Excessively Twisted

This was a horrifying scene.

Wang Li's hair stood on end.

But after opening his eyes, the gray-robed cultivator made no further moves.

He seemed to see Wang Li as well, but his gaze lacked any spark of life or emotion.

The chill in Wang Li's heart gradually receded.

His brow furrowed deeply.

Just then, the bodies of all the other gray-robed cultivators suddenly vanished, dissolving into tiny specks of light.

Innumerable profound, tiny streams of light appeared before him, rapidly converging somewhere.

In just an instant, the scenery around him completely changed.

He was once again in the gray Dao Hall.

Five streams of fire still burned within the gray Dao Hall.

And the gray-robed cultivator stood facing Wang Li, his previously lifeless eyes suddenly reignited with fierce killing intent.

Wang Li froze.

Setting aside the change in surroundings, the scene was identical to when he encountered this gray-robed cultivator during his tribulation at the Second Level of Qi Refining.

At that moment, the gray-robed cultivator moved, and a dark light shot towards him.

Compared to usual, Wang Li was somewhat dazed, his reaction slow. But as the dark light reached him, Wang Li moved and easily dodged it.

The gray-robed cultivator's figure flickered like fleeting light, gray spiritual energy rising from his feet forming blooming lotuses. Simultaneously, nine gray sword pellets appeared around Wang Li. With a swish, the nine pellets transformed into nine sword lights, all piercing towards Wang Li from all directions.

The nine sword lights struck Wang Li simultaneously, but his figure distorted, dissolving into dozens of scattered streams of energy.

However, a swirling mass of fine sand appeared beneath the gray-robed cultivator, instantly dragging him in place.

At the same time, Wang Li's true body appeared behind him.

With a puff, a speck of light flicked from Wang Li's finger landed on the cultivator's already riddled back, penetrating his body and exploding within him.

The gray-robed cultivator's body was torn asunder, his limbs flying everywhere.

But in the very next instant, these severed limbs vanished strangely.

Wang Li's expression grew peculiar.

He had dealt with it too easily.

In fact, if he hadn't deliberately waited to see if the gray-robed cultivator would change, this cultivator, whom he had encountered during his tribulation at the Second Level of Qi Refining, might have been instantly killed before his nine sword pellets could even be activated.

The reason was simple: he was now a cultivator at the Sixth Level of Qi Refining, and an anomaly among them. According to He Lingxiu's assessment, even the Five Elders of Huayang might not be his match.

Yet, this gray-robed cultivator showed no change, retaining his cultivation and combat power at the Second Level of Qi Refining.

His fighting style and preferred techniques remained the same.

Frankly, this gray-robed cultivator was quite formidable among cultivators at the Second Level of Qi Refining. His movement technique was exceptionally graceful; back then, Wang Li had fought him for a long time without a single spell technique landing a hit.

But now, this gray-robed cultivator was far too slow for Wang Li in every aspect.

"Could it be that just as the Profound Heaven Dao Arts form a white star within the body for every minor realm advancement, these five streams of fire correspond to each cultivation stage after my Second Level of Qi Refining?"

"Are the gray-robed cultivators densely suspended within this stream of fire, like those frozen in the river of time, all at the Second Level of Qi Refining? And do the remaining four streams of fire contain cultivators at the Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Levels of Qi Refining respectively?"

"Then, can I awaken other cultivators within to fight me, or can I only awaken cultivators like this one whom I've fought before?"

These thoughts immediately flashed through Wang Li's mind.

Without further hesitation, a wisp of True Essence immediately wrapped around the stream of fire closest to him.

If someone could observe this Dao Hall at this moment, they would notice that Wang Li's figure seemed not to have moved, yet in an instant, a gray-robed cultivator appeared out of thin air opposite him.

A look of pleasant surprise spread across Wang Li's face.

In that brief moment, he had indeed found himself amidst countless floating gray-robed cultivators again. He spotted the same gray-robed cultivator he had just fought. But this time, he didn't intend to awaken that one. He focused his gaze on another gray-robed cultivator nearby. As he thought, 'Can this person be awakened?', the cultivator's tightly shut eyes opened. Then, the other gray-robed cultivators around him vanished as before, leaving only this awakened one.

