He lowered his head and sighed for a while before suddenly looking up: "Kid, have you ever heard of living inheritance? Of course, at your age, you definitely haven't. Let me tell you: if your power is extremely strong—so strong that... I can't even describe how strong—anyway, extremely strong, your lifespan is almost infinite. But your body can't keep up, it gets old, and you have to change to a new body to keep living. At that point, you need to find someone, transfer all your battle energy into their body, then your soul destroys their soul and completely takes over their body. That's what living inheritance is."

Gaia felt a chill in his heart. "You want to perform living inheritance on me?"

"Hahaha! Kid, I'm liking you more and more. That's right, I want your body. You must have noticed, my martial battle energy is just too domineering. An ordinary body—even a high-level professional—would instantly be torn apart and die if I injected it. Only Joyvilla's Infinite Devouring Body can withstand my martial battle energy. Kid, you can only blame your bad luck. But look, in this freezing weather, you and an old servant are out here, not even staying at an inn. Your life must be tough. Dying early is a relief!"

After Hoganberg finished speaking, he casually pointed, and the golden battle energy on Gaia pulled his body into a spread-eagle shape, suspending him in midair.

Hoganberg whistled, and the sound of metal rang out. Two armored, shield-and-blade-wielding magic skeleton soldiers appeared at the cave entrance. Clearly, Hoganberg was using them as his guards.

Once everything was set up, Hoganberg's sinister eyes turned to Gaia: "Kid, since I feel a connection with you, I'll make it quick so you suffer less."

He reached behind his back and took out a belt, spreading it on the stone bench. Embedded in it were nine bone-white spikes, sharp at one end, with a hollowed-out sphere carved at the other.

Hoganberg swiftly stabbed the nine bone spikes into his own body—on his head, both shoulders, both kidneys, both legs, and both feet. He closed his eyes, and two streams of white smoke slowly drifted from his nostrils. A faint golden glow flickered on his body.

Nine golden threads were drawn from Hoganberg's body, flowing along the nine bone spikes and slowly gathering in the hollowed-out spheres.

The hollow patterns on the surface of the spheres were mysterious, and with the golden threads inside, they formed a glowing orb—mysterious and eerie.

As time passed, the glowing orbs grew larger, while Hoganberg's hair rapidly withered.

After about half an hour, the hollowed spheres were swollen with golden light, and Hoganberg seemed to have aged decades in an instant. When he opened his eyes, his gaze was no longer as powerful as before.

Yet, thin golden threads still drew from his body, continuing to flow into the glowing orbs. From the top down, the nine hollowed spheres gradually condensed the light into golden demonic lotus flowers.

From the first hollowed sphere, the demonic lotus bloomed brilliantly, light mist spreading, golden threads flowing like water—a strange and beautiful sight.

In the second hollowed sphere, the blooming demonic lotus had a faint golden shadow behind it—a double-grade demonic lotus!

Continuing down, the third demonic lotus had two shadowy reflections behind it, the fourth had three phantom lotuses... all the way to the ninth demonic lotus, which astonishingly had eight faint golden shadows—a nine-grade demonic lotus!

"Hiss hiss hiss..." When the final nine-grade demonic lotus fully bloomed, Hoganberg slowly pulled out the bone spikes and walked over to Gaia. Matching the positions on his own body, he stabbed the bone spikes into Gaia.

"Ah—" Gaia could no longer hold back a scream. In both his lives, he had never experienced such excruciating pain. The martial battle energy was overwhelmingly domineering, pouring into his body like a waterfall, and the fierce energy was practically slicing him apart from the inside.

The only thing to be thankful for was that after the nine clusters of battle energy entered his body, without receiving the next command, they simply lay dormant inside him instead of rampaging. Otherwise, Gaia would have suffered even more.

The injection was very fast, completed in less than half a minute.

Hoganberg's withered fingers drew a strange symbol on Gaia's forehead. His fingertip trembled lightly, and he gave a low shout: "Scatter!"

The cluster of battle energy dormant at the top of his head immediately dispersed, rushing into his body—at that moment, Gaia felt as if every muscle and blood vessel in his body was being sliced by countless sharp knives, the pain even more intense than when the energy was injected.

He let out a scream, cold sweat pouring from every pore.

After the battle energy dispersed inside him, it finally began to sink into his bones and blood. Gaia was already on the verge of death. Hoganberg frowned: "Your body is really too weak. Even after being transformed into the Infinite Devouring Body, you can barely withstand one-ninth of my battle energy. What a pity..."

He scratched his head. "Too bad I don't have a suitable magic energy medium on hand, or I could have done it all at once. Oh well, this will do. Once I control this body, I'll find a magic energy medium myself."

Gaia slowly opened his eyes, sweat beads hanging from his eyelids.