What Exactly Was the Reason?

With a crack, the three streaks of sword light struck a thin wall of ice that had suddenly appeared several yards away from Wang Li.

The ice wall was not powerful enough to contend with the three streaks of sword light, but the unique icy Vital Energy within it abruptly slowed them as they shattered it.

Wang Li's figure instantly darted to the left like a swimming fish.

Snap!

Yet the three streaks of sword light did not miss because of this. With a sharp burst, they strangely exploded into dozens of black flying needles, which struck Wang Li's figure like a rainstorm pelting blossoms.

Wang Li's figure twisted. It appeared to have been pierced through by those black needles, but no blood flowed from it. Instead, many thin streams of air surged out as though an inflatable raft had sprung a leak, and his figure dissolved into scattered currents of air amid the distortion.

His true body appeared where he had originally stood.

This strange gray-robed cultivator was indeed no different from a True Person. Solemn expressions appeared on both his face and Wang Li's.

Wang Li furrowed his brows deeply.

Clearly, this gray-robed cultivator was even more troublesome than he had imagined.

Spells with multiple transformations like this were inherently difficult to control. Taking the Profound Heaven Sect as an example, there would definitely not be more than three Qi Refining stage cultivators capable of controlling such a spell to the extent this gray-robed cultivator had displayed.

Moreover, Wang Li was certain that even those three would absolutely not have been capable of such a feat at the Sixth Level of Qi Refining.

At the same time, the gray-robed cultivator also found Wang Li troublesome.

He instinctively felt that Wang Li had seemingly used several methods to bring about his final misjudgment. The casting speed of those methods and the ingenious precision of their coordination were astonishing, and he vaguely sensed that his opponent's consumption of True Essence was far lower than his own.

For many cultivators, the difference in True Essence consumption was often an overlooked factor. But for a cultivator like him, one who had grown through slaughter and battle, it was the one factor that could least be ignored.

It was the key to continuing to fight and survive in a great battle.

"Why don't we just sit down and talk?" Wang Li suddenly said. "I don't even know who you are. Why do we have to fight until one of us dies?"

He had actually wanted to try asking this when he had faced a gray-robed cultivator like this last time.

But when he had advanced from the Fourth Level of Qi Refining to the Fifth Level of Qi Refining last time, the gray-robed cultivator he encountered had been a female cultivator. Yet her fighting style had been a purely life-or-death offensive assault, casting spells in a raging storm without the slightest pause. He had not even been given a moment to catch his breath, much less a chance to ask such a question.

He only felt that although these gray-robed cultivators all had broken bodies and terrifying appearances, their mannerisms and bearing resembled living people far too closely.

He even suspected that under the manipulation of the Heavenly Dao laws, although he was undergoing tribulation, perhaps he was also inside someone else's Heavenly Tribulation.

After all, the Cultivation World was simply too vast. Even Lesser Jade Continent alone had countless strange and bizarre cultivators. Who knew how many strange and bizarre cultivators existed throughout the entire Cultivation World? Perhaps while he was undergoing tribulation, a cultivator somewhere on another continent was also undergoing tribulation, and within that person's Dao palace, he himself might instead have become a strange gray-robed cultivator.

It was not impossible that the Heavenly Dao laws caused cultivators to slaughter one another while undergoing tribulation.

Whoosh!

A terrifying killing intent suddenly erupted.

Wang Li clearly saw the gray-robed cultivator opposite him suddenly raise his head upon hearing his question, then open his mouth to speak. At the same time, several indistinct syllables, as though drifting over from an extremely distant place, sounded in his ears.

Clearly, this gray-robed cultivator seemed to have heard his question and was responding.

But for some reason, the gray-robed cultivator's voice was extremely strange, and Wang Li could not understand it.

At the same time, the gray-robed cultivator attacked him with extraordinary resolve.

Previously, this gray-robed cultivator had given him the impression of being extremely cautious. Even his initial attack had merely been a probe. But now, the gray-robed cultivator seemed to have transformed into a volcano erupting madly without restraint.

A gray Dao diagram abruptly unfolded before the gray-robed cultivator.

