Infinite Slaughter System: I Kill, Therefore I Ascend!

Chapter 240: The Truth Behind The Humiliation! 1

The Ancestral Hall emptied soon after Tian Moshen’s command.

No one dared to delay for a second, the various True Inheritors and Grand Elders departing through the six pathways in an orderly manner, but their movements were far quicker than their dignified appearances suggested.

Even Ming Yue’s four personal disciples only spared their new Fifth Junior Brother a final glance before leaving with the others.

Li Ling was naturally taken away as well.

Whatever thoughts he had after being slapped and sentenced to conquer the Eastern Wastes, he kept them hidden behind his lowered eyes.

Before long, the gigantic doors of the Ancestral Hall closed with a heavy rumble.

THRUMMMM!

The vast auditorium became empty, leaving only Tian Moshen and Ming Yue behind.

For a moment, neither spoke.

Then Tian Moshen casually waved one sleeve.

The six-colored wheel behind Ming Yue’s throne blurred, the Ancestral Hall folded inward, and the surrounding world vanished as if someone had closed a book.

When Ming Yue’s senses stabilized, he was no longer standing in the Divine Deva Plane.

Instead, he found himself within Tian Moshen’s private residence, though calling it a residence was somewhat inaccurate.

It was an isolated minor realm hidden somewhere within the deepest foundations of the Six Paths Demon Sect, a place so thoroughly separated from the outside world that even Ming Yue could not tell where exactly it existed.

Above them stretched a dark sky without stars, and beneath them was a boundless mirror-like lake whose surface reflected six enormous celestial bodies hanging in different directions, each corresponding to one of the Six Paths.

At the center of the lake stood a lone palace of white jade and black stone.

There were no servants, attendants, disciples, guards, formations, decorations, or unnecessary structures, only a long bridge crossing the still water and a vast throne hall waiting at its end.

The two appeared directly inside that hall.

Tian Moshen walked forward without speaking, his six-colored robes trailing behind him, and wherever his feet passed, faint golden lotuses appeared upon the dark floor before decaying into black ash a breath later.

At the far end of the chamber stood a tall throne carved from six different materials, each belonging to one of the paths, yet joined so perfectly that the boundaries between them could barely be seen.

Tian Moshen ascended the steps and sat down.

He leaned against the throne, resting one hand against the side of his face as he looked down at Ming Yue with a faint half-smile.

Strangely, Ming Yue no longer wore the ugly expression of dissatisfaction and restrained anger he had shown inside the Ancestral Hall.

Instead, he appeared relieved, curious, and even slightly uncertain.

"It seems everything went according to your plan, Old Ancestor, but will this really work?" Ming Yue asked with uncharacteristic worry.

Tian Moshen did not answer immediately.

His fingers tapped lightly against the armrest.

Each sound spread through the empty palace, causing faint ripples to appear across the endless lake outside.

After a while, Tian Moshen finally asked, "What do you think of Li Ling?"

Ming Yue was slightly surprised by the question.

He thought for a moment before answering truthfully.

"Callous, spontaneous, and belligerent."

"Oh?" Tian Moshen sounded out lightly.

Ming Yue nodded.

"He possesses very little natural sympathy for those who have no connection to him. Mortals, cultivators, enemies, strangers, and even allies can all be sacrificed if he believes the result is worthwhile. His emotions are strong, but they are narrow in direction."

"As for his spontaneity, he is capable of planning carefully, yet many of his most important choices are made in the moment. He can change his entire path because of a single discovery, insult, benefit, or realization without hesitation."

Ming Yue’s eyes narrowed slightly.

"And belligerent..."

He paused, seemingly thinking of the best way to describe Li Ling.

"He does not merely accept conflict. He enjoys it."

"If a person threatens him, he does not think only about survival or victory. He thinks about how to humiliate them, break them, seize their belongings, enslave their people, destroy what they value, and profit from the entire process."

"He is not reckless enough to fight every person he meets, but once he believes that conflict is inevitable or advantageous, he becomes extremely aggressive."

Ming Yue looked toward Tian Moshen.

"Callous, spontaneous, and belligerent. That is Li Ling."

He expected Tian Moshen to disagree.

After all, the Old Ancestor had asked the question with a strange expression, as if Ming Yue had missed something obvious.

However, Tian Moshen nodded.

"You are perfectly correct."

