Infinite Slaughter System: I Kill, Therefore I Ascend!-Chapter 152: The One Nine Heavenly Tribulation!

"Now, it’s just me and you," Li Ling muttered as he turned to face the thundering sky after sending Shen Ziyan away.

Since this was a tribulation, Li Ling did not hesitate to call out his Asura Reaper Spear, which he jumped onto to hover upward into the sky. While he could theoretically achieve flight by stepping into the void, that was faux flight and still burdened his physical body.

As for real flight, it was only acquired truly through cultivation when one achieved the Sixth Realm in either Body or Qi. Before then, many could still fly using other tricks, daoist arts, or even physical features like wings, but that wasn’t true flight through realm but flight through technique.

Li Ling came to hover above the entire outpost, allowing everyone who could maintain their ability within this range to see who he was. Naturally, all were puzzled as none recognized him at first, until those of the Six Paths Demon Sect used their tokens to scan Li Ling, gaining his information.

Seeing that he was indeed a mere Path Lord who had yet to upgrade to a Path Ascender—for the Six Paths Demon Sect, they only counted the realm of your affiliated path cultivation, i.e., Blood Asura Descent, not your other realms—they were left speechless.

What made many eyes shine was that they confirmed that Li Ling was not of the Shen Clan, likely a visitor, passerby, or at most a friend. This spawned many thoughts in the heads of those of the Six Paths Demon Sect in this outpost who were close enough and powerful enough to get this information.

Meanwhile, those of the Boundless Joy Sect couldn’t utilize such "in-house" identification methods, but they didn’t need to, as Li Ling’s face was making rounds in their sect recently as the one who captured their Saintess.

So without even taking a second, everyone in the Boundless Joy Sect who could stay in this area immediately recognized Li Ling, and with that recognition came shock and anger!

This was the brat who dared to cause trouble in their City of Joy, almost destroying the teleportation hall were it not for the quick action of Elder Wen Caiyi and Elder Yan Bing, preventing grievous losses to the Boundless Joy Sect!

So upon seeing him here, many present had the same idea that Wen Caiyi and Yan Bing had: to try and apprehend him quickly to control him and make sure that the Saintess was fine. However, looking at where they were, with so many Six Paths Demon Sect powerhouses, they could only swallow these thoughts.

Instead, they began to secretly hope that the Heavenly Tribulation would severely wound or even kill the fellow, so that they could legally recover their Saintess without offending the Six Paths Demon Sect.

As for Li Ling, he only idly scanned the crowd to see who was watching, then raised an eyebrow at the power differences in the lineup. He then poked the air to see that subspace around here had been suppressed by Gu Yin, but it was not enough to prevent him from entering; it just required a lot more effort than usual.

Reassured, he noted that the makings of the Heavenly Tribulation’s first strike were about done, and the bolt was beginning to condense rapidly as it aimed itself toward him with a lock-on feature that Li Ling felt was tied to his very soul signature.

However, the young man had no intention to dodge, simply manifesting his 120-meter Blood Aura with a calm smile on his face, as if everything was under control.

THAKOOM!

The bolt suddenly struck out with incredible speed, seemingly aiming to strike Li Ling unawares, but the young man was more than ready. He condensed his Blood Aura into a makeshift lightning bolt and sent it striking toward the actual bolt, clashing with it in midair.

Both forces produced a shockwave of force when they clashed that even briefly reached the ground, ruffling hairs and clothes. After that, one could see a force of bluish-white energy colliding furiously with a blood-red energy, with the former being stronger than the latter but the latter being craftier, slowly consuming the former.

In the end, both of them destroyed one another, making Li Ling’s lips curl upward while the mouths of those down below went wide open, forming an "O" shape.

Gu Yin was puzzled. "I can sense this tribulation—though being a one-nine tribulation—is meant for Nascent Soul cultivators at the least. Yet he is able to shatter it merely with his second-realm peak Blood Aura? Granted, it was the purest Blood Aura I’ve ever seen, but..."

