As Li Ling said, he had been curious about it when he first learned about these wars that the demonic sect hosted. It was one thing for Wars of Conquest since they were opening up living space for people and could generally be seen as positive, and it was another for Wars of Contest which was their unspoken agreement to train each other's forces and flex their best disciples coming up.

But Wars of Annihilation were definitely against the general moral code of righteous path sects, but nothing that Li Ling had seen in his brief research on the Six Paths 'forums' had stated that they should be wary of righteous sect enemies.

Likewise, when he came over, even Pang Wen did not mention anything of the sort, and no matter how you shook it, Pang Wen had some vested interest in Li Ling surviving and returning because that had to do with Pang Wen's benefits.

But it seemed that just like on Earth, the presence of a rapid and free to access information network like the internet did not mean that a person knew everything that was going on in the world. No matter how deep you dug, until it either happened to you or some schmuck leaked it then got shot in the head, there were some hidden agreements and dealings by those at the top that those at the middle and below would never hear of.

Li Ling looked at Jian Chen's remarks by the system and completely understood the game those at the top of the demonic and righteous factions were playing. In fact, we could understand it as well.

Demonic sects wanted to kill people and harvest materials. Righteous sects did not like that. Demonic sects did not care. Righteous sects try to intervene openly = brutal all out continental war.

No one wants that.

So righteous sects sent disciples sneakily over to interrupt as much as they could. Demonic sects were aware but tacitly allowed in order not to push the righteous sects too far.

Hence, the current situation.

At this point, Jian Chen came down from his shock with an ugly expression, having been outed by the enemy. "So what if we are from the Bright Sword Sect? What does it change for you?"

Li Ling looked at him as if he were stupid. "I can just summon a wave of my people to swarm you right now. Wanna try it?"

Even as he proposed it, Li Ling immediately used his spirit sense to access the forums and wanted to make a warning post about this. However, the moment he hit 'publish', the post was immediately taken down and… he was awarded with 100 Blood Credits.

Was… was this hush money? Paid by the sect directly?

Li Ling's expression became grim because now it was Jian Chen's turn to look at him like he was a fool, seemingly knowing exactly what would happen. Now that he and his team felt better, they discussed among themselves - rather openly too - whether it was worth it to take down Li Ling with his 'turtle shell'.

Li Ling also did not re-engage, having his own concerns. He did not have any methods that could block spatial teleportation at grade 4, even if he brought down the meteor. At most, it would kill some of the other righteous sect fellows but that was just a drop in the bucket to him at this point.

After all, it was one thing to perfect the Golden Blockade Daoist Art. They might think he was a budding genius with a strong metal element related spirit root, but it was another to perfect the Meteor Spell as well. If perfection stage of daoist arts, even at grade 2, was so easy to achieve by even rudimentary geniuses, then Li Ling wouldn't have overpowered everyone on his way here, leaving them so filled with despair that they gave up resistance.

Yes, it was one thing to drop it in remote, backwards places with mostly rogue cultivators or low to medium sects, but it was another to drop it in front of a Sword Carrier of the number 3 sect across the continent, ranking above even his own Six Paths Demon Sect.

Especially since he could run back home to snitch.

The Bright Sword Sect would never tolerate a 'daoist art' genius like him rising because it meant absolute killing power within the same realm. Even if they did not tell the other two righteous sects part of the trinity - they definitely would - just having them always looking for a chance to kill him was intolerable.

"Gentlemen, we have to negotiate at this point. You cannot easily kill me without me taking more than half of you with me, so why not bypass each other? You can choose to ambush another fellow and I will mark your fake sect as 'destroyed', so that no one will be expecting you. How does that sound?" Li Ling, far from being hard-headed, made the offer.

The other side heard this and were deeply moved, because they feared just that. In order to utilize the Golden Blockade, Li Ling had to release his Foundation Establishment Perfection aura, which was incredibly solid and high quality.

You should know, the highest among them was Jian Chen with fifth level Foundation Establishment, though his techniques and magic power were obviously superior to the common Azure Yang version that Li Ling had in terms of raw potency.

In fact, Li Ling had basically put it nicely that he would take some of them down. Jian Chen, knowing the limit of their Formless Cloud Array, felt that if it came down to it, he would only be the one to survive after slaying Li Ling, so deeply injured that he would be forced to use the talisman that his venerable master gave him.

Li Ling had wrongly profiled him as the typical righteous fool. In fact, he was just like Luo Roumei, able to exercise cold logic in the vein of general righteousness, and his verdict was that even though letting a scourge like Li Ling go would harm countless innocents, it was better than losing his team here.

