The Dead Sea was not merely a body of water; it was a graveyard of ambition. As the Celestial Path Academy fortress sailed deeper into the abyss, the sky turned a bruised purple, and the waves beneath them became thick and oily, like liquid shadow. The "Map of the Abyss" obtained from the Northern Vault glowed on the central console, revealing a path through the jagged, underwater mountain ranges that guarded the Spire of the Demon King.
Suddenly, the fortress shuddered. The humming of the Rank-9 engines dropped an octave, and the golden lights of the corridors began to flicker.
[Divine Library: Warning! High-Level Absorption Field Detected.]
[Detection: The First Horseman of the Apocalypse—Famine.]
[Analysis: An entity that exists as a 'Living Void'. It does not possess a physical body, but eats the Qi and Life-force of everything within a 10-mile radius.]
"Teacher! I... I feel weak," Ling'er gasped, her Phoenix fire dimming until it was nothing more than a faint orange glow. Even Mu Tie, whose frost-blood was usually stagnant, felt his internal energy being sucked out of his pores like water through sand.
Lin Fan stood at the prow, his Nine Divine Halos spinning rapidly to create a protective barrier around the deck. He looked ahead and saw it—a massive, skeletal figure draped in tattered black rags, floating above the waves. It held a pair of rusted scales in its bony hand, and where its face should have been, there was only a swirling, black vortex.
The Duel of Consumption: Famine vs. Lu Bao
"Human..." Famine's voice wasn't spoken; it was felt as a hollow ache in the stomach. "Your pride is a feast. Your knowledge is a delicacy. I have starved for a thousand years... and you bring me a kingdom of essence."
The Horseman raised his scales. The left side dropped heavily, and suddenly, the fortress's protective arrays began to shatter. The Spirit Stones powering the ship were turning into grey dust as their energy was siphoned away.
"Teacher, let me go," a voice grunted from the back of the deck.
It was Lu Bao. But he didn't look like the lazy, bun-eating boy anymore. His violet glow from the 'Heart of the North' was pulsating in sync with the Horseman's void. His Donut-Halo was spinning with a terrifying ferocity.
"Lu Bao, this is a Living Void," Lin Fan warned. "It eats everything. If you fail, it won't just kill you—it will erase your very existence from history."
"Teacher," Lu Bao said, a rare, serious glint in his eyes. "You told me my body is a Bottomless Void. You told me I need a flood. Well... that skeleton over there is the biggest flood I've ever seen. I want to see who's hungrier."
Lin Fan looked at the Divine Library.
[Analysis: Lu Bao's Bottomless Void Constitution vs. Famine's Parasitic Void.]
[Probability of Success: 15%.]
[Synthesis Suggestion: Teach Lu Bao the 'Universal Law of Conversion'.]
Lin Fan placed his hand on Lu Bao's shoulder. "Lu Bao, don't just eat. Transform. Every bit of void energy he tries to take from you, use the library's synthesis to turn it into 'Weight'. If he wants to swallow you, make yourself too heavy for the universe to hold."
The Battle of the Two Voids
Lu Bao jumped from the flying fortress, falling through the air like a meteor. He didn't use a weapon. He simply opened his mouth and let out a roar that shook the Dead Sea.
Famine laughed—a dry, rattling sound. "A glutton? You try to eat me?"
The black vortex of the Horseman expanded, surrounding Lu Bao. To the observers on the ship, it looked like a small purple spark was being swallowed by a giant black sun.
[Divine Library: Monitoring Lu Bao...]
[Status: 40% of Essence drained. Initiating 'Universal Law of Conversion'.]
Inside the black vortex, Lu Bao felt his skin being peeled away by the sheer hunger of the Horseman. But he didn't panic. He remembered Lin Fan's lesson.
"You want my Qi?" Lu Bao shouted. "Take it! But you have to take the Flaws too!"
Lu Bao didn't just give Famine his pure energy; he opened the link to his Dantian and poured out all the "Kachra" (trash) energy he had accumulated from eating unrefined stones, demon breaths, and shadow-scraps.
