Infinite Slaughter System: I Kill, Therefore I Ascend!-Chapter 215: The Fear of Li Ling

Li Ling simply kicked the corpse away and casually walked off the stage.

Everyone else remained silent, not passing any comments as they numbly glanced at the dead body that had been one of the top eight, a named talent with significant future accomplishments had he been allowed to grow, and a future member of the middle layer as a Core Disciple.

For a few seconds, the entire stadium seemed to forget how to breathe.

The lower disciples—those who had been screaming "kill!!" the loudest mere minutes ago—now sat with pale faces and dry mouths, realizing that this wasn’t a simple bout anymore.

This was the extreme of hardcore, where a person they had watched rise through each challenge, began to hate or admire him for his nature and choices, had just been erased with the indifference of a human stepping on an insect.

Even the most bloodthirsty spectators couldn’t immediately find the right sound to make.

On the lower Six Halls platform, Tang Huo’s expression had gone stiff. The earlier tension he carried whenever Li Ling stepped onto a stage had been validated again, but not in a way that brought relief.

Instead, it was a quiet, ugly certainty settling into his bones, forming an understanding in his heart that this tournament was no longer a contest of talent, but rather a test of who could survive being in Li Ling’s sight.

And given his previous grievances with the fellow, Tang Huo could also see his future being cut off, his destiny the same as Wang Feng’s if something didn’t change! 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖

Hu Wulei’s grin disappeared as the burly Hall Master’s jaw trembled once, as if chewing on something bitter. His eyes turned toward Li Ling’s departing back, then toward the crushed head, and a slow and fearful seriousness crept into his face.

’Lili... must not encounter this madman in the next round,’ he thought grimly, clenching his fists.

Gu Mugui’s eyes were shaded in darkness, his fingers hidden in his sleeves tightening slowly. He did not look away from the corpse, nor did he look toward Li Ling, almost as if he was refusing to give that monstrous fellow the satisfaction of being acknowledged.

Zhen Mingshen, the Path Saint of Desolate Hell, stayed unnervingly still, but those who knew them could tell that their mood had changed by the smallest detail.

Yan Moqing of the same path but the Lower Halls also shuddered slightly, feeling grateful her plan to hire this fellow fell through, because if he even dared kill Wang Feng in front of everybody, he would not have any tact or discernment when handling law enforcement tasks in the sect.

Path Saint Wang Kuangnu’s earlier amusement was gone too, her lips parting then closing slowly. She frowned hard, eyes narrowing as if she had just seen a creature she already considered to be an apex predator hunt and devour a fellow top predator rather than indulge in the prey, a sacrilege of the law of the jungle.

Path Saint Pang Po, who had been eating and joking through other matches, had stopped mid-motion, the food in her hand hovering near her mouth for a split second before she slowly set it down, her gaze fixed on the stage with an expression that could only be described as uneasy.

And then, there was Sha Ren.

Unsurprisingly, the Asura Blood Path Saint’s posture did not change. His arms were still folded over his chest and his expression was still cold, but his blood-red eyes had sharpened into something blade-like, and for the first time that day, his expression hinted at a thought that was not indifference.

"If he dies, he dies," had been easy to say when death belonged to others, especially given his position, but the way Wang Feng had been ended—so casually, openly, and with no attempt to keep even a thin layer of "decorum"—made it clear that Li Ling’s killings were simply violence borne from malice rather than purpose.

On the side platform, Bai Ruyi’s smile didn’t fade. If anything, it became a touch more satisfied, her eyes gleaming with schadenfreude as she watched the crowd’s fear ripple outward. She looked pleased the way a person did when the world finally realized a truth they had known and said all along.

’Heh, you all think I submitted to him just because of talent? It’s because this madman will kill you if you slightly annoy him!’ she thought with sick pleasure.

Shen Ziyan remained seated in her usual stately posture, but her eyes had gone colder, her gaze staying on Li Ling’s back as if she were calculating something, her lips pressed together slightly.