The second bolt charged itself up and launched downward with a thunderous roar, containing about half again as much power as the last one. To that, Li Ling simply called up his Perfection-grade Golden Blockade Technique, which was also due for an upgrade now that he had hit the third realm.

Whatever the case, the result was the lightning bolt fizzling uselessly against the four-sided shield while Li Ling remained unharmed and amused.

This result was the same for the third, fourth, and fifth bolts respectively, which all increased in power by a fold each. The third bolt made the shield shake slightly, the fourth actually managed to crack it slightly, while the fifth made a huge crack that covered 80% of the shield.

When the sixth came, it shattered the Golden Blockade for the first time, with about 30% of its power remaining that fell onto Li Ling. The young man made no move to block as he let the lightning strike him, feeling the effects of it on his body so that he could judge the power of the heavens for himself.

Hmm, how to describe it? It was just like putting a knife in when the toaster was on. It was not a pleasant feeling at all, and Li Ling felt his muscles forcibly contract and expand till they tore, his flesh seared slightly, and his blood was made to boil.

Were it not for his second-realm body cultivation, he would have been severely injured by just 30% of the sixth bolt of the one-nine Heavenly Tribulation!

This made him develop a bit more grudging respect for the heavens and also understand why it was such a terror to normal cultivators, but geniuses didn’t think much about it.

The end result was that Li Ling’s hair was standing up while his body was blackened in many places, his freshly repaired white-and-gold robe tattered. After releasing a puff of black smoke from his mouth, Li Ling chuckled as his body exploded with a blood-red light which forcibly expelled or consumed the remnant lightning within him, allowing his natural healing to kick in.

"Not bad—that stung quite a bit," Li Ling said, dropping some tough words as the seventh bolt charged up and thundered downward, quickly mustering his defenses.

At the tip of his finger formed a pebble that was actually a full-power Meteor, which he flicked out to enlarge and smash toward the incoming lightning bolt.

THWOOOM!

Both collided, and the meteor was actually destroyed head-on, with more than 50% of the bolt still active and ready to pounce on Li Ling!

Li Ling’s eyes condensed as he channeled his newly born Dharma Power into his mouth, forming a visage of flames as he spat out the Fire Stream Art into the sky, forming a net which captured the seventh bolt’s remaining power in its web, consuming it slowly until it dissipated.

Li Ling sighed with a hint of fatigue. He now understood how terrible Heavenly Tribulations were when you used your own power, because the consumption was crazy. If he hadn’t hit the third realm and gained auto-cultivation through his core automatically spinning to absorb and replenish his Dharma Power rapidly, he would have had to top up using Slaughter Points.

At the moment, he glanced at the eighth bolt, which was half again stronger than the seventh one, and felt sweat bead on his forehead. It wasn’t because he was necessarily overwhelmed, but because he didn’t want to display certain moves just yet—not in front of everyone.

There was the right time to show off, like in the duel with Bai Yegui or Shen Taixu, but one had to let the shock digest first. Already, his comprehension of these rules in public was going to cause him a lot of trouble and derail some of his plans, but he was working up solutions. 𝘧𝓇ℯ𝑒𝓌𝑒𝑏𝓃𝘰𝘷𝘦𝘭.𝒸ℴ𝓂

There was no need to add to his troubles by utilizing even more terrifying power. So whether it was his newly comprehended rules or his spatial abilities, they were completely out of the question!

That meant that unless Li Ling opened the system and used Slaughter Points to level up any cultivation realm or daoist art, he only had one option left in his arsenal. He wasn’t entirely sure of the effectiveness of this, as it was only implied and not stated, but it seemed that the situation called for it.

As such, when the eighth bolt dropped down, Li Ling only raised his right hand as if commanding it to stop, which was a funny sight to see. Those on his side, or his well-wishers, were wondering what the heck he was doing, while his naysayers were excited, thinking it was the end of the road for him.

However, both sides were left dumbstruck when the bolt collided with Li Ling the next moment, showering sparks all over the outpost!