Ming Yue frowned slightly.

Tian Moshen’s half-smile deepened.

"Then tell me, Ming Yue. How would you foster loyalty in someone with Li Ling’s talent and nature?"

Ming Yue fell silent again, because this question was much more complicated.

With normal disciples, loyalty was not difficult to cultivate.

One only had to give them resources, protection, status, inheritances, opportunities, and emotional recognition.

A disciple raised by the sect would naturally develop some attachment to it, especially if the sect became inseparable from their rise.

But Li Ling was clearly not... normal.

Still, Ming Yue was not without ideas.

"The simplest method would be shared interests. As long as the Six Paths Demon Sect continues to provide what he requires, our interests will remain aligned," Ming Yue began.

Tian Moshen said nothing.

Ming Yue continued.

"A stronger bond could also be created. Master-and-disciple affection, senior-and-junior relationships, marriage ties, descendants, factional interests, or making his future Li Clan dependent upon the sect."

"Li Ling may be callous toward outsiders, but he is not entirely without attachment. Bai Ruyi and his daughter have already proven that much."

"Alternatively, we could arrange common enemies. If his greatest threats are also enemies of the Six Paths Demon Sect, then remaining loyal to the sect would become the most profitable choice."

Ming Yue’s expression became slightly colder.

"If none of that is sufficient, then manipulation remains possible. Oaths, karmic contracts, restrictions, carefully controlled information, or allowing him to believe certain decisions were his own."

"His talent may be monstrous, but he is still young."

"Reasonable," Tian Moshen remarked with a chuckle.

He then continued. "Indeed, all of those methods would work on a normal person. Some would even work on a normal genius."

The Grand Ancestor’s golden-red eyes gleamed faintly as he said with conviction, "But they will not work on Li Ling."

Ming Yue’s brows furrowed. "Why?"

"Because your description of him was perfectly correct," the fellow replied slowly.

Tian Moshen paused, then added, "And, paradoxically, perfectly wrong."

Ming Yue’s frown deepened. "How can it be both?"

Tian Moshen leaned back against his throne. "Because you, along with everyone else who has studied that boy, are looking at him from the wrong angle."

"You place too much importance on his actions."

"The people he killed, the women he took, the enemies he tortured, the risks he accepted, the techniques he chose, the benefits he pursued, and the decisions that led to each outcome."

"You take those actions, connect them to the choices immediately preceding them, and then attempt to construct a personality from the resulting pattern."

"Is that not reasonable?" Ming Yue questioned.

"It is, but it is incomplete," Tian Moshen replied.

"You study the choices that led to the actions, but not why he went down the path that made those choices possible in the first place."

Tian Moshen’s fingers stopped tapping. "More importantly, you fail to understand the essence of the actions themselves."

Ming Yue became thoughtful.

Tian Moshen watched him for a moment before commanding, "Recount Li Ling’s life for me."

Ming Yue’s eyes flashed. "From where?"

"The beginning," Tian Moshen clarified.

Ming Yue nodded slowly.

"Li Ling was born into a minor Qi Refinement clan in Liangzhou. Because of his abnormal intelligence and calmness as a child, his family believed that he had awakened his Sea of Consciousness early and treated him as a hidden heavenly pride."

"When he reached twelve years old and underwent the spiritual-root examination, they discovered that he possessed an extremely impure earth spiritual root."

"His grandfather called upon a Foundation Establishment friend to examine him. That man declared publicly that Li Ling would remain trapped at the first level of Qi Refinement for the rest of his life."

Tian Moshen listened silently.

Ming Yue continued. "His treatment within the clan changed immediately. He was not beaten nor openly tortured, but he became an embarrassment. Eventually, the clan exiled him under the excuse of sending him on a training journey, ordering him not to return until he reached the second level of Qi Refinement or was close to death."

Ming Yue paused, his tone becoming deep. "At that time, he was merely twelve years old."

"For almost a decade afterward, he wandered the area around the Evergreen Region, where Liangzhou is located. He witnessed mortal villages being slaughtered by bandits, innocent civilians dying from the aftershocks of cultivator battles, nobles crushing commoners beneath their carriages, and countless other cruelties."

"Rather than becoming violent, he became increasingly cowardly."

Ming Yue spoke the word without emotion.

