The Demon’s Gate - Volume 1 Chapter 334 Shattered Fragment.

Yao Jun’s law of space brought him and his group several thousand kilometres away from Lang Kong and Lang Haoye, space within one of the ruined buildings warping for a short instance as they arrived. Yao Jun’s expression was unpleasant as he stood there, he hadn’t expected to enter an antagonistic relationship with the Lang clan, especially over something so minor.

Of course, his unpleasant expression wasn’t due to the fact that he had become enemies with two of the young master from the Lang clan. If it couldn’t be helped then it couldn’t be helped, he would just have to deal with it. No, the problem was the great reach of the Lang clan and how deeply Lang Haoye had investigated him.

Guo Luo and Yang Yuhuan were both on their own right now so there was no telling if the Lang clan would try to do anything against them if Lang Haoye requested it strongly enough. And even worse was that Du Xiao was currently in her strange state thanks to her evolution so Yao Jun couldn’t even contact the various small spiders he had scattered around during his travels. It had been a while since he had last been this blind about his surroundings so he couldn’t help but be worried, it was an exceedingly unpleasant feeling.

“Please be at east, My Lord, they are not people who are easily taken down. And I believe that the Lang clan won’t bother making any moves, it would simply be beneath them, they may as well just trample their own face instead. And you mustn’t forget that Lang Haoye is exceedingly weak, no matter what sort of heritage he has there is no way that his position in a clan as exalted as the Lang clan can be very high.”

Ba-Shei and the others could tell what sort of thoughts were racing through Yao Jun’s mind, they had long since gotten used to his fearful nature after all. Yao Jun closed his eyes and drew in a long breath, exhaling it after a few seconds and wiping away most of the unpleasantness in his expression.

“It would be nice if that’s the case. But that Lang Haoye, he needs to die. His arrogance and irrationality are dangerous, there’s no telling what he might try to do if he gets to run around freely. But Lang Kong is probably still hanging by his side, he’ll probably stick with him even for the start of the competition. But he can’t stay at his side forever, otherwise he won’t be able to explore the more dangerous and resource-rich areas, they’ll have to separate eventually.”

Most of the unpleasantness was wiped from his expression, but the coldness in his eyes had only grown stronger. Just something as simple as not getting his hands on some blood for a deal made Lang Haoye this spiteful, there was no telling how much that displeasure and spite would fester if it was left alone for a prolonged period of time. Yao Jun had already lost one friend, he would not lose another, no matter who he had to crush to achieve that peace.

Sirius and the two others heavily nodded their heads to Yao Jun’s words, sharp lights flickering through their pupils. Their lord had made his decision and chosen a target, as his followers it was their duty to either eradicate the target or clear out a path directly to the target. Yao Jun spat out another breath, his eyes narrowing slightly as he directed his gaze towards the wall at his side.

“It really is almost sad to see how many are just willing to be thrown out as fodder as long as the request comes from a large organization.”

They had only been in this ruined building for around a minute yet there were already a few groups of people heading towards them. He couldn’t sense Lang Kong but that didn’t mean that the opposite wasn’t true, Lang Kong was probably keenly aware of their position even after they teleported away. But as for the people that they requested to attack them, Yao Jun only had a single thing to say.

“But it really is distasteful, are they trying to get rid of some contestants while they’re at it?”

Of the six groups currently heading towards them, only two people had reached the Heavenly Deity realm, and it was the early stage nonetheless. Lang Kong definitely knew that these people wouldn’t be able to do a thing here, yet he had sent them out anyway, probably partly to decrease the number of competitors and partly to prod at Yao Jun’s depths. Whatever the reason was, Yao Jun had no interest in it.

“We’ll leave for now, he doesn’t seem to be able to interfere with our teleportation. But if they really are going to keep coming then there won’t be any point in being kind any longer.”

Space around the group fluctuated once more as they teleported away, leaving the incoming groups without any targets. They appeared a few thousand kilometres away, but half an hour later there were once again a few groups heading in their direction. He teleported them away again, this time making three quick teleportations in succession. There weren’t any attacks at first, but two hours later there ended up being two groups heading for them.

