"Ahh, I’ve had my fill. It’s time to stretch my legs."

"Perfect timing."

"That Pseudo-God Believer named Tingfeng has arrived with his main force."

"Let’s make an example of him."

The moment he finished speaking, Jinli slowly materialized from within Flame Emperor Galukasa’s sturdy frame, right inside the Sealing Array jointly created by the Kingdom of Ventecenia.

He looked identical to the first Flame Emperor of the Gulad Empire, but a dense black mist swirled around him. Glimpsed intermittently through gaps in the mist was the body of a bizarre, black, centipede-like dragon. Two crimson eyes, like blood-red moons, shone with a terrifying strangeness.

Flame Emperor Galukasa’s brow furrowed. His gaze fell upon Jinli, and he seemed to want to speak but hesitated, finally managing to utter a few words after a long moment:

"Your form..."

Jinli had clearly anticipated this. He gave a slight nod, proactively addressing the other’s doubt:

"You’re trying to say my Ancient Dragon body looks... wrong, aren’t you?"

Flame Emperor Galukasa’s reply was brief and heavy:

"Yes."

Jinli’s voice deepened as his gaze swept over the black mist coiling around him:

"It is wrong."

"My original form was identical to the Ancient Fire Dragon bonded to you. I was a true Ancient Giant Dragon, with the appearance of a lizard and the wings of a bat."

He paused, a hint of coldness creeping into his tone:

"But you should know this. The Primordial Deity I follow was trapped in a seal within the Abyss by that cabal of Pseudo-Gods. Day and night, he has been baptized and eroded by Darkness, losing his original power long ago."

"What sustains him now is what you humans call ’evil power’—a force that is pure, dark, and Powerful."

Finally, he looked up at the Flame Emperor and said, word by word:

"This current form of my true body is the price for accepting that dark power. It twists my flesh and bone, making me like a monster from the Abyss."

"However."

Jinli’s tone shifted, gaining a hard, confident edge.

"This power has its benefits. It’s powerful enough."

"Powerful enough for me to face the Pseudo-God Believers head-on—that is, the group of Divine Chosen Lords who crossed over from the Otherworld."

When he looked up, a dark light surged in his eyes:

"As for the great Deity I worship, as long as he can break free from the Abyss, he can use this formidable Power of Dark Abyss to settle all blood debts with those high-and-mighty Pseudo-Gods."

Flame Emperor Galukasa was silent for a long time. Only the faint hiss of the swirling black mist filled the air. Then, he suddenly looked up, his voice tinged with a complex, gloomy tone:

"So?"

"Does that mean we are the real Evil God Believers now?"

Upon hearing this, Jinli burst into hearty laughter, the black mist roiling and surging with the sound:

"Haha!"

"Exactly!"

He abruptly straightened his body, the black mist around him suddenly coalescing, his tone filled with flamboyance and resolve:

"From this moment on, you will call me... Evil Dragon Jinli!"

As he spoke, Jinli’s body began to twist violently, the black mist churning and coiling around him like Boiling ink.

The next second, an immense black shadow burst from the mist. It was his true form: a colossal black Evil Dragon nearly a thousand meters long.

The black Evil Dragon was entirely cloaked in a viscous, tar-like black mist. It was hundreds of meters long, but its torso was segmented into dozens of sections like a centipede. Each section of Scale Armor gleamed with a dim, eerie light, its edges caked with dark red scabs of blood, as if it were a skeleton dug up from the decaying soil of the Abyss.

Its head lacked the majestic horns of a typical dragon. Instead, it bore a pair of short limbs covered in compound eyes, within which murky, blood-colored specks of light swirled. Below were three rows of fine, serrated fangs. A black liquid that gave off white smoke constantly dripped from between its teeth, corroding deep brown pits into the ground where it landed.

The limbs on the sides of its torso were even more bizarre. A pair of sickle-shaped legs extended from each segment, their tips gleaming with a cold, metallic luster. When they moved, they scraped out fine black sparks, as if they could easily rend air and flesh alike.

The most peculiar feature was its tail. It wasn’t the thick, powerful tail of a dragon, but was sharp and slender like a centipede’s stinger, its tip coated in a dark purple venom. Wherever the venom dripped, even rock would quickly blacken and disintegrate.

When it moved, its dozens of segments would twist and writhe at unnatural angles. Black mist constantly seeped out with the swaying of its body. Wherever it passed, even the weeds withered instantly, leaving behind only a scorched black mark with a foul stench. It was a "Centipede-shaped Evil Dragon" crawled straight out of the Abyss, every inch of its form exuding a suffocating evil and brutality.

What was even more chilling was that this colossal Evil Dragon, which Jinli had transformed into, could float as gracefully as a true dragon hundreds of meters in the air, despite its segmented, centipede-like body. Every sway of its torso was accompanied by the whistle of Tearing air currents.

It didn’t need to dive; a slight tilt of its head was enough to spew a dark purple evil dragon’s breath from its fang-filled maw.

The breath was as scorching as lava and shrouded in bone-corroding black mist. It blasted open charred black craters dozens of feet deep where it struck the ground. Black liquid bubbled with poison at the bottom of the pits, and even the rocks sizzled as they corroded. Its destructive power was nothing short of terrifying.

In just a moment, the rows of Magic Puppets within the Sealing Array, forged by the Warriors of the Kingdom of Ventecenia at the cost of their own lives, collapsed with a deafening roar under the Evil Dragon’s assault.

Some were burned to charcoal by its breath, others shattered into fragments by shrapnel, not a single complete remnant left behind.

Immediately after, the Array’s membrane of light cracked with spiderweb-like patterns, like shattered glass. With a final, muffled BOOM, the entire Sealing Array collapsed completely. The scattered motes of light, mixed with the residual life force of the Warriors, dissipated into the air.