Famine's vortex suddenly flickered. The "Perfect Hunger" of the Horseman was being polluted by the "Imperfect Trash" of Lu Bao's digestion. It was like a man trying to drink pure water and suddenly being forced to swallow mud.
"What... what is this?! This energy is... disgusting!" Famine shrieked.
"That's called 'Flavor', you skeleton!" Lu Bao laughed.
As Famine struggled to digest the "flawed" energy, Lu Bao began the second phase. He used the Sovereign's Military Decree to call upon the shadows of the demons he had eaten before. They appeared inside Famine's void, attacking the Horseman from the inside out.
The Grand Synthesis: The Weight of the World
"Now, Lu Bao! Become the Mountain!" Lin Fan's voice resonated through the void.
Lu Bao activated the 10-to-1 Synthesis within his own body. He took the 10 different types of energy he had consumed—Frost, Phoenix-Fire, Shadow, Spirit-Stone, North-Heart, and more—and fused them into a single, high-density point in his navel.
[Ding! Synthesis Complete: 'The Singularity Body'.]
Suddenly, Lu Bao's weight didn't just increase; it multiplied by a million. He became so heavy that the space-time fabric around him began to warp. The black vortex of Famine, which was trying to pull Lu Bao in, was now being pulled into Lu Bao.
"No! I am the Void! I cannot be consumed!" Famine screamed as his tattered rags were torn away.
"In my Teacher's library," Lu Bao said, his voice now deep and echoing like a God's, "there is no such thing as an empty stomach."
With a final, massive GULP, Lu Bao swallowed the Horseman's core—the 'Scales of Famine'.
BOOM!
The black sun exploded into violet starlight. Lu Bao fell back toward the fortress, landing on the deck with a thud that nearly tilted the entire ship.
He stood up, looking three inches taller and significantly broader. His skin had a metallic, obsidian sheen, and his Donut-Halo had turned into a solid, golden ring of Universal Law.
[Ding! Student Lu Bao Breakthrough: Stage 9 (Initial).]
[New Ability Unlocked: 'The Devouring Fortress'.]
"Teacher..." Lu Bao burped, a small puff of black smoke escaping his lips. "I think I need a nap. And maybe a thousand buns."
The Sea-Gate and the Guardian of the Past
With the first Horseman defeated, the fog cleared slightly, revealing a massive jade archway rising from the sea—the Sea-Gate. This was the only entrance to the Demon King's inner sanctum, but it was guarded by a fleet of ancient, ghost-ships.
Standing on the central pillar of the gate was a woman. She looked older than Medusa or Yue, perhaps in her late thirties, but her beauty was timeless. She wore the robes of a High-Rank Sea-Priestess, and she held a trident that hummed with the power of the tides.
This was Lady Ananya, the Fourth Wife and a figure from Lin Fan's "previous" memories of this world—his older love interest.
[Divine Library: Scanning Target...]
[Name: Ananya. Title: Guardian of the Abyss.]
[Status: Immortal Guardian. She has waited 500 years for the 'Returned Scholar'.]
[Note: She is the only one who knows the Demon King's True Name.]
"You have come at last, Lin Fan," Ananya said, her voice echoing across the waves. "I watched you through the tides when you were but a failed teacher in a border city. I watched you tame the Queen and save the Saintess. But to pass the Sea-Gate, you must prove you remember who you were before the Library."
Lin Fan stepped onto a small platform of light and floated toward her.
"I remember the scholar who loved the sea," Lin Fan said, his eyes soft. "And I remember the woman who promised to wait until the stars fell into the water."
Ananya's stern expression softened for a microsecond. "The stars have already fallen, Lin Fan. They are the demons you see in the sky. To open this gate, you must solve the 'Riddle of the Tides'—a puzzle that the God-Tribe left behind."
The Riddle of the Tides
The Sea-Gate was covered in ten thousand shifting symbols that moved like waves. To open it, one had to touch the symbols in a specific sequence that matched the "Heartbeat of the Ocean." One wrong move, and the gate would collapse, crushing the entire continent.