Shen Jian—still out of the fight, his face pale from earlier—watched with a complicated, almost dazed expression, the arrogance that usually sat on him having been scraped away by repeated shocks.

His fingers trembled, not from weakness of the body, but from the realization that the sect’s rules were only meaningful until someone like Li Ling decided they weren’t.

Cao Xian’s expression was rigid, and her earlier boldness had long since been replaced by caution. Seeing Wang Feng die like that didn’t make her flinch outwardly, but she felt that working with Li Ling the way her mother planned might not be as easy as they thought, because this was quite a difficult person to be around.

Hu Lili stared for a long moment, her mouth slightly open. Then her brows furrowed, as if she were trying to reconcile two instincts that did not belong together.

One instinct said, ’Strong! Exciting!! A fight worth chasing!!!’

The other said, ’This isn’t a fight... this is wasteful slaughter.’

Shi Gaolin, his battered pride still raw from his loss, looked at the corpse with a heavy expression. His earlier anger toward Bai Yegui had been personal and mostly political, rooted in the Hungry Ghost Hall’s internal dynamics and politics.

Turns out they were already pretty good, because look at what another inter-hall bout brought about. Li Ling was clearly a person who didn’t care about halls, politics, or apologies, Shi Gaolin noted grimly.

His gaze shifted briefly toward Gu Mugui, as if trying to read what this master thought about such a ’monster’ growing in their midst. Obviously, the answer, whatever it was, did not come.

Bai Yegui’s eyes lingered on the corpse the longest, but he didn’t look shocked nor pleased, just thoughtful, like someone watching a river swell and realizing the flood was coming, and that no matter how good you were at swimming, a flood didn’t care.

’Li Ling... if we fight... will you kill me too?’ Bai Yegui asked himself, feeling a mix of interest and curiosity.

Bei Dongshi stood quietly with his black blindfold, his head tilted slightly as if listening to something only he could hear. When he finally moved, it was only to angle his face a fraction in Li Ling’s direction.

No words came out of his mouth, but the air around him felt heavier and more gloomy, as if he had quietly confirmed something about the future.

Up on the highest platform, Ming Yue’s mild interest had morphed into something sharp and controlled. He did not jump about like the others had during the earlier battles, opting to simply watch as a detached observer.

And the silence that followed was the kind that made people afraid to cough, move, or even let their thoughts become too loud, because everyone understood one thing at once:

Wang Feng had been a warning!

It didn’t matter if you were a top named talent, nor that you had technically ’won’ the tournament and entered the middle layer. If I, Li Ling, want to kill you, you will die!

This was a bitter pill to swallow and a hard realization, but it had to be swallowed nonetheless.

Especially for the Divine Deva Overseer, whose face had darkened, as this had been another death he wanted to prevent, but Li Ling had given him a subtle glance in a fraction of a second that filled his entire body with a chilling feeling of death bearing down upon him, causing him to freeze.

So Wang Feng died like a dog, his head crushed like it was an egg that had fallen to the ground.

He sighed, stepped forward, and spoke with a slightly worn tone. "The Round of 8 is over, and now we head to the semifinals. The advancing candidates are Hu Lili, Bai Yegui, Bei Dongshi, and... Li Ling!"

With a movement of his hands, the arena formations shifted once more, reducing into two large stages that could easily accommodate many high-level fights, indicating that this tournament was entering its final stages, which could also be seen as the climax, where things would become red hot.

With this done, the Divine Deva Overseer directly called out the next match, which was the first match of the semifinals.

"First match, Hu Lili versus Bai Yegui!"

Before the crowd’s uproar or anticipation, before Hu Lili could even release a feral grin of excitement or Bai Yegui could narrow his eyes in contemplation, Bei Dongshi turned his head to glance at Li Ling, his lips twitching.

"Indeed, the chains of karma are hard to break... sigh."