Ultimate Scheming System

“Anyone who takes a step forward will be killed without mercy!” Jiang Hongyan spoke again, and an unseen air of majesty pressed down on the whole area.

Swoosh!

With a wave of her slender arm, countless golden sparkles filled the air. They sliced the atmosphere and slit the throats of the three Crossing Calamity Stage Generals lying on the ground.

“Tch!”

Before anyone could react, the three powerful Crossing Calamity Orcs had died an instant death.

“Tsss!”

The 17 remaining Heaven Orc Generals inhaled sharply and shivered in their hearts.

“Withdraw!” All of them yelled at the same time, chilled to their spines. Almost instantly, their troops had retreated a great distance. In the face of the horrifying strength of Jiang Hongyan, they knew deep down that with just the handful of them, going against her would be as futile as trying to break a stone with eggs.

The powerfulness of the human Empress was just as they heard all those years ago – unrivaled and unparalleled!

“Holy moly, the human Empress was disappeared for years! Why would she suddenly show up here?”

“Judging from her appearance, she must have modified her looks! Otherwise, she would have been recognized long ago!”

“It’s too scary! In that case, wouldn’t the identity of Li Bai from the Exploding Heavens Faction be even scarier? Even the Empress is protecting him!”

“This won’t do. We have to report this to the higher-ups right now!”

The Orcs were shaken to their cores as they retreated quickly. They conversed using the art of soundless communication.

“Yo, since you’re here, why not stay to play a game at least?” Right then, a burst of familiar teasing laughter sounded from within the cave. It was none other than Xu Que!

But the Orc Generals ignored him. The one that they were afraid of was Jiang Hongyan, so they spared no time reacting to Xu Que’s sarcasm.

Boom!

Suddenly, a massive explosion shook the area.

He had completely demolished the whole mountaintop that the cave was located on, reducing it into ashes that drifted away with the wind. A tremendous gush of cold air that swept past the area immediately followed.

Clack!

Icy snowflakes froze from air particles, forming a world of snow and ice in an instant. The snow then began to spread in all directions.

“It’s…it’s snowing?” asked a Heaven Orc General, surprised and confused.

“No, this is….”

“The Field of Sinisterness!”

One of them paled and let out a fearful scream when they realized the situation.

Thonk! Thonk! Thonk!

A soft but powerful footstep slowly approached them.

Xu Que stepped out from the snow with his hands behind his back. He had long glistening black hair that reached to his waist and a gangster-like smile.

“Come forth, O’ sword!” He suddenly lifted his hand and called out softly.

With a swish, the Qi of the surroundings suspended momentarily and bound the bodies of the Orc Generals, trapping them in the Field of Sinisterness. Then, tens of thousands of ice blades formed from thin air, every single one of them emitted a bone-chilling sinisterness. The tightly packed sword tips glistened like the eyes of poisonous snakes as they pointed at them.

Crack!

Almost at the same time, a massive crack of thunder resounded from the skies.

Ding! “Please be alerted that the Heavenly Tribulations for the Host will arrive at any moment. If you manage to bear it, you will officially step into the Form Synthesis Stage, and obtain a Big Gift Bag of Heavenly Tribulations!” The System notification rang in his mind.

Heavenly Tribulation?

Xu Que raised his eyes and a smile formed on his lips. With one hand pointing at the sky, he yelled, “Come forth, O’ Thunder!”

Cr-ack!!

Instantaneously, a golden lightning bolt as thick as a dragon sliced the sky and crashed down with the enormous pressure of a Heavenly Tribulation!

Crap!!!

At that instant, all 17 Heaven Orc Generals paled and almost went insane.

Oh god!

You call him a fucking Void Training Stage?

Who are we to assassinate him? Assassinate their ass!

“Run! We have to get out of here!” A Heaven Orc General yelled angrily. The rest of the Generals struggled with all their might, trying to break free from Xu Que’s Field of Sinisterness.

