Both start in hell: but their talents are multiplied a hundredfold.

Thousands upon thousands of golden fragments floated in mid-air, each fragment trembling violently.

Then, they started to change color.

The pure, lustrous gold color is fading, replaced by a deep, murky dark gold.

After the gold paint peeled off, what was revealed was a black, foul-smelling carapace.

The Buddha's light completely dissipated, and an intensely dense, suffocating demonic aura descended from the sky, pressing down on everyone's heads as if it were a tangible force.

A sudden gust of wind arose.

Those flowers and plants that had withered and then bloomed again all withered in that instant, their petals turning black and emitting a putrid stench.

The newly sprouted buds of the broken tree are also withering and turning black rapidly, as if all their vitality has been drained away.

Meanwhile, the monks of Cihang Temple, whose wounds had just healed, screamed and collapsed to the ground. Their healed wounds burst open again, oozing black pus and blood.

The entire congregation finally realized that something was wrong.

"What... what's going on?"

"Buddha appeared... Where is Buddha?"

"Why did the golden light turn black? It smells awful... What is this smell?"

The old scholar in his Confucian robes, who had just been weeping over seeing the true form of the Buddha, now had tears still streaming down his wrinkled face, but his expression had changed from ecstatic joy to extreme fear.

His cloudy old eyes stared wide open, his lips trembled, but he could no longer utter a complete sentence.

The fragments suspended in the air began to converge towards the center.

The sky darkened; something was obscuring the light.

Everyone instinctively looked up, and then they all saw the most terrifying sight of their lives.

Above Cihang Temple, a giant, jet-black centipede was coiled in mid-air.

The centipede was entirely black, with strange golden patterns covering its carapace, resembling some kind of blasphemous scripture.

It has tens of millions of legs on its sides, each one slowly wriggling and making a teeth-grinding sound of its shell rubbing together.

The tips of its legs were sharp as sickles, gleaming with a cold, eerie green light—the result of corpse poison that had been quenched for countless years.

And its length?

Yan Chixia estimated the size of all the monsters he had ever seen in his half-life of cultivation by moving them one size backward.

A kilometer in size.

The enormous centipede's body coiled and twisted, like a mountain stretching across the sky, blotting out the sun.

Within the imperial city, countless people looked up at the sky and witnessed this terrifying scene. Screams and cries instantly came from all directions, like boiling water.

The centipede slowly lowered its head.

Its eyes were located in the crevices of its carapace, countless in number, each one blood-red, turning and staring simultaneously at the tiny, bare-chested monk below.

An invisible pressure descended from the sky; it was naked demonic energy.

The ground began to crack, and Cihang Temple, which stood beneath the centipede demon's feet, collapsed under the dissipating demonic energy.

The believers who were kneeling on the ground were finally awakened from their piety and scattered in all directions, crying and screaming. However, they were so overwhelmed by the demonic aura that their legs went weak and they could only crawl desperately through the collapsed ruins.

Shen Jue stood there, looking up at the thousand-meter-long centipede, and touched his chin.

"Wow, this shape and size."

I can only say it's so-so.

"However, could this be considered the third form?"

"Is it too Yin? Three forms?"

"I think I have a second form too~"

Yan Chixia gripped the Xuanyuan Divine Sword, glanced at the divine weapon in his hand that had slain countless demons, then looked at the centipede in the sky that blotted out the sun, and remained silent for a long while before finally squeezing out a sentence through gritted teeth.

"Master Shen Jue, didn't you hit the wrong spot with that punch...?"

"They said it was a thousand-year-old centipede spirit, but they didn't say it was this big!"

Zuo Qianhu silently watched the giant centipede in the sky.

He drew the sword from his waist, the four characters "Protect the Nation and Bless the People" on the blade were blackened by the demonic aura.

The fingers tightened and loosened on the knife handle, then tightened again.

Cihang Temple was collapsing into ruins. Commander Zuo used his internal energy to forcefully block the falling Cihang Temple, preventing the demonic energy and tiles from hindering the fleeing officials and nobles.

Ning Caichen trembled. Even though he was now a martial artist at the Grandmaster level, his courage and mindset had not yet changed from that of a poor and weak scholar.

The overwhelming demonic aura surged like a black tide, causing the roof tiles of the entire imperial city to hum and vibrate.

The centipede's thousands of blood-red eyes widened simultaneously, and a sharp, almost shattering sound tore down from the sky!

That was the fury that erupted from the depths of his soul after his thousand years of cultivation were shattered!

"Monk!!!"

The sound exploded, causing the rubble and tiles in the ruins to jump up, and the half-collapsed palace wall collapsed with a roar.

"You've ruined my cultivation!!!"

The centipede demon's enormous body tumbled wildly in the clouds, its legs flailing wildly, each movement creating a piercing sonic boom.

Its voice no longer held any compassion, only deep-seated resentment and madness.

"Do you know how many years I have cultivated this Buddhist practice?!"

"I swallowed the relics of ten thousand monks, borrowed the dynasty's fortune, and endured humiliation to disguise myself in this filthy world for a thousand years!"

"Just one step away! Just one step away from shedding my demonic form and ascending to heaven as a dragon!"

Its voice suddenly became distorted, like thousands of centipedes wailing simultaneously: "But you shattered my golden body!"

"Let me reveal my true form!"

"The dragon's energy has not yet been completely absorbed!"

"You've shattered everything I've built up over a thousand years!"

Thousands of bloodshot eyes simultaneously fixed their gaze on the tiny, naked monk below.

The demonic energy in the world suddenly surged, and the sky above the imperial city darkened completely, even swallowing the sun.

"If I can't become a Buddha, then I'll become a demon."

The centipede demon's voice suddenly calmed down, a calmness that sent chills down one's spine.

"This imperial city, this mortal realm, and you."

"You will all be buried with my dragon spirit."

Its thousand-meter-tall body suddenly arched, like a black mountain folding in the sky.

That was a sign that it was about to swoop down, its target the entire imperial city.

Ning Caichen's legs were trembling so badly that he could barely stand.

A thought kept swirling in his mind: the centipede said it wanted to destroy the human world.

He subconsciously looked at Shen Jue.

The young monk, shirtless, was still looking up at the giant centipede in the sky, which was arching its body as if about to pounce.

His expression didn't change; he even stretched and yawned as if to warm up.

"Are you done talking?" Shen Jue asked loudly, his voice echoing throughout the entire imperial city.

"A mere demon dreaming of the future?"

He glanced at Yan Chixia and said, "Old Yan, step back."

Without saying a word, Yan Chixia drew the Xuanyuan Sword, grabbed Ning Caichen by the collar, and pulled him backward.

Shen Jue withdrew his gaze and looked again at the centipede in the sky that blotted out the sun.

His lips slowly parted into a grin, revealing two rows of gleaming white teeth.

"The third form, right?"

"Coincidentally, I like the feeling of layering on top of each other."

"therefore."

"Bloom! My second form!"