The surging, overwhelming power bursting from the gray Dao diagram swept through the entire Dao hall like gigantic waves in an instant.

Boom!

More than ten different lights instantly flared before Wang Li, but his body was still sent flying at once, smashing fiercely into the black wall of the Dao palace behind him.

Pfft!

A spray of blood burst from his mouth.

For the first time, Wang Li felt as though he might be blasted directly out of his own Dao palace.

Yet the more this happened, the more he felt that under his impact, this Dao palace had turned into true solid matter—exceptionally hard, exceptionally cold.

The gray-robed cultivator's strike had clearly seized the advantage, yet he did not hesitate at all. He raised his left hand.

His left arm had clearly been severed at the elbow, yet when he raised it, a unique aura circulated through the air, as though an invisible yet truly existing hand had landed upon his own chest.

Sssht!

The gray-robed cultivator's robe split open at the chest.

A crack appeared over his heart meridians.

A great amount of viscous gray Vital Energy spewed forth.

If it had not been gray, if it had been a vivid red, then what entered Wang Li's sight at this moment would have been fresh blood.

Through that fissure, Wang Li saw the gray-robed cultivator's heart meridians explode apart.

Countless gray lights rushed from the shattered heart meridians, astonishingly transforming into countless gray butterflies!

Countless gray butterflies surged forth like a waterfall, completely concealing the gray-robed cultivator's body!

Wang Li let out a piercing roar. The fingers of both hands flicked rapidly, and inch-long dark-golden sword radiance continuously gushed from his fingertips. In an instant, these sword lights formed an incomparably dense sword net before him, shredding every one of the countless gray butterflies rushing toward him.

The dense sword radiance nearly filled the space before him as well, advancing directly onto the gray-robed cultivator.

Bang!

His body shuddered violently again.

Although his Profound Heaven Sword Qi had not let a single gray butterfly slip past, at the instant all the butterflies were shredded, countless strands of power that directly assaulted divine consciousness still penetrated deep into his Sea of Consciousness, like innumerable black needles driven straight into his mind.

His body smashed fiercely into the black wall of the Dao palace again. This time, however, he did not feel as if he had struck an iron wall. Instead, a powerful force carried him along and directly pushed him out of the Dao palace.

His soul consciousness instantly reunited with his physical body.

Smack!

He crashed hard onto the formation disk, twisting in agony like a fish out of water and gasping in great heaves.

His hands involuntarily clutched his head, his fingernails even digging into his scalp. Even so, the pain brought by torn flesh could not compare with the lingering agony in his divine consciousness.

It felt as though countless steel needles were still embedded throughout his entire body, while many invisible hands continued tearing at his divine consciousness.

Only after several full breaths did he truly draw in his first breath of fresh air, then let out a shriek like an injured wild beast.

As copious fresh Vital Energy spread through his chest and abdomen, a cool sensation filled his entire body. Only then did his body stop writhing in agony and gradually calm down.

That cool aura came from the last medicinal power being dissolved from the Purity Returning Spirit Pill.

This pill, called Cosmos Grade in Lesser Jade Continent and a fifth-grade spirit pill by that black-robed female cultivator—a pill that could even strengthen the divine consciousness of Golden Core cultivators—had actually been completely refined by him in such a short time.

Wang Li broke out in a cold sweat.

This battle had been shorter than any of his previous ones, yet it left him with more lingering fear than all of them.

This gray-robed cultivator had actually used a suicidal fighting method of perishing together like jade and stone.

Before this, he could sense that every gray-robed cultivator possessed a desire to survive.

It seemed that these gray-robed cultivators had not realized that, in Wang Li's eyes, they were already monsters with ruined bodies.

They themselves seemed only to be trapped within this battle, treating Wang Li as an opponent they absolutely had to defeat.

That was why he had somewhat suspected that, under the manipulation of the Heavenly Dao laws, the person on the other side might also be a living cultivator undergoing tribulation.

Why had this cultivator today actually wanted to die together with him?

What exactly was the reason?

Could it have been because his two questions had provoked him?

He had only said that perhaps they should sit down and talk.

That had provoked him so much that he wanted to die together with him?

What a lunatic!