Chapter 70: The Asura Blood Hall Master, Tang Huo!
Li Ling watched everything happening with a wide smile, knowing that his judgment had indeed been correct.
As stated before, his current modus operandi was to be as flexible as rubber, to strike like a butterfly and sting like a bee. To that end, he had adapted to the intrusion of Elder Yan and the dead Lin Yue, he had adapted to being alone with Bai Ruyi and he had especially adapted to the sudden assault on her.
But was it all about reacting passively to adapt in the best manner?
Not entirely. Especially not after understanding the structure of the sects from Bai Ruyi’s mouth. Once she had relayed all of that to him, an idea began to form in his mind, a way to make sure that his time here in the Tianmo Empire and the Six Paths Demon Sect would be as smooth as possible,
To do that, Li Ling needed to accomplish and verify three things.
The first was the rigidity or flexibility of the sect’s law, the second was the ease of aggro accumulation or provocation and finally, the true value of the Infinite Slaughter System’s ability to attain ’perfect’ growth.
So he drew up a simple plan to use the law of killing as the test, to use Bai Ruyi as the method of attracting aggro and to display his Blood Qi only when the situation was ripe to maximize the perceived value of his perfect Blood Qi compared to others.
It was not foolproof and Li Ling would admit that he was not much of a good schemer. Being good at laying plans required extremely high intelligence and a smattering of wisdom from experience to understand how situations would develop, but he was willing to humbly assert that he was of average intelligence and average wisdom.
There was no point in beating his chest and shouting that he was a paragon of the mind just to stumble over his own feet the next moment. Even so called geniuses like Yagami, Aizen and Lelouch who laid down plans that could crash a quantum AI’s thinking were still one-upped in the end.
But the outcome had been reasonably within expectations, now it was time to see how far it would go.
It did not take long for the Hall Master to arrive, this time with around forty other people with him, all of them Path Lords at the least. Each of them was clad in the same white and gold ceremonial hanfu with a black sash, a gold-edged collar and golden shoulder tabs, their auras full of passive malevolent killing intent that could cause a serial killer to feel like a kitten before a tiger.
｢Name: Tang Huo
Status: Healthy.
Age: 297/710
Slaughter Points Value: 2000
Cultivation Base: Core Formation Perfection (100%) || Golden Body Perfection (100%)
Remarks: Tang Huo is the distinguished Hall Master of the Asura Blood Hall, a previous talent who opted to remain as the leader in the lower layer to become a steadfast bastion of the hall as a token of gratitude for the grace of teaching given him by a True Elder in the middle layer. Unlike other Six Paths Hall Masters who have reached the end of their path, Tang Huo can breakthrough at any time, only waiting for a suitable successor before moving on.｣
After the scan, Tang Huo, a rather suave looking man who seemed to be in his late twenties, stepped forward and glanced at Li Ling who still had the pure Asura Blood Qi unleashed, the Hall Master’s calm eyes lighting up brightly.
"Hahaha, the heavens have not abandoned my Asura Blood Hall! Who would have thought, it only took merely a century for another ’Blood Child’ to be born and to find their way to us! Excellent!" Tang Huo exclaimed as he came to stand before Li Ling.
Hearing his words, everyone understood that the previous matter of rule breaking was now a non-issue. As such, Wang Dong relaxed and smiled slightly, nodding toward Li Ling while Ren Xue bit her lip, too proud to lower her head and try to make amends first.
Bai Ruyi, hearing that Li Ling was largely safe, immediately spun like a flower in the wind and latched herself on his arm, where previously she had been ready to flee if anything went wrong, giving him a wide berth.
Li Ling, for that matter, simply retained his overall disposition of malicious amusement, like a tyrant emperor watching the noble hero party declare their righteous intention to slay him for the betterment of the world.
"Hold on, whatever Blood Child you think I may be has no meaning to me. All I know is that I practiced the Blood Asura Descent with ease, mastering it within a week, and aimed to join the hall to further my growth. Who knew that after entering, my wife would almost be raped before me and when I defend her honor, I was almost murdered by your hall’s upper echelon? Personally I do not think I can join such a faction anymore!" Li Ling said righteously, shaking his head with disgust.
Bai Ruyi on his arm understood the cue and burst into heart wrenching sobs as she trembled greatly, clinging to Li Ling with fear. "H-Husband, d-don’t say that... these people are f-fierce... they might not a-agree..."
Li Ling’s face darkened as he held Bai Ruyi close, stroking her head lovingly. "Ruyi, no matter what, we are wed before the heavens. No matter how fierce they are, I would rather die than join them! If they want to use force on us, so be it, we can leave this world together, arm in arm!"
Bai Ruyi widened her eyes and raised her head to glance at Li Ling worshipfully, as if she only had him in her eyes. "En, I will always listen to you, Brother Ling."
