Li Ling's smile faded as he stared at the weakened Wu Ke, who seemed to be about to snuff out on his own without needing Li Ling to do anything further, and he sighed deeply.
Li Ling then raised his head to look upward, glancing at the sunny sky that peeked through the thickets and remained silent for a minute or so before looking at his foes once more.
"I'm sorry," Li Ling said rather shockingly, placing his short spear into the ground beside him, stabbing its shaft into the soft earth.
Tan Guwan and even Wu Ke were shocked, seemingly forgetting their pain and injured states as they stared at Li Ling with utter confusion.
What was this murderer apologizing for at this time? Both of them were completely unable to fight back with their current injuries, completely at his mercy, so why do this?
"I have lived in this world for long and have known that no one should be underestimated and taken for granted, but my recent awakening made me fall into bad habits due to my place of origin," Li Ling said seriously, his expression dark.
He truly felt foolish, because he was beginning to operate as if everyone in the world was a stupid caricature character in a novel, only there to react to his existence and become food for him to grow.
But this was a real world, with real people. Unlike Earth, where there was a majority of stupid people due to the peaceful nature of society, this brutal cultivation world ate the stupid up for breakfast and did not even spit out the bones that remained.
Anyone who got to this point, even though it was merely the first major level of cultivation, was not truly stupid. They could have lapses in judgment and various personality flaws, but their basic logical ability was there, as evidenced by how Tan Guwan did not directly become domineering even after his reinforcements came.
From the beginning, he sought to de-escalate the matter in a way that would guarantee the survival of all. Even though the gap between minor cultivation levels was there, there was also no guarantee on Li Ling's side—normally speaking—that he could take them all down without harm to himself.
Li Ling had taken this for granted, seeing it as cowardice of the weaker party, but no, this was pure pragmatism and realistic behavior from Tan Guwan. This was how everyone had acted so far in his life, even his clan that did not bully him, but rather sent him on a journey with some starting supplies rather than outright disown him to prevent breeding resentment and hatred in case he actually became someone of worth.
He knew this, Li Ling knew he did. So why did he start to shift? What caused this shift in mentality? Was it when the system awoke and when he accepted the slaughter path? Was it due to the qi deviation and the collapse of his worldview back then?
No…
Li Ling's eyes narrowed with coldness. It was when he witnessed the act of barbaric savagery that should not have occurred. The act that caused the collapse of his worldview, the beginning of his qi deviation and the awakening of the system.
This act had not harmed him directly, but it had shifted a small part of his mentality that he had not seen that day, the part that governed his perception of the world and its order.
Li Ling, from that act's inception up until now, had been telling himself many times that the world's natural order was weak and susceptible to an element of chaos, which could only be introduced by free-willed creatures like humans.
However, he had made a mistake because while this was true, this was a rare exception to the rule of natural order. Instances of chaos could not occur frequently because it would collapse natural order, which was something that no one who existed within that frame wanted to see.
That was why in his six years of being in the market, Li Ling had yet to witness a rare chaotic scene like what he saw, and it was likely that whether it was the Third Team's Captain or any Market Guard, such a scene would not occur again in the near future because it was an incidental event.
But Li Ling saw this and thought to live this way, introducing chaos freely wherever he went—or at least, he planned to. While he had largely restrained himself so far, that was only because he was weak and could not fight against authority, but what if that day came when he was stronger than the hidden protector of the market?
What kind of chaos would he bring then, and what consequence would it have for him?
Li Ling sighed once more and pulled out his spear from the earth, walking towards the dumbfounded duo who were frantically trying to parse the meaning of his earlier statement, but could not even begin to comprehend the heads or tails of it.
It was as if, despite speaking to them, those words were meant for someone else… maybe himself?
"Go in peace. You have done a good job to help me temper my mentality again, so I will dispatch you with one blow to end your suffering," Li Ling stated calmly, raising his spear to strike out at Wu Ke, who was the most injured.
Tan Guwan's face changed as he still did not want to die, but it was futile as he watched Li Ling easily stab his spear into the brows of his compatriot, then glance at him with the intent to do the same.
"Wait, I—" Tan Guwan tried to beg or negotiate for his life, but it was futile in the face of Li Ling's determination.
He too had his life snuffed away, granting Li Ling a boon in Slaughter Points, something he casually took note of as he walked over to the bodies of the other cultivators, stabbing them one by one as they groaned on the ground, still severely wounded after the previous explosion.
When done, Li Ling gathered the bodies and burned them all using a smaller fireball, glancing at the blazing bonfire of corpses one last time before walking deeper into the thickets.