It wasn’t concrete proof but the time it took for the groups to head towards them made Yao Jun guess that Lang Kong probably lost sight of them whenever they teleported and had to spend a short moment searching for them. The further they teleported the more ground he had to cover so they at least had a way to buy themselves some time if they needed it.

He teleported a few more times to evade several groups, but after teleporting away for the tenth time he got sick of it. Three groups quickly made their way over, and three groups were swiftly removed from the competition. A day later, two new groups approached them, the members slightly stronger this time around. But even so, the result remained the same and two groups left the land of the living.

He didn’t know if it was Lang Kong or Lang Haoye that sent the groups, but he had to admit that whoever sent them was like a maggot stuck in a festering wound. It didn’t matter how many groups they killed, new ones would eventually take their place, slightly stronger ones this time. If there was anything that the groups had in common then it would be the desperation in their eyes, but that wasn’t something Yao Jun could bring himself to care about.

Teleport, get attacked, eradicate the enemy, the pattern repeated itself again and again as the days passed. The competition got closer and closer, but that only seemed to make the attacking groups more desperate so it seemed like that Lang brothers had put a time-limit on whatever reward they offered.

By the time three weeks had passed, Yao Jun had already stopped bothering to count how many groups had attacked them. This was a competition that involved the entire universe so the number of participants was astronomical, there would always be more people that could be lured by the Lang clan. Yao Jun was currently standing amidst the remains of one group that had contained three middle-stage Heavenly Deities, his gaze calm and cold as he looked at the sole survivor.

“One by one, I really wonder what about the Lang clan’s name makes so many people like you willing to rush out like this.”

Sirius and the others were dealing with the other four groups that had joined in on the attacks, but it wasn’t really a scene that could be described as a fight, it was more akin to a massacre. The now legless man simply looked at Yao Jun with a cynical smile, propping himself up with his hands.

“Heh, who knows, maybe it’s the charm of being able to take down a cruel demon, or maybe it is just a hope to get a better position in life.”

The latter option was definitely the most probable one, there was no telling how good your life would become if you got in the good graces of the Lang clan. They were mainly focused on just the one planet where they lived, but as an organization, they were strong enough to influence events within the entire dominion, that was what it meant to rule over three entire provinces.

Yao Jun stopped in front of the man, who had even given up on trying to crawl away and was just looking directly into Yao Jun’s eyes with the last bit of defiance he could muster. The man put on a brave front, probably wanting to at least die with dignity, but Yao Jun simply found his words laughable, his words eliciting a sneer from the downed man.

“Cruel demon? Seeing as you’re the ones who attacked for no reason, I feel like those words are nothing more than jokes.”

“Are they? You utterly crushed us, we didn’t even stand a chance against you and your companions. You could have beaten us down and left without any issue, yet you still killed everyone.”

The man felt like shuddering just thinking about it, he had heard that Yao Jun was very strong, but he didn’t expect it to have reached a degree where he could decimate him and his two companions like that. He was much stronger than them, to the point where it was barely a fight at all. Yet he hadn’t shown even an ounce of mercy and crushed them without hesitation, it was very different from the image a strong person should give off. The man felt that his words were perfectly reasonable, but Yao Jun simply maintained his cold gaze.

“And? Why should I bother showing mercy or kindness to you? You came at me with the intent to kill yet want me to just beat you down and leave? You must have grown up in a rather large clan or sect and were probably pampered a fair bit, otherwise, you wouldn’t be this naive.”

He should show mercy just because he was strong? He should spare people who wanted to kill him just because he could win without killing them? A belief like that was simply far too naive. The world wasn’t that kind, and neither was Yao Jun.

The earth around the man rose up and swallowed him, the prison compressing into a small orb that sank back into the earth, the man that had turned into paste now serving as fertilizer for the dried wasteland. Yao Jun put away his glaive and tossed the remaining corpses into his God Gate, they would be good food for Yama and the others. After he finished disposing of the corpses, he glanced at the other scenes of carnage that were coming to an end muttering to himself while raising his hand.

