This entire time, he seemed to have envisioned a completely different future. In this future, after leaving the hunting ground, he did not kill Qiu Yaoli, but made his various purchases and went home to Ivy Lane. There, he learned the next techniques and invested his few remaining Slaughter Points into his Disguise Art, then sneaked out into the marketplace's black market to sell the demon beast corpses and the second void ring.
Assuming he did not find anything useful there and spend, he would then leave and naturally be pursued by some greedy fellows who wanted his wealth, thereby killing them and gaining a bevy of Slaughter Points. He would then invest these points in his new technique, allowing him to overwhelm the incoming assassins over the course of the week as he got more familiar with the market.
With his wealth, he would try to investigate the core area of the market and see if indeed there were those fabled monthly auctions where he could buy a suitable Foundation Establishment technique, then secretly ascend the level. Once he was there, he would begin a mass slaughter of the entire market, harvesting as much as he could to push him to the peak of Foundation Establishment before fleeing to the demonic sects region to start life anew.
In that brief moment when he looked up and sighed to make a decision, these scenes flashed in his mind, because not only were they the framework of his long-term plan, but he could almost feel as if he saw an alternate timeline where things went according to this script.
However, things could actually never have developed that way for one reason.
Li Ling did not have just any system. It was not a proficiency panel that let him upgrade by practicing, it was not a task system that made him do things for rewards, nor was it a check-in system that required daily check-ins.
It was a Slaughter System.
Kill, and you ascend.
There was no seeming limit to the power he could reach, only currently decided by the limit of his techniques, not the number of Slaughter Points.
And because he had fully discarded any form of overt caution as a form of rebellion to his former self, as well as sincerely accepting the path of slaughter in his heart, he had no qualms or hesitations about killing.
Right now, Li Ling was mostly living in the moment, doing what he liked. His current worldview held that life, power and even death were not infinite, so rather than persist for the sake of persisting, he wanted to do what he wanted when he wanted.
This led to this outcome here, where his plans had been derailed.
'Anyway, it was impossible for me to do what I like, when I like, yet still act cautious and have a plan,' Li Ling thought to himself.
A lot of his actions contradicted themselves, and he had begun to realize this after Wu Ke's reveal of his perceived intentions. It was simply impossible to be low profile and high profile at the same time. One had to choose between the two and not be half-hearted about it.
So, Li Ling made his choice.
He lowered his head, his formerly bleak eyes now clear and full of cold amusement, causing those who surrounded him to feel their hearts go cold.
Li Ling took the Blood Drinking Spear from his void ring and used the Li Family Spear Technique to swing out in a wide arc that formed a 360-degree spear light around him, bisecting five of the Market Guards closest to him, including those who thought they had restrained him.
｢System Prompt: You have gained 35 Slaughter Points.｣
Five dead in one hit, and a sudden reveal of Qi Refinement Perfection cultivation from the target.
The entire atmosphere changed drastically, with cultivators feeling their hearts sink, rapidly backing away from the center of the conflict. However, Li Ling's eyes were filled with brutal slaughter, and he saw not only the Market Guards, but everyone nearby as his prey.
Immediately, he raised a finger and unleashed his Advanced Fireball, which exploded among the spectating cultivators and caused extreme mayhem on that side. People who were only innocently passing by were set aflame, screaming in agony as they suffered the pain of burns, while those closer to the center of the attack were killed outright.
｢System Prompt: You have gained 66 Slaughter Points.｣
Li Ling laughed out loud, feeling truly free. Indeed, the Infinite Slaughter System was meant to be used like this, treating human and cultivator life like grass in order for one to truly grow.
In just under a few seconds, he had already accumulated more than a hundred Slaughter Points, enough to increase his current fighting power manyfold.
But actions had consequences, and Li Ling's actions were the most extreme the number 9 marketplace had seen in many decades of existence. There had been crazy demonic cultivators before, which was why the Market Guards chose to arrest Li Ling using numbers, having learned from past experience where many evil powerhouses suppressed their cultivations to pretend to be weak.
From the beginning, they had tried to coax him into surrender to prevent any outburst and resolve this behind closed doors. Forget his actual cultivation, even if he truly was level 4, there were better ways to resolve the crime that would not see Li Ling suffer excessively, because at the end of the day, Qiu Yaoli was a nobody of no relevance.
The dead were the dead, gone forever, while the living could still be fleeced and exploited.
But Li Ling completely flipped the table and overturned everything, leading to a rapid response from the Market Guards.
"Activate the Array! Use your Golden Bell Talismans! Form the Demon Suppressing Formation!" The squad leader gave a rapid set of orders rather calmly, not at all intimidated by Li Ling's higher cultivation.
