Setting aside the chaotic mess back in Atlantis for now.
At this very moment, within the boundless hell, the Water Demon Bansha was on the verge of going completely insane.
"My kingdom! My Atlantis! No——!!"
Her enormous, mermaid-like, ghostly blue body thrashed wildly across the scorched earth of hell. Her tail fins whipped about violently, conjuring colossal waves out of thin air that battered the already desolate hellscape into utter disarray.
The unlucky Earth Demon Di Kui had just crawled out of a crevice and hadn't yet grasped the situation when he was slammed by a sudden wave.
The entire demon was embedded into the nearby rocky cliff face with a 'thud', leaving only a distorted outline.
"Ahem... what's Second Sister up to now? Has she lost her mind?"
Di Kui struggled to pull his head out of the rock, shook his dazed skull, and grumbled in a muffled voice.
Nearby, the Sky Demon Xi Mu hovered mid-air, flapping his bat-like wings. Watching Bansha's frenzy, he felt no sympathy. Instead, he let out sharp, cackling laughter, dripping with schadenfreude.
"Cackle! How could she not be frantic? An opportunity she's waited a thousand years for, just on the cusp of touching the edge of the mortal world again with that bit of demonic energy, and then what? The cooked duck just flew away! You'd go mad too! Cackle-hahaha!"
"Enough! Bansha! Calm down!"
The calm, distant voice of the Moon Demon Curse Blue rang out, carrying the authority of the eldest brother.
He floated weightlessly before Bansha, attempting to halt her meaningless destruction.
"Venting your rage like this serves no purpose in salvaging the situation!"
"Calm?! How can you expect me to be calm!"
Bansha pointed a furious finger at the water mirror suspended in mid-air, formed from condensed demonic energy.
The image within the water mirror, which had been clearly reflecting the chaotic scene in the Atlantis ruins, was now growing increasingly blurry. Its edges even began to show signs of distortion and dissipation.
"Look! My kingdom, which I worked so hard to revive! My tenuous yet crucial connection to the mortal world is breaking! It's about to vanish completely!"
She let out a heart-wrenching, desperate roar, filled with despair and resentment.
"And what destroyed it all was that North Sea Leviathan I subdued back in the day!"
"A damned human! Using the method I left behind, controlling my leviathan, to destroy my kingdom! This is the greatest irony and humiliation!"
A flicker of helplessness passed through Curse Blue's crimson eyes, but he remained composed, trying to soothe his sister:
"Bansha, do not panic. The situation is not yet at its worst. Your origin demonic energy has already successfully reached Atlantis."
"As long as you seize the moment, use that wisp of energy to swiftly infect and convert a suitable vessel to serve as an anchor for your will's descent, you can still..."
Curse Blue's words cut off abruptly.
His crimson pupils contracted sharply, fixed intently on the scene suddenly reflected in the water mirror—a sight so astonishing it shocked even this ancient demon who had lived countless eons.
For the first time, a crack appeared on his usually impassive face.
"Damn it! How dare he inhale so much at once?!"
Seeing her elder brother so uncharacteristically flustered, Bansha's sense of foreboding instantly skyrocketed. She hurriedly looked up, focusing her gaze on the water mirror.
Then, the entire demon... froze.
Her eyes instantly turned hollow, as if she had lost all soul and hope.
In the blurry, wavering image of the water mirror, that human kid named Victor was holding the ancient gourd that should have contained the origin demonic energy—her hope of returning to the mortal world—and was guzzling it down like soda, chugging it into his mouth!
The gourd's mouth even formed a small, visible vortex of purple demonic energy due to the excessive suction!
That priceless, pure demonic energy representing Bansha's origin power was now pouring unimpeded and continuously into that human's stomach!
"No... no... my demonic energy... my last hope..."
Bansha muttered to herself, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
She extended a trembling tentacle, as if trying to pierce the water mirror to stop him, but it ultimately fell limply.
The entire hell fell into a deathly silence.
The only sounds were Xi Mu, who was so shocked he forgot to keep his wings closed, falling from mid-air with a'splat', and the subsequent strange whimpers he emitted, which could have been either laughter or crying.
Di Kui scratched his rocky head. Looking at Bansha and Curse Blue, who were completely petrified as if turned into demonic statues, then at the twitching Xi Mu on the ground, he grew even more confused.
"So... what the hell happened?"
Atlantis.
Victor let out a satisfying, loud belch. A surge of cold air rose from his throat, even bringing out a faint wisp of purple mist.
"Burp——!"
This feeling... was even more refreshing than downing ten bottles of ice-cold soda!
Venom had once told him that the more formidable the host's basic attributes, the more exponentially the power boost would be when they merged.
Back in that exhibition hall, when he tasted the first sip of demonic energy from the gourd, he vaguely sensed it—
In that instant, his physique felt as if forcibly infused with some ancient power. Not only did his muscular strength and reaction speed surge.
Even more mysteriously, he seemed to briefly touch upon a kind of... authority over 'water'.
Although that feeling was fleeting, like a flash in the pan. As the sheep talisman's gentle power protected his soul and the aimless demonic energy retreated into the gourd, all the enhancements vanished.
But that sense of power, that subtle connection as if he could command a body of water, was deeply imprinted in his memory.
And now... he had chugged an entire gourd!
"Enough... this time, it's absolutely enough!"
Feeling the demonic energy surging like a tsunami within him, Victor growled in a low voice.
Boom——!
An indescribably vast energy erupted from his body! His physique began undergoing a visible, terrifying metamorphosis!
His bones emitted a teeth-grating series of 'crack-pop' sounds. His frame inflated rapidly as if pumped with air, muscles bulging, instantly shredding his well-fitting clothes into rags!
His skin color swiftly shifted to an ominous, deep-sea-like shade of ghostly blue, becoming smooth and icy cold.
The pupils in his eyes contracted, the whites completely overtaken by a crimson, blood-red glow, radiating a fierce, demonic aura.
The skin on both sides of his cheeks tore open, growing upward-curving, bone-spur-like gills that opened and closed slightly with his breath.
On his head, slimy, deep-blue tentacles that writhed like living things burst through his skin, waving and flailing without wind.
The most astonishing change occurred in his lower body—
His legs fused, elongated, and became covered in hard scales, ultimately forming a thick, powerful, enormous fish tail adorned with ghostly blue patterns. The tail fin resembled gorgeous blue silk yet contained the power to tear through water!
He was being forcibly transformed by Bansha's origin demonic energy, shifting towards the form of the Water Demon!
Just as his consciousness was somewhat blurred by the impact of the violent power, waves of intensely venomous and furious, indistinct mutterings exploded directly in the depths of his mind like the most malicious curse:
"[F***ing little bastard! Shameless thief! I'll f***ing... one day I'll tear you to shreds and use your bones to adorn my throne! Your whole family!!!]"
Victor was momentarily stunned by this sudden 'brain-screaming'. He blinked his crimson eyes in confusion and subconsciously mumbled:
"Who is that? So rude... Don't they know public channels prohibit noise? And personal attacks too?"
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