“You’re watching, aren’t you? Well, consider this a gift of mine.”

His Qi gathered in his palm, space warping violently and eventually collapsing, a pea-sized black orb flickering with equally dark flames appearing above his hand. An orb of water appeared at the side of the black orb, a constant stream of water getting unleashed by it. The water flooded into the black orb and was destroyed by the fusion of darkness, space, and fire.

But a very tiny part of the water remained, and a small spatial tunnel was formed between the black orb and the orb of water. The water that wasn’t destroyed joined up with the water that was constantly flowing from the orb and was quickly swallowed by the orb again, once again only leaving behind a tiny drop of water. In this manner, the water was constantly refined at high speed, only the strongest most energy-rich water remaining and growing by absorbing the Qi in the air as well as the Qi in the constant stream of water.

Several more such orbs appeared around the black orb, each one unleashing a constant stream that correlated to one of Yao Jun’s laws. Destruction and refining, each of the elements was forced to go through that process several thousand times each second, quickly growing stronger and more rampant as they absorbed more energy.

The spatial tunnels quickly filled up with energy so dense it became visible, a multi-coloured lotus appearing above Yao Jun’s palm, space around it violently warping due to the energy it contained. This was a technique Yao Jun had used in the past, if he remembered correctly it ended up being given an unnecessary name like Glory of the Demon God.

But the strength of this lotus and the one he could form back then was leagues apart, not only had his own strength grown but his control over his laws had also grown tremendously. Yao Jun put his focus on the lotus and manipulated space around it, the lotus vanishing from his hand in a quick twisting of space.

He couldn’t sense Lang Kong, but he was perfectly capable of sensing Lang Haoye, so he knew that he was only a few thousand kilometres away. And if Lang Haoye was there then Lang Kong was probably there too. And if he wasn’t then it just meant that this would be the end of Lang Haoye so it was fine either way.

And Yao Jun’s guess was indeed correct, Lang Kong was standing next to Lang Haoye and observing the massacre that was taking place. They had observed every battle he had gone through so far, and Lang Kong had already formed a guess as to exactly what sort of Authority Yao Jun carried with him.

Lang Kong frowned slightly as he observed Yao Jun, people with an Authority like his were troublesome to deal with since they could easily pull out new tricks that you hadn’t seen previously. And the lotus that was forming above Yao Jun’s palm was exactly one such thing, an unknown factor that Lang kong didn’t know how to classify. But then the lotus vanished and a horrible sense of danger assaulted Lang Kong so he didn’t even get the chance to think about it in depth.

“SHIELD YOURSELF!”

Space directly in front of Lang Haoye fluctuated and the multicoloured lotus appeared there, Lang Kong throwing himself in front of Lang Haoye just as the energy in the lotus ran rampant and broke free from all control. An ear-piercing screech immediately rang out as the earth was torn asunder and space cracked open, large chunks of shattered space flying around by drifting on the rampant energy.

A pillar of pitch-black flames shot to the sky while Yao Jun’s other laws ravaged the surrounding area. The earth disintegrated and the buildings vanished, a crater that was nearly ten-kilometres deep and two-hundred kilometres wide forming where the Lang brothers had just been standing.

Yao Jun usually concentrated his power as much as possible so it was actually rather rare for him to cause wide-spread destruction. But that didn’t mean that he didn’t have the capabilities, he was perfectly capable of ruining great tracts of land at a whim, he wasn’t far off from being a walking natural disaster in that regard.

But while the massive crater had swallowed up everything else in the surroundings, the remaining flickering flames even drawing in all the oxygen in the area, Lang Kong and Lang Haoye remained alive. Lang Kong was standing at the bottom of the crater, his clothing already disintegrated as he stood there with his arms crossed in front of his chest.

Small cracks had spread all over his body, a bit of blood seeping out from them and running down his body, evaporating as it touched the earth. Lang Haoye was lying on the ground behind him, but he hadn’t come out of it unscathed even with Lang Kong shielding him. The bit of energy that had gotten past Lang Kong had removed Lang Haoye’s right arm, the stump of his shoulder was even perfectly cauterized.