So to Li Ling's surprise, he agreed.

"Fine, but we both make a Heavenly Oath not to interfere with the other for the duration of this war." Jian Chen stated, his compatriots not challenging him at all, deeply believing in their Senior Brother's choices and wisdom.

Another one?

Li Ling was beginning to hate heavenly oaths and the heavens in general, and his thoughts of malice towards the will of heaven began to grow significantly.

If the will of heaven could speak, it would certainly ask Li Ling what the hell it had personally done to him to deserve such hate.

Li Ling unhappily made the oath along with the fellow, both parties leaving the area while staring at each other. Of course, the righteous sect fellows cursed and spat at Li Ling when he collected the corpses of the five ladies he slaughtered earlier while smiling at them provocatively.

When he left the range of their spirit sense, one of the other Foundation Establishment juniors came to stand beside Jian Chen.

"Senior Brother, what can we do about such a vile scourge?"

Jian Chen shook his head. "Nothing for now. However, a person like this cannot help himself, he will definitely step out of line in future and be killed, even if not by us, but by his own ilk."

Jian Chen then sneered. "Besides, the days of the demonic path are numbered. The Heavenly Mandate Dao Child will soon reach the Void Refinement Realm and once they do, it's a wrap for these malicious bastards."

Thinking of their domineering and saintly Dao Child, the other fellows felt comforted and sneered as well, quickly leaving the area to find other Six Paths Demon Sect fellows to ambush and kill.

Meanwhile, Li Ling, with his superior spirit sense range, had hung around and listened to their words sneakily, his expression twisting into a frown.

A Heavenly Mandate Dao Child? Tian Ming?

A physique named after the continent itself? And of the empire that the Trinity of Righteousness controlled?

Heck, isn't it even named after the number 1 sect?

That meant that this Dao Child was likely a part of that sect and this physique had some crazy power that dominated the entire continent so hard that they named it after it.

Li Ling swore heavily.

What the heck, why was it that when I received my almighty transmigrator system, there was suddenly a Dao Child ahead waiting for me to catch up and cause trouble for me?

Li Ling left the area and traveled towards his next target with a gloomy expression. While considering the facts, he thought back to Tang Huo's behavior and seemed to understand something.

After all, he had browsed the Six Paths Demon Sect's spirit forum through the Asura Blood Token, and he had not seen the kind of treatment given to any Blood Child like what he received. If the change was due to the emergence of this Dao Child, he could think of more than three reasons why Tang Huo would either personally make such a decision, or be compelled to by those above.

Whatever the case, it did not spell good for him!

After all, his system and his beliefs were very clear, he was best suited to the demonic path where he could do as he pleased. On top of that, it served him better if his opponents, regardless of their level, were as weak as possible.

Li Ling was not a battle maniac, he was a killing maniac. He did not crave fighting against strong opponents, he rather liked it if his opponents were weak and helpless like little lambs before him.

A Qi Refinement Perfection cultivator with two mastered daoist arts and a bevy of high quality spirit artifacts and talismans was naturally a wholly different challenge from a Qi Refinement Perfection cultivator with a terrible foundation and only his fists.

Yet, they both awarded the exact same number of Slaughter Points.

In his rise, it was inevitable that this blasted Dao Child would be a big barrier before him whether he liked it or not, and them being strong made it such that he would have to exert more effort at that level to take them down.

Luckily, he was already preparing for that.

Li Ling comforted himself through his flight as he checked his current stock of Slaughter Points and Blood Credits.

In terms of Slaughter Points, he had accumulated over 1,800 since the beginning of his journey, the large majority coming from that small clan where he looted that mount and that patriarch's daughter from. He expected to have even more by now seeing as he was going to annihilate the entire Cloud Dream Sect, but well, that sect was just a facade.

If the next two were also fake, Li Ling would switch back to his impulsive state and do something crazy.

However, his merits were far less plentiful. He was currently under a penalty by Tang Huo to have all merits earned reduced to one-tenth of what they should have been, so the current total was 250, including the hundred he earned as hush money, which should have been a thousand.

This was because each Qi Refinement disciple killed during a war was equivalent to the value of their level. So if the Infinite Slaughter System gave 1 Slaughter Point for a Qi Refinement level 1 bloke, then the Six Paths Demon Sect gave 1 merit for that same fellow.

So 1 Slaughter Point is essentially equivalent to 1 Blood Credit, but only when killed during a task or during a war. Li Ling had already killed some fellows before the war started, specifically Luo Roumei's group, netting him about 300 Slaughter Points, while the remaining 1500 were earned on the field, which equaled 150 when slashed down by Tang Huo's penalty.

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