This gray-robed cultivator was a young one, not yet fully out of his youthful innocence, appearing several years younger than Wang Li.

But the wounds on this young cultivator were even more horrific. His entire abdomen had been pierced through, his internal organs and even his spine completely gone, with only a ring of flesh connecting his upper and lower body.

Yet, within this Dao Hall, this young cultivator stood perfectly fine, his movements seemingly unimpeded, as if his body were intact.

The moment this young cultivator saw Wang Li clearly, he seemed to instinctively sense Wang Li's overwhelming power and took a clear step back in alarm. But in the next instant, he controlled his fear and immediately attacked Wang Li.

His hands moved rapidly, and over Wang Li's head, more than ten silver lightning bolts appeared, sweeping down swiftly.

"My apologies."

Wang Li didn't move. He raised his left hand and slapped out an azure talisman. With a boom, an azure protective wind surged forth, shattering the ten-odd silver lightning bolts. Simultaneously, he pointed into the air with his right hand, and a Profound Heaven Sword Qi shot like a meteor directly into the young cultivator's chest, shattering his heart meridian.

As he had predicted, although these gray-robed cultivators were strange, they fought like real cultivators. They would get injured, and if the injury was fatal, they would immediately disappear.

With his heart meridian severed, the young gray-robed cultivator vanished before Wang Li's eyes.

This was a true one-hit kill, easily dispatched by Wang Li.

This young gray-robed cultivator was indeed a cultivator at the Second Level of Qi Refining, and to be perfectly honest, he was even less capable than the previous gray-robed cultivator.

Wang Li was long accustomed to these gray-robed cultivators vanishing into thin air.

But after this young gray-robed cultivator disappeared, he stared at the five streaks of firelight before him, stunned for a good few breaths.

"The anomaly in my Profound Heaven Dao Arts cultivation has become too twisted, hasn't it?"

Once he fully recovered his senses, he continuously channeled True Essence, touching the remaining four streaks of firelight.

His guess seemed to be perfectly sound.

These other four streaks of firelight could also be controlled by his True Essence, just like magic tools. The moment each streak of firelight accepted his True Essence, he felt as if he were in a solidified river of time, surrounded by dense, absolutely still gray-robed cultivators of all sorts.

Within these other four streaks of firelight, he had also found familiar faces from before.

These five streaks of firelight indeed corresponded to gray-robed cultivators of different cultivation levels.

If one completely disregarded whether such a twisted anomaly might lead to any extremely unfavorable, unpredictable consequences, then based on his current findings, the gray Dao Palace within his Sea of Qi was an astonishing artifact for refining True Essence. And the five streaks of firelight within the gray Dao Palace were practically a massive treasure trove.

The first time this strange gray-robed cultivator appeared when he was at the Second Level of Qi Refining, Lü Shenliang had deduced that he would encounter such gray-robed cultivators every time he advanced a minor realm in the future.

Moreover, she predicted that the difficulty of his tribulations would increase with each advancement.

Newly promoted cultivators inherently faced many disadvantages against those who had been cultivating at that level for a long time, and as their cultivation continuously increased, these inherent disadvantages would only widen.

A First Level Golden Core cultivator who had just formed their Golden Core, compared to a First Level Golden Core cultivator who had been cultivating for decades, would be at a severe disadvantage if both parties were experienced in combat.

But fortunately, Wang Li's method of tribulation was simple and brutal: he just needed to fight and defeat the appearing gray-robed cultivators.

Therefore, after he reached the Second Level of Qi Refining, Lü Shenliang adopted a training method for him that was primarily focused on actual combat.

However, only Lü Shenliang and Wang Li knew how many life-threatening dangers they had encountered.

Furthermore, even with a combat-focused approach, it wasn't always easy to find suitable opponents; even when traveling, a lot of time was always consumed in transit.

But now, things were different. As long as he wanted to fight, he could find a gray-robed cultivator to battle at any time.

The furthest streak of firelight from him now was filled entirely with cultivators at the Sixth Level of Qi Refining.