First the Market Guards infused their spirit qi into their badges, which gleamed with light as the usually invisible market array that covered the entire mountain like a dome was now visible, with points of light descending onto them like holy blessings.
Their auras surged, each of them actually climbing one level of cultivation on the spot, those at level seven going to level eight and the squad leader at level eight going to level nine. Not only that, but they took out their Golden Bell Talismans and slapped them on, activating the technique itself.
After that, following the lead of their squad leader, they began to arrange themselves in a special formation which would gather their strengths and allow them to exert the power of the Perfection of Qi Refinement, enough to delay Li Ling until reinforcements inevitably arrived after sensing the array being activated.
But was Li Ling going to sit there and let them do what they wanted? His first point of order was to escape the number 9 marketplace because, impulsive or not, he would be dragged to death by the endless waves of Market Guards, not to mention their blasted market array.
However, it was precisely because of this that the Market Guards dared to form a formation. Li Ling, despite wanting to leave, was immediately struck with one of the points of light from the market array, causing him to almost fall to his knees as a great weight was placed upon him, preventing him from running.
He noticed that the Market Guards had finished their formation in the time that he spent resisting the market array's suppression, and his smile became crazier. Li Ling generated another fireball at the tip of his finger, and even though the Market Guards entered a defensive posture to withstand the powerful daoist art, Li Ling did not aim at them.
Rather, he remained smiling as he aimed at his own feet, causing the faces of the Market Guards to change.
BOOM
The area trembled as the explosion rang out, causing the streets to crack and crater, dust spreading out to cover the entire area and block eyesight. Despite this, the Market Guards were not easy to shake off as the squad leader roared out some orders.
"Use the Wind Blade Talisman to clear the area! Check the rooftops and alleyways, he can't have run far as he hit himself with his own attack! He's definitely injured!"
His men reacted immediately, dispersing the dust and checking both alley and sky for Li Ling. However, to their shock, they found that rather than escape to the side or above, Li Ling had bypassed them and arrived at the Yu Lian Shop entrance.
Currently, his Blood Drinking Spear was pierced into the chest of the middle-aged shopkeeper, whose eyes were full of fear as he trembled, while his other hand gripped the throat of Cai Dong as she thrashed helplessly. Li Ling himself was grinning widely, his body covered with blood and soot, his hanfu robes having become completely wretched.
Seeing that the criminal still had the frame of mind to kill others and take hostages while being surrounded, the eyes of the squad leader became red with anger. "Vile demon, how dare you!"
Li Ling was not in top shape, but he found that the pain of being burned did not sting that much. Rather, his whole body, from the top of his skull down to the bottom of his foot, was completely alive and surging with energy. He felt like he had drunk a hundred liters of energy drink, his mind focused and alert while his body was light as a feather.
"I'll be taking this as a trophy." Li Ling uttered as he pulled his spear out of the shopkeeper and knocked out Cai Dong, throwing her over his shoulder as he leapt upwards and out of the middle area of the market.
"Chase! Don't let him escape!" The squad leader roared, his colleagues acknowledging and pursuing Li Ling with their fastest speed after dismantling their Demon Suppressing Formation.
Number 9 marketplace was large and rather well organized, and this came at a slight detriment to the Market Guards because it gave Li Ling a straight path to escape out of the area. What even infuriated the squad leader and the Market Guards chasing more was that Li Ling did not even fully focus on escape.
He pointed his hand left and right, releasing fireballs that exploded against stalls, residences and shops in the outer area which were packed with people, causing continuous explosions and screams as many died or were severely injured.
However, no matter how they pumped their legs, they could not hope to catch up to Li Ling whose cultivation was higher and who had applied a Wind Riding Talisman to his feet, which increased running speed by 30%. The Market Guards were using the same talismans on themselves, but it just maintained the stalemate.
The squad leader looked around and judged where they were. Once he saw a landmark, he calculated that at this continued speed, Li Ling would fully be able to escape the market in just under 2 minutes, which was unacceptable.
This was the biggest slap to the face of the Market Guards in the last few decades, with some of his team even being killed. Even the most audacious demonic cultivators usually would not dare, only injuring them before escaping without actually aiming to kill.
If they let Li Ling get away, it would be hard for them to establish themselves in the market in the future. Just thinking about the many people the Market Guards had bullied who were forced to swallow their anger, if such people were to gain courage from Li Ling's possible escape and then decide to revolt, the consequences would be even more disastrous.
Not to mention that when the Qing Shan Sect found out about this, they, the Market Guards, would be severely punished. Just as they were able to treat the life of the denizens of the market like fodder, so too did the actual disciples of the Qing Shan Sect also treat they, the mere Market Guards, like cattle.