"He avoided conflict whenever possible. He bowed his head, swallowed humiliation, negotiated when he could, fled when he could not, and treated survival as the greatest principle beneath heaven."

"Eventually, he reached the Number 9 Marketplace of the Qing Shan Sect and settled in Ivy Lane."

"He lived there for approximately five years, relying upon his knowledge of arrays to repair and create low-level formations. He deliberately limited his income, relationships, reputation, and social interactions so that no one would notice him."

"He continued cultivating despite showing no visible hope of advancement, but otherwise lived almost like a turtle sealed within its shell."

Tian Moshen nodded lightly.

"And then?"

"The Market Guard incident occurred."

Ming Yue’s expression became colder.

"A married couple who had lived beside him for years were arbitrarily targeted by the marketplace guards. The husband was restrained and forced to watch while his wife was violated, despite neither of them having committed any offense."

Ming Yue paused here.

Even now, that act was strange when recounted aloud.

What the hell was wrong with those righteous sect market guards? Were they that bored?

Even in their demonic sect region, rape was criminalized and frowned upon.

Beat up a man in front of his wife and convince his wife to leave him for you? The demonic sect approves!

Beat up a man in front of his wife and force her to have sex with you to save her husband’s life? The demonic sect is not in favor!

It had nothing to do with morality, but profit. More people flocked to a place to spend or live when safety was guaranteed.

A simple righteous sect guard couldn’t understand this basic truth?

Truly unfathomable, how mortals still praised righteous sects so blindly.

Ming Yue picked up the recount. "He seemed to have committed some crime through murder and escaped when the marketplace’s forces surrounded him. He caused heavy casualties during his escape."

Ming Yue’s tone remained impassive. "He arbitrarily massacred the entire Number Five Joy Sect marketplace, which was frequented by cultivators in the first three realms, for reasons unknown, earning himself the heated pursuit of the Boundless Joy Sect, the overlord of that region, while still being heavily pursued by the Qing Shan Sect."

Ming Yue’s lips twitched, feeling that this new disciple of his was truly daring beyond measure. Calling him reckless and impulsive was actually being kind, he was simply a madman!

"He then encountered Bai Ruyi and became involved with her, killing one of the Boundless Joy Sect’s True Inheritors and destroying their Teleportation Hall."

Tian Moshen’s eyes remained fixed on Ming Yue with a strange smile. "Continue."

Ming Yue nodded. "He arrived in the Holy City, was admitted into the Asura Blood Hall, and clashed with Hall Master Tang Huo after beating down Path Lords while still being a mere Path Walker."

Ming Yue’s lips twitched faintly. "After joining the sect, his actions became even more extreme."

"He used the War of Annihilation to slaughter members of the True Light Sect and Fire Heart Sect, killed cultivators above his realm, enslaved those he considered useful, and experimented with whether the killings committed by his slaves could benefit him."

"He destroyed a mortal city containing more than five hundred thousand people with a meteor merely because its population could be converted into cultivation resources."

"He captured women, harvested memories, stole inheritances, broke sect formations, manipulated surviving disciples into surrendering, and planned methods of creating renewable sources of slaughter."

"He killed six of the Fire Heart Sect’s Body Foundation cultivators, enslaved the remaining five, and absorbed more than two hundred surviving disciples into his growing force."

Ming Yue’s voice grew quieter.

"He later involved himself in the True Dragon Ball incident, fought Jian Chen, took further slaves, gathered Bai Ruyi, Luo Roumei, Kong Beiwu, Yao San, and others beneath him, and began constructing a personal faction while still pretending that he possessed no such ambition."

"He used Bai Ruyi’s intelligence, Shen Ziyan’s position, Hu Lili’s bloodline, and Cao Xian’s talent as pieces in his plans for a future Li Clan."

"He returned to the Qing Shan Sect’s region and massacred the marketplaces connected to his past."

"He tortured enemies who could have been killed instantly, murdered those dear to his opponents simply to destabilize them, and treated the lower-layer tournament as both entertainment and a harvesting ground."

"He slowly dismantled Shi Feng."

"He killed Lin Yan and the person Lin Yan cared about."

"He killed Wang Feng."

"He attempted to kill Bai Yegui and Bei Dongshi even after the tournament’s outcome had already been determined, only stopping because you made me forbid it at the last moment."

Ming Yue’s expression did not change.

"Even the things Li Ling believed he concealed were not truly hidden."