“Stop wasting your energy. With the likes of you guys, you are all too weak to escape!” Xu Que smirked coldly and shook his head.

He had successfully merged his Taoist Body into his Real Body. His powers did not just double, they had instead reached an incredible level as if he had broken through a ceiling within this stage and went to an extreme!

The Field of Sinisterness was an unexpected gain.

Back when he annihilated those massive amounts of people, with corpse counts in the millions, sinisterness had infiltrated his body and almost jeopardized his advancement into the Void Training Stage.

Luckily, his Taoist Body had appeared and absorbed all his cultivation, including that sinisterness.

Now that his Taoist Connotation was complete and he had become one with his Taoist Body, he could now use the sinisterness that he had nurtured from the start.

When other cultivators cultivate, they either consciously or subconsciously try to comprehend the Taoist Connotation. Xu Que, on the other hand, had nurtured Sinisterness subconsciously during his cultivation. In other words, as of now, the power of his sinisterness was on par with his Taoist Connotation.

Now that the Field of Sinisterness had formed, he could describe it as a result of a mutation, an unexpected gain. Ordinary cultivators, even if they were as powerful as these Heaven Orc Generals in the Crossing Calamity Stage, could not break free from it easily once they were trapped!

Boom!

The skies darkened and thunderclouds kept forming. An unprecedented 79 Heavenly Tribulations were brewing.

“Little Missy, stay further back! I gotta concentrate on riding through the tribulations!” Xu Qie looked at Jiang Hongyan and grinned.

Jiang Hongyan returned a smile and nodded lightly, bouncing off the air with the tip of her shoes and landed further back.

Those Heaven Orc Generals couldn’t process what they had heard.

There was a lot of information packed in that short sentence Xu Que had made.

That fella called the Empress of the human race a Little Missy?

Also, was that lightning that was formulating in the skies not a spell, but his Heavenly Tribulation?

Oh, freak!

That was his Heavenly Tribulation?

Crap, even the Heavenly Tribulations when you cross from the Crossing Calamity Stage to the Great Vehicle Stage would be less scary!

“Here’s our chance! For the heavens to give him a Heavenly Tribulation of this degree, it’s clear that the heavens want him dead!” One of the Heaven Orc Generals lit up and transmitted his thoughts soundlessly to his comrades.

“He is doomed to die from Heavenly Tribulations of such a scale! We can find a chance to kill him then!”

Someone immediately shook their head in disagreement. “No way, if we go near him when he’s undergoing the Heavenly Tribulations, the severeness of the tribulations will multiply, and we will all be caught up in it!”

“Forget it then, let’s first free ourselves from this Field of Sinisterness, then escape when he’s undergoing tribulations!”

“That’s right! Anyway, by the look of the current situation, even if we don’t do anything, he is destined to die here!”

“Also, I’m sure that our punishment could be waived with all the information we gathered today!”

After finalizing their plans using the art of soundless communication, the Orcs decided to escape when Xu Que was undergoing his Heavenly Tribulations. With an escape route settled, they began to ease up and relax. The Orcs looked at Xu Que coldly while trying to escape the Field of Sinisterness. Meanwhile, they couldn’t help but gloat at Xu Que’s plight. As they see it, with a prelude this intimidating, a young man at the peak of the Void Training Stage could never survive such ferocious Heavenly Tribulations!

Even them, powerful beings at the Crossing Calamity Stage, would likely be killed by this sort of Heavenly Tribulations.

“Yah! Tribulations are troublesome as usual! It takes such a long time to formulate every time it wants to strike!” Said Xu Que who kept looking upward, his face irritated. Suddenly, his eyes sparkled as he looked at those Heaven Orc Generals. He said excitedly, “Brothers! Why don’t we take this time to play a game of cards?”

He then ran toward the direction of the Heaven Orc Generals. The group of Heaven Orc Generals was almost scared senseless by his actions. Fear crawled over their faces as they screamed, “Screw you! We don’t want to play cards! Don’t come over, ahhhh! Stay the crap away!”