Faced with the Shi siblings' arrogant, unreasonable behavior, Ling Tian naturally wasn't about to indulge them. Even so, he still hadn't made up his mind to kill them. After all, they were all quite powerful. If he could join forces with them, his chances of breaking free from the Lord of the Universe would increase considerably. At the very least, if they chose to trigger their final tribulation themselves, they could still deal a significant blow to the Lord of the Universe, making it easier for Ling Tian and the others to break free from his constraints in the future.
In short, unless absolutely necessary, Ling Tian didn't want to kill them.
The Shi siblings had always been used to throwing their weight around. They looked down on other cultivators, and Ling Tian was no exception. In their eyes, he had reached this level only because he'd had so many Saint-grade Heavenly Treasures at his disposal. If they'd had those resources, they would surely have achieved far more than they had now. They didn't know that Ling Tian had absorbed very little of the Phoenix Soul Fruit's essence. He'd merely absorbed some of what spilled out while his friends underwent nirvanic rebirth—and the amount was tiny, probably less than one-tenth of what Shi Wei and the others had consumed.
If they knew that, perhaps they'd change their minds, at least a little.
"Who are you calling a good-for-nothing?!" Shi Ling raised her voice. "We reached this level after consuming just two-tenths of a Phoenix Soul Fruit. You must have consumed more than we did. Even if you didn't undergo nirvanic rebirth, you must have consumed at least half of one. Yet you still haven't broken through to the Near-Saint Nineteenth Heaven, and you're on the verge of dying of old