"The missing cultivators, the ruined farms, the mortal deaths, the changes in his cultivation, the movements of the people around him, the karmic traces left by his techniques, and the memories of every survivor he overlooked have all been investigated."

"The Desolate Hell Hall reconstructed most of his path."

"As far as we can determine, that is Li Ling’s life."

The throne hall fell silent as Tian Moshen nodded slowly. "Good."

He then asked, "What is the key point?"

Ming Yue did not answer immediately.

He replayed the history he had just recounted, moving past the slaughter, enslavement, schemes, and unnatural cultivation speed.

Eventually, his eyes narrowed.

"His exile."

Tian Moshen’s expression remained unchanged.

Ming Yue continued. "More precisely, the years following his exile. He was cast out at twelve, wandered for almost a decade, witnessed the cruelty of the world, and suppressed himself until the Market Guard incident finally caused everything within him to erupt."

Ming Yue sneered faintly. "As for why he erupted so violently, that is not difficult to understand. His trash grandfather had no idea what he was looking at."

Ming Yue folded his arms into his sleeves and smirked. "The same goes for that so-called Foundation Establishment friend who examined him. A rural cultivator who had barely stepped into the second realm dared to declare the limits of a person with Li Ling’s potential? He mistook a dragon sleeping in mud for an earthworm and then confidently announced that it would never fly!"

Tian Moshen chuckled. "That may be true."

Ming Yue looked at him.

"But it is also possible that Li Ling acquired a fortuitous encounter later," Tian Moshen added.

Ming Yue stared at him speechlessly.

A fortuitous encounter?

The lad had a perfect Dao Heart, Rainbow-grade soul talent, comprehension so great that he could master and perfect techniques at a speed that mocked common sense, an unparalleled Spatial Physique that allowed him to interact with the void long before his realm should have permitted it, and a cultivation foundation so stable that every stage seemed to have been built by the heavens themselves.

What kind of fortuitous encounter granted all of that at once?

Did Li Ling accidentally trip over an immortal corpse, fall through its mouth, digest its inheritance, bathe in its blood, fuse with its soul, steal its physique, and then crawl out with its comprehension?

Ming Yue’s expression said everything his mouth did not.

Tian Moshen coughed awkwardly. "Indeed, it is somewhat far-fetched."

Somewhat?

Ming Yue’s lips twitched.

"However, the assumption must still be considered! We cannot base our conclusions solely upon what appears reasonable," Tian Moshen continued with renewed dignity.

He leaned forward slightly.

"But all of this points toward one question, and that is: When did Li Ling’s fate truly change?"

Ming Yue’s expression became serious.

Tian Moshen’s golden-red eyes narrowed.

"It was not when he was exiled from the Li Clan, it was not during his years of wandering, and it was not when he settled in Ivy Lane."

Tian Moshen’s fingers began tapping the throne again.

"The change most likely occurred the moment he witnessed the Market Guards destroy that couple."

Ming Yue frowned and shook his head. "That should not be possible!"

"Oh? How so?" Tian Moshen raised his eyebrows with a playful smile.

"The marketplace may now be a destroyed wreck due to Li Ling, with many of its residents dead and much of the physical evidence erased, but do not underestimate our sect’s ability to investigate details, Grand Ancestor!"

Ming Yue’s eyes became sharp. "One should not discredit those weirdos in the Desolate Hell Hall as a joke! They examined karmic residue, soul fragments, memories, blood traces, damaged formations, surviving records, and every person who interacted with Li Ling before and after the incident."

He then spoke with conviction. "The conclusion? There was no mysterious inheritance, no hidden expert, no spatial disturbance, no ancient ruin opening beneath his courtyard, no abnormal treasure entering or leaving the marketplace. Nothing happened that could explain such a transformation!"

He then paused and spoke uncertainly. "Minus an occurrence of Qi Deviation in him, likely due to shock at the event, which probably clashed with his ’cautious’ worldview at the time."

Then Ming Yue became bold and confident again. "But how could that explain it? If mere Qi Deviation was enough to make a person’s fate change from trash to immortal, then why did everyone else who experienced it explode into blood mist?"

Ming Yue looked directly at Tian Moshen. "Old Ancestor, be clear. What exactly are you suggesting?"

Tian Moshen chuckled and spoke only one phrase.

"Immortal Physique awakening!"