The bone marrow that was barely visible was withering as Lang Kong looked at it, a sickly green colour slowly appearing on the exposed bone. Lang Kong didn’t know how Yao Jun managed to make it survive that blast, but there was clearly some poison mixed into the attack, poison that was now invading Lang Haoye. Lang Kong’s expression was as dark as it could be as he ignored the cracks on his body and quickly forced a pill down Lang Haoye’s throat.

“This… Alright, Yao Jun, you’ve successfully caught me off-guard.”

He quickly forced another pill down Lang Haoye’s throat, but the sickly colour that was spreading on his bone wasn’t receding so his expression only got darker. He swiped his interspatial ring and brought out a silver orb, pouring a bit of Qi into it and using it to teleport away, he would have to make someone else treat Lang Haoye.

Yao Jun noticed that Lang Haoye left his senses so he waited for Sirius and the others to finish their massacre and then left the area. The competition was only about a week away so these tedious days would soon come to an end.

The remaining week passed quickly, the official start of the competition arriving and causing everyone to turn even tenser. Lang Kong was standing inside a ruined building that was a few thousand kilometres away from Yao Jun, a green-haired and red-eyed woman standing at his side and observing Yao Jun, the corners of her mouth curving up as if she was hearing a joke.

“So that’s the kiddo you’ve got a grudge with right now? You even went out of your way to make a request from me so I was guessing that things were rather serious, but isn’t he just an Earthly Deity? You’re going out of your way to bully a child like that, ain’t that kinda wrong?”

She, Zang Jue Qin, and Lang Kong were the only people present in the building. Lang Kong had purposefully left Lang Haoye at a different location so that Yao Jun wouldn’t figure out their location by discovering him. He didn’t let the words of Zang Qin bother him, using a silk-like cloth to carefully polish the azure-scale covered bow that he was holding.

“Wrong? Not at all.”

His eyes were focused on Yao Jun as he spoke, but there weren’t any traces of hatred or arrogance in his yellow eyes, they were as still as water and didn’t show any emotion. Zang Qin was evidently quite used to this state of his, scoffing lightly as she continued to observe Yao Jun.

“Heh, should have known you’d say that, no way you would consider any of your own actions anything other than right.”

They were the great Lang clan, so how could they ever do something that wasn’t right? It wasn’t that they didn’t do wrong things, it was more akin to everything they did automatically became right, she had already lost track of how many young masters she had met that thought like that about their clans. But she knew that Lang Kong wasn’t quite like that, so she rolled her eyes when she heard his reply and prepared herself for him to go off on a tirade.

“I never said that what I was doing is right, I just said that it wasn’t wrong.”

“Here we go with your sophistry again.”

“I’m not right in attacking him, but I’m not wrong either. Just like he isn’t right or wrong in wanting to kill my brother. It was never about being right or wrong, it’s all just survival.”

That was originally how a battle was after all, right or wrong didn’t exist, it was all about survival. Yao Jun fought to protect his own life and Lang Kong fought to protect his brother, it wasn’t a situation where right or wrong mattered. Zang Qin listened to him spout his thoughts and then waved her hand dismissively, the plaque she had received starting to vibrate softly.

“Yeah yeah, preach to the choir and all that. Just tell me which service you want.”

Lang Kong felt his own plaque vibrate so he knew that it was about to start, this was the best time to act. He stood up from his seated position and stepped in front of the window, grasping his large bow as his expression slowly turned solemn.

“I want you to anchor me. I’ll need my full focus to launch my attack so I won’t be able to resist the pull of the spatial rift, I need you to anchor me while I attack.”

An arrow appeared in his hand as he spoke, a rather simple looking arrow where the wood seemed to be covered in minute stone-like scales and the arrowhead seemed to be made from the tip of a tooth. The arrow looked simple, but the energy it radiated was far from simple, just the presence of the arrow caused space to flow in an uneasy manner.

