Stealing the Heavenly Dao

"How could I? How could I give up like this? Lulu was waiting for me. The endless Abyss was waiting for me to explore it. Countless planes, so many wonders—I hadn't seen any of them yet. How could I give up like this?"

"Ah! Abyss, I won't submit! Who am I? I'm a martial artist, a successor of the Daoist School, Baal, Er Dongsheng—and above all, I'm a poor little girl's big brother!"

"I won't give up. I absolutely won't! System, hurry up and calculate, damn it! Hurry..." Er Dongsheng struggled to hold on in his Sea of Consciousness. When the Abyssal Will saw this tiny ant resisting its gift, it grew furious, and another great surge of its will came rushing in.

Er Dongsheng was lucky, in a sense. The Abyssal Will involved in bestowing gifts on demons was only an insignificant sliver of the Abyssal Heavenly Dao. Had the true Heavenly Dao Will descended, he would probably have surrendered at once! Yet even that tiny sliver of the Abyssal Will was more than he could resist now.

Since ancient times, no one in the Abyss had ever heard of a demon escaping its control. No demon could forcibly refuse a gift from the Abyssal Will, not even one as powerful as the Demon Lord.

Time crept by. Er Dongsheng's resistance grew harder and harder, and his situation hung by a thread.

Suddenly, a voice rang out.

"Calculation complete. Selecting a viable plan. Based on the memory database, selecting plan three. Executing immediately!"

Buzz! Er Dongsheng's mind went blank. He suddenly felt his soul wrenched out—or rather, dragged straight into that game hall. Before he could react, it was plunged into the enormous body where the Abyss System resided.

Immediately afterward, a vast consciousness broke into the space and charged toward him, plunging into the body in the blink of an eye.

Boom! The game hall suddenly went pitch-black. The door leading outside had slammed shut!

Outside, everything had gone calm. The little succubus felt the crushing weight on her lift and vanish without a trace.

She hurried to her feet and stumbled toward Er Dongsheng. Seeing that his face was no longer contorted, she finally let go of the fear gripping her heart. Then her vision went dark, and she fainted.

In truth, Er Dongsheng was facing an even more dangerous trial.

Deep within his soul, inside the game hall.

"What kind of plan is this? Why did you let it in?" Er Dongsheng was so furious he nearly jumped out of his skin. After all that, the Abyssal Will had still gotten inside him—and he had let it in himself! Could anything be more of a trap?

"Plan three yields the greatest reward. If the host succeeds, he will not only break free of the Abyssal Will's control and transcend the Heavenly Dao, but also take the Heavenly Dao's place and steal its power!"

The mechanical voice rang through the hall. A stream of information flowed into Er Dongsheng, and he instantly understood how the plan worked.

The plan had three steps: swap heaven for the sun, seize the Heavenly Dao, and take its place.

The first step meant luring the Heavenly Dao Will into the system space, substituting the virtual body inside for Er Dongsheng's real body and the system's consciousness for his own.

This would only deceive the Abyssal Will for a short time. Once it entered the body, they would close the door to the space and cut that sliver of the Abyssal Heavenly Dao off from the greater power outside. That would accomplish the second step: seizing the Heavenly Dao.

The third step was the most important. This Game Space had been formed by the Laws of the Great Universe, and the game hall contained the Ink Spirit Flame, a cosmic fire Er Dongsheng had evolved himself that transcended the Heavenly Dao. By barging in here, that sliver of the Abyssal Will was like an egg dropped into a fire, waiting to be cooked.

But eggs could burst, too. This step was extraordinarily dangerous. The slightest mistake would obliterate his soul, leaving not even a scrap of him behind.

"I'm going all in. If this thing won't let me live in peace, I'll devour it bones and all!"

Following the system's plan, Er Dongsheng summoned the Ink Spirit Flame and began roasting that sliver of the Abyssal Will.

The Ink Spirit Flame was black as ink. The space was already pitch-black, yet when the flame appeared, all the darkness seemed to gather around it. It burned so black it gleamed, casting a black radiance through the darkness—a strange sight beyond words.

This was the deepest part of Er Dongsheng's soul, his territory, formed by the Laws of the Great Universe. Here, the Abyssal Will could rely only on itself. Cut off from the vast power of the Heavenly Dao outside, it had become a ferocious beast in a cage, fighting to the bitter end!

"Awooo! Roar!" Trapped at the heart of the Ink Spirit Flame, the Abyssal Will roared without pause. The cries of all manner of Abyssal beasts rang out one after another as it took on their forms. Er Dongsheng, a country bumpkin who had seen little of the Abyss, found his horizons broadened.

Second by second, time passed. Er Dongsheng and the system space poured all their strength into refining the Abyssal Will, but this sliver of the Abyssal Heavenly Dao Will was stubborn beyond belief. It kept roaring and trying to break through the Ink Spirit Flame's defenses, as though it would never rest until it had devoured him.

Er Dongsheng had no way back. One step of retreat meant falling into a ten-thousand-fathom abyss, his body dead and his soul destroyed. If he endured this trial, though, a broad road to the great Dao awaited him.

"A path beyond the Heavenly Dao was right before my eyes, close enough to touch. In my last life, Earthly Heavenly Dao had weakened, spiritual energy had scattered, and martial artists and Daoist School Warlocks had reached a dead end. Now the Heavenly Dao of the Abyss stood plain before me, laid bare. If I held on, I could truly touch the Heavenly Dao. No matter what, I couldn't give up!"

Seize it, master it, then transcend it. That was the undying conviction Er Dongsheng held as a martial artist and a successor of the Daoist School!

The firmer his conviction grew, the fiercer the Ink Spirit Flame burned. The Abyssal Heavenly Dao gradually began to come apart.

As though sensing its impending fate, the Abyssal Will went berserk!

Buzz, buzz, buzz! The Abyssal Will trembled, its power surging higher. Then...

"Ah, what's this?"