Meanwhile, the crowd who had been forced to watch this terrible impromptu acting show were left speechless, not knowing what expression to make. The wise Path Walkers knew that this was not something they could be a part of and lowered their heads, refusing to watch the ongoings.
Meanwhile, the various Path Lords had their lips twitch, but in the end, they glanced at Ren Xue who was completely pale faced, and Wang Dong whose amiable smile froze and was replaced with sweat on his brows.
Tang Huo’s face changed as he glared at the two with cold eyes, his aura beginning to unveil. Immediately, everyone was pressed to the ground, both Path Lords and Path Walkers, all except Li Ling and Bai Ruyi who were spared but could still feel the intensity.
For the first time, Li Ling’s face changed and so too did Bai Ruyi’s. That was because Tang Huo’s Blood Qi could no longer be described as merely an aura or a miasma, but a literal sea that thrashed and revolved around him. Just being near it felt like one would be drowned by the corrosive and caustic blood, much less those unfortunate enemies of his who found themselves being trapped inside.
"What happened here?!" Tang Huo questioned Wang Dong, who immediately explained the proceedings in full, not leaving anything out.
Hearing it, the Path Lords who came with Tang Huo and were unaware breathed a sigh of relief. Immediately, they understood that the essence of things was that this greedy brat wanted to fight for benefits for himself upon joining, something which they felt was utterly natural given his talent.
However, Tang Huo shocked everyone by retracting his aura from the Asura Blood Hall members and pressing it down on Li Ling and Bai Ruyi, who were not forced to the ground, Bai Ruyi on all fours in a compromising position while Li Ling was pressed down to one knee, his face grim.
Tang Huo folded his arms behind his back with a cold and lofty expression. "What a joke! Do you think my Asura Blood Hall is so desperate that not only would we spare you of your crime punishable by death, we would also kneel to beg you to join us? Brat, I think you are underestimating the power and pride of a Grand Sect!"
"You may be a rare Blood Child with good talent, but literally every True Inheritor of our Asura Branch in the Upper Sect is a Blood Child by default! You may be the first of this generation to have arrived, but more will come in time, and even if none do, then fine! The competition high up is already fierce, who needs one more of you anyway?"
The words of Tang Huo caused the faces of everyone to change, as if a veil was lifted from their minds. As many here were previously rogue cultivators or defectors from rogue sects, they usually thought with the mentality of lower echelon cultivators and powers.
However, what a lower echelon cultivator treasured might not only be useless to a higher cultivator, but might even be a thorn in their side!
A middle rank sect like the Boundless Joy sect treasured Bai Ruyi greatly, but even so, they still made her honestly compete with the other True Inheritors, fully intending to sideline her if she failed to ascend. It was because of this that Bai Ruyi faced unprecedented pressure and had to resort to using the cruel Karma Blood Pill to refine her parents to breakthrough and win the competition.
After all, they could have just given her the position and silenced all naysayers, but the Sect Mistress, the Elders and the Ancestress with things from a higher perspective still decided to make her work for it in the tradition manner, with little help from above.
Here too, while the middle layer of sect may not be happy by Tang Huo suppressing or dealing with Li Ling directly, the True Inheritors at the upper layer might even secretly reward him for culling another competitor who might rise up and give them headache, barging in on the delicate resource allocation balance at the top.
The Path Walkers realized this, the Path Lords did and so too did Li Ling and Bai Ruyi. This caused the expression of the former to become grim as he felt that he might have miscalculated this time, falling into the trap of limited thinking due to his arrogance over natives of Firmament Heaven as an Earthling.
Indeed, he swore to never do it again, but now he had relapsed into old habits and was going to pay a price for it. As for Bai Ruyi, she displayed despair on her face as she was completely unwilling to die, aiming to not only achieve her prophesied fate but also to use Li Ling to rise through the cultivation world to reach immortality!
How could it all end here?!
While both youths were overwhelmed with different thoughts, the suppression receded as Tang Huo glanced down at them imperiously.
"Still, the rules are the rules, and you can be afforded some leeway as the Blood Child. You will be registered into the hall as a normal Path Walker and will not have any extra assistance from the hall or the sect for the duration of your discipleship. Also, you will be penalized by fifty percent of all your allocated resources and all merits you earn will be reduced to ten percent of their true value, also for the duration of your discipleship." Tang Huo declared, waving his hand casually and lifting the two in the air.
Hiss!
Everyone could not help but suck in a breath of air, feeling that the Hall Master was being excessive. This was not just punishment, this was directly initiating a life and death feud that could never be reconciled!
It would have even been better to actually throw Li Ling into the Underworld Prison for a decade than to admit him under such harsh terms!
Meanwhile, Li Ling lowered his head to hide his smile, because such terms made no difference to him who relied on the Infinite Slaughter System. As for Bai Ruyi, she displayed fear and remorse outwardly but was laughing inside, feeling that this rule should be able to slow down Li Ling and prevent him from leaving her far behind in terms of cultivation!