This was the item he had bought before he entered this competition, an arrow made using materials from a major Origin Beast. He was originally supposed to buy two chakrams, but Yao Jun acquiring the Soul-Fang Emperor forced him to buy something else instead. He currently had six of these arrows and they were his greatest trump cards, and now he was preparing to use one on Yao Jun, that was how highly he regarded him. Zang Qin looked at the arrow with a bit of surprise, nodding her head as the vibration of her plaque got more violent.

“Got it. The price will be six fangs and three claws from Divine Beasts, the harder the better.”

Lang Kong easily nodded his head and accepted the deal, it was a bit of a steep price but it would be worth it in the long run. The plaques that the two were carrying exploded forth with energy as the deal was finished, space in front of them twisting into two whirlpools that unleashed a strong attractive force.

Zang Qin moved into action the moment the plaques sprung into action, transparent nails of condensed space appearing around her and Lang Kong. The nails pierced through them and stabbed into the floor, space in their wake turning into shackles that coiled around them and resisted the force coming from the whirlpools.

Lang Kong placed the arrow on the bow and drew back the string, the cloth covering his arms and back bursting from the strength he used to pull the string. His gaze pierced through the distance and objects separating them and was locked onto Yao Jun, who was being drawn into his own spatial whirlpool. He calmed his mind and locked his aim, a very soft mutter escaping his lips as he let go of the arrow.

“Goodbye, Yao Jun, let our enmity end here.”

The arrow was launched forward without so much as a sound. It seemed to simply vanish from the bow, and a very small hole that seemed to just always have been there had appeared on the buildings that separated him and Yao Jun.

Yao Jun was keeping a constant eye on his surroundings, his senses focused to their utmost sharpness. He couldn’t sense Lang Kong, but he would be able to sense Lang Haoye or the others that he tried to bring along. Of course, just because he didn’t detect either of them didn’t mean that he would lower his vigilance, he was constantly ready to burst forth with his full strength.

His plaque started to vibrate so he knew that the competition was truly about to start, every group in the surroundings halting their movements as they prepared themselves. The vibration got stronger and stronger, the plaque suddenly exploding forth with energy that gathered together into a spatial whirlpool in front of Yao Jun.

He didn’t even have to step into the whirlpool, it had locked him down with a strong attractive force that drew him in. He quickly approached the whirlpool, spitting out a long breath as Sirius and the others joined him in placing a foot into the whirlpool. This tedious daily routine was finally over, now it was time to take part in the competition and increase his strength as much as possible so that he could achieve his goals.

But just as his foot touched the spatial whirlpool, all the hairs on his body stood on end, a horrid sense of danger flooding his mind. He exploded forth with all his power, but by the time that energy left his body, there was already an arrow piercing through his chest. The arrow had come from behind and hadn’t made a single sound, and it moved so fast that it had already run him through by the time he noticed it.

All strength left his body as he fell to his knees, gazing at the arrow with nearly hollow eyes. The arrow had pierced directly through his chest, but whether or not it was aiming for it from the start or if it was because it had been diverted by that last-second burst of energy, it had missed his heart.

No, instead of piercing his heart the arrow had ended up piercing directly through his God Gate. And that gate was currently flooding Yao Jun’s body with such pain that he felt like he was going to go insane. He had never felt such pain before, even when the gate cracked slightly when he first encountered an Origin Beast.

And as Yao Jun’s body sank into the spatial whirlpool, he learned why this pain was so much greater than anything he had ever felt. The God Gate that had followed him since his birth, the God Gate that had only cracked slightly in the presence of an Origin Beast and had even fused with another God Gate, fell apart after the arrow pierced him.

It cracked and split open with the arrow as the centre. And as the God Gate lost all its l.u.s.tre and split apart into nine uneven pieces, Yao Jun lost all connection with it. He couldn’t sense his Demonic Beast companions nor could he sense the inside of the God Gate, the nine pieces simply felt like fragments of solid stone without a single trace of life. And strangely enough, as the pain ravaged his mind, he was reminded of the words the first Origin Beast he had ever met said to him.

Now he was truly nothing more than a shattered fragment of a forgotten god.