[Divine Library: Accessing 'Library of Souls'...]
[Communication: Spirit of the God-Tribe Architect...]
"The water is not water," the ancient spirit whispered in Lin Fan's mind. "The water is the blood of the Earth. To open the gate, you must not use Qi. You must use 'Blood-Resonance'."
Lin Fan looked at Ananya. "The riddle isn't about the symbols, Ananya. It's about the person standing in front of them."
Lin Fan walked to the gate. He didn't look at the symbols. He placed his hand on the cold jade and closed his eyes. He began to circulate his Holy Qi, but he mixed it with the thousands of bloodlines he had scanned throughout his journey.
He mimicked the vibration of the Dragon, the Phoenix, the Medusa, and the Seer. He turned his blood into a "Symphony of the Human Race."
The Sea-Gate began to glow with a brilliant, multicolored light. The ten thousand symbols stopped shifting and formed a single, massive character: HOME.
The gate swung open.
The Revelation of the True Name
Ananya stepped down from her pillar and knelt before Lin Fan. "You have surpassed the Architect's expectations. You do not just possess knowledge; you possess the 'Empathy of the Realms'."
She looked at the dark spire in the distance.
"The Demon King's name is not a word in any human tongue," she whispered. "His name is 'Aethel-Gard'. He was the High Priest of the God-Tribe who tried to synthesize the 'Origin Core' with 'Shadow-Matter'. The explosion created the demons and turned him into... that."
"Aethel-Gard," Lin Fan repeated. The name resonated with the Divine Archive, unlocking a hidden section of the God-Tribe records.
[Divine Library: Secret File Decrypted—'Project Origin'.]
[Flaw of the Demon King: He cannot exist in a world where 'Perfect Synthesis' is present. His body is a contradiction.]
"I understand now," Lin Fan said, his Nine Divine Halos flaring with a light that pushed back the Dead Sea's darkness for miles. "He isn't trying to rule the world. He's trying to 'Fix' himself by eating everyone else's potential."
The Comedy of the Reunion
As Ananya boarded the flying fortress, she was greeted by Queen Medusa, Saintess Qingya, and Madam Yue.
The atmosphere on the deck suddenly became colder than Mu Tie's frost-blade.
"So..." Medusa said, her hand on her hip, her vipers hissing. "The 'Older Love Interest'. I suppose you have a lot to talk about, Master Lin?"
Qingya looked at Ananya with a serene, yet piercing gaze. "Her melody is... very deep. It has the weight of five centuries."
Madam Yue hugged her daughter closer. "At least she's a Priestess. I hope she's better at administration than Lu Bao is at guarding the pantry."
Lin Fan felt a cold sweat on his neck. He had faced a 6-Star Elder, a Stage 9 General, and a Horseman of the Apocalypse, but the gaze of four powerful women was a different kind of trial.
"Lu Bao!" Lin Fan shouted, trying to change the subject. "Is the lunch ready?"
"Mmph... almost Teacha!" Lu Bao shouted from the kitchen. "I'm just trying to figure out how to bake a bun using 'Void-Essence'. It keeps disappearing before I can put it in the oven!"
The tension broke as everyone laughed, even Ananya.
The Final Approach
The fortress sailed through the Sea-Gate. Ahead of them, the Spire of the Demon King rose like a jagged tooth from the black water. Thousands of demons were swarming around it, and the sky was a vortex of lightning and shadow.
"Mu Tie, Ling'er, Siyu, Lu Bao," Lin Fan called his disciples. "The next three layers of the spire belong to War, Conquest, and Death. You will lead the Shadow Army. I will go straight to the peak."
He looked at his wives-to-be. "Protect my students. If I don't return... well, Lu Bao will probably eat the fortress, so try to stop him."
"You will return," Ananya said, her hand resting on the trident. "Because the sea never forgets its master."
Lin Fan nodded. He stood at the very tip of the ship's prow, his robes fluttering.
"Shadow Army... Deployment Maxima!"
From the deck, 100,000 shadows rose, filling the sky with blue-flaming warriors. The final siege of the Spire had begun.