” he muttered. “Hey, you, you should make your move before you get absorbed.”

Normally, when Eternal Realm warriors merged with a bloodline, the two would become a single, fused whole. The power of the bloodline would be available for their use.

But that was not the case for Zen. The ancestry-level bloodline wouldn't fuse with his body at all. It would only help Zen when it had no other choice.

However, it refused to leave Zen's body as well. So the sacrifice method of the Land of Diabolic Demons would surely enrage it.

The sharp tips of the hollow thorns touched Zen's skin, about to pierce through.

Suddenly, Zen felt a wave of blood power rising within his body. It felt like his blood itself surged under the surface of his skin.

Zen's eyes widened. He had theorized that the ancestry-level bloodline would help him to forge a strong physical body, and that it would make it impossible for the thorns to penetrate his skin.

His conjecture was wrong.

Although he felt an enormous change had taken place, his body had not become stronger.

The first batch of hollow thorns was blocked by the Chaotic Source Spirits in his body. However, the Chaotic Source Spirits could only absorb a limited amount of power, so one round of the violent attack from the thorns was enough to exhaust them.

A second wave of thorns rushed towards Zen. At that moment, something strange happened.

The large and small blood vessels in Zen's body wriggled and swayed like snakes. They seemed to be dodging the thorns. Like a warrior evading an opponent's sword, they managed to avoid every thrust of the hollow thorns that pierced Zen's skin.

The thorns stabbed repeatedly at Zen.

Each time, the hollow thorns remained empty. They could not absorb even a single drop of blood from him.

Zen realized what was happening, but his face was screwed up as he fought to endure the pain of the stabbing thorns. His body had been repeatedly pierced and his skin was densely packed with holes.

“Hey, you... This is too much!” Zen said with groan.

The Primeval Lord of Heaven was speechless. Apparently, although the ancestry-level bloodline should have a better way to counteract the thorns, it had chosen this way instead. By doing so, it was exacting its own form of revenge on Zen.

The triangle petal had attacked Zen relentlessly, but it still could not absorb any of his blood. In another wave of stabbing, the petal drove the hollow thorns as hard as it could into the depths of Zen's body. Although each thorn penetrated very deeply, the blood vessels in Zen's body continued to dodge the thorns, almost as though they were intelligent creatures who had anticipated each move of the thorns.

Meanwhile, outside the triangle petal, there was a sense of uncertainty in the air.

The four kings of Diabolic Demons and the others behind them were all kneeling in unison on the ground.

Sacrificing was a significant and solemn act for Diabolic Demons, and they always kept absolutely quiet until the whole ceremony was completed.

They knew the sacrifice was complete when they felt the power surging in their bodies. This would be strongest in the four kings, who stood to benefit the most from each sacrifice.

Based on past experience, the sacrificial ceremony should end after around five minutes.

But by now, at least twenty minutes had passed, and none of them felt any surge of power. It was still not done.

On very rare occasions, the sacrifice took longer than five minutes. It happened only when the bloodline of the sacrificial object was very pure and of the highest quality. So at first, their anticipation rose at the delay, as they realized that this sacrifice would yield results that were better than usual.

However, as time went by, the king of Diabolic Demons in the lead began to sense that something had gone wrong. Regardless of purity, the ceremony should not have lasted longer than fifteen or twenty minutes at the most. What had happened inside the petal?

By the time thirty minutes had passed, every single Diabolic Demon present at the ceremony began to feel restless and uneasy. There was still absolute silence, but everyone began looking furtively at the petal, or exchanging wordless glances with each other.

Finally, the most important of the kings of Diabolic Demons made up his mind. He stood up, and all the demons who still knelt were shocked. They watched as the king began making his way to the petal to see what was going on.