Is It Wrong to Bully the Novice Village for System Rewards?

Chapter 236: I Have Plenty of Experience with This Kind of Thing

“What the hell… is going on?”

Piao Genshuo stared blankly at the chaotic anomaly erupting in the distance. Just seconds ago, he had been practically vibrating with eagerness to charge in and make an arrest. Now, his brain had simply flatlined.

Are you kidding me? The cultivator had already weathered the nine-times-nine, eighty-one bolts of lightning. How was this guy’s Soul Formation tribulation still going?

Beside him, Tu Ruoxu looked equally shell-shocked. “Impossible!” he blurted out, his usual composure completely shattered. “The records are clear. A Hundred Tribulations Soul Formation caps out at exactly eighty-one strikes!”

“We are way past that limit now, and the heavenly tribulation is still building! The energy is even more terrifying than before. Could it be… is he actually attempting the legendary Myriad Tribulations Soul Formation?”

“Myriad Tribulations Soul Formation?” Piao Genshuo’s eyes bugged out. Absolute horror painted his features as his entire understanding of the cultivation world violently flipped upside down.

As a Heavenly Extreme Holy Scion, he knew exactly what that meant.

It was the absolute pinnacle of the primordial spirit. Throughout the blood-soaked history of the cultivation world, anyone who successfully achieved a Myriad Tribulations Soul Formation became a peerless, era-defining titan.

And he had just casually stumbled across a mysterious entity attempting it during a routine patrol? What kind of cursed RNG is this?

“Crap. The tribulation cloud is still expanding. We’re in the blast radius. Move!”

Tu Ruoxu’s face drained of color. Without bothering to explain, he grabbed the dazed Piao Genshuo by the collar and hauled him backward, instantly breaking into a frantic retreat.

“Holy shit!” Finally snapping out of his stupor, Piao Genshuo caught sight of the apocalyptic thunderclouds surging toward them like a tidal wave. He violently shuddered and pumped his spiritual energy to the absolute limit, fleeing for his life alongside Tu Ruoxu.

Unfortunately, their top speed was a joke compared to the wrath of the heavens. In mere moments, complete, suffocating darkness swallowed them whole.

Surrounded by the crushing pressure of the ambient tribulation energy, the two geniuses felt their scalps go numb. They had tried to play the hunter, only to walk straight into a meat grinder.

They had played it so carefully, yet they were still caught in the crossfire. It was a spectacular level of bad luck.

What the hell do we do now?

Meanwhile, at the dead center of the swirling vortex of destruction, Qi Yuan gritted his teeth, his expression uncharacteristically grim.

This is ridiculous.

Even with his freshly upgraded strength, the sheer, crushing weight of the heavenly might bearing down on him was suffocating.

Above him, the ink-black clouds stacked higher and thicker, seemingly endless. A dense, violent lattice of blinding lightning thrashed within the abyss, pulsing like the heartbeat of an angry god.

Finally, the pressure hit its absolute breaking point. The heavens ripped open, and the long-brewing storm cascaded down like a shattered dam.

BOOM!

Ten thousand bolts of lightning fired simultaneously. The blinding discharge flash-banged the gloomy world into stark, agonizing daylight. Qi Yuan’s vision instantly whited out. A deafening, high-pitched ringing pierced his eardrums right as a literal ocean of plasma swallowed him whole.

He managed to hold his ground in mid-air for exactly one second before the sheer kinetic force swatted him out of the sky like a fly. He slammed into the earth, carving out a massive, smoking crater in a shower of pulverized rock and billowing dust.

A heavy silence followed.

Then— “Cough! Cough, cough!”

Amidst violent hacking, a smoldering, vaguely human-shaped silhouette staggered up from the bottom of the crater. Qi Yuan swayed on his feet, blinking away the static in his vision. He looked around in a daze, his brain still rebooting after being broadsided by ten thousand consecutive lightning strikes.

Seconds later, the payload delivered. A pure, undiluted rush of tribulation power—a hundred times denser than before—flooded into his meridians like rivers rushing to the sea.

His aura skyrocketed. The agonizing burn of the lightning and the bone-deep exhaustion evaporated instantly, replaced by a profound, euphoric surge of absolute power.

The charred crust flaking off his body was rapidly replaced by flawless, newly forged skin that practically hummed with a faint, crystalline luminescence.

“Are you shitting me? A Myriad Tribulations Soul Formation literally means taking ten thousand lightning strikes to the face? What absolute psycho designed this system?” Qi Yuan muttered, his voice raspy.

With a flick of his wrist, he pulled a standard-issue Outer Sect Disciple robe from his storage bracelet and tossed it over his shoulders.

His previous outfit was currently circulating in the upper atmosphere as ash. Since he wasn’t an exhibitionist, getting dressed was priority number one. As for the demonic cosplay? That was just practical. He fully intended to march straight back to the demon sect to grind out the system’s Main Mission.

Now that he had successfully achieved his Heavenly Dao Soul Formation, cheese-ing his way up the Moluo God-Slaughtering Tower was going to be a walk in the park.

Every floor he cleared banked him an extra Reward of two hundred counterattack points. If he pushed to the eight or nine-hundredth floor, he’d easily rake in over a hundred thousand points. The payout was just too juicy to ignore.

Mid-calculation, Qi Yuan’s ears twitched. He snapped his head toward the edge of the crater.

Two very familiar silhouettes stumbled into view.

Their priceless, high-tier magic robes had been reduced to literal loincloths. Their hair stood on end, frizzed out like dead tumbleweeds and actively smoking. They looked thoroughly, hilariously miserable.

Qi Yuan blinked.

Why the hell are these two here?

He had been entirely focused on not dying, and the sheer density of the tribulation energy had compressed his Divine Sense down to a three-foot radius. He had absolutely no idea his near-death experience had been livestreamed to an audience of two.

A second later, Piao Genshuo pointed a shaking, soot-stained finger at him, his voice trembling with righteous indignation.

“So it was you crossing the tribulation! Big Qi! Senior Brother Tu was right—you really are a filthy demon sect spy!”

Huh?

Qi Yuan’s eye twitched. Are you kidding me right now?

The cultivation world was massively, incomprehensibly huge. He had purposely trekked out to the absolute middle of nowhere to keep a low profile, and he still managed to trip over these two idiots.

Then he remembered: he was currently wearing the face of “Big Qi,” wrapped in a demon sect uniform. Well, strictly speaking, Piao Genshuo did recognize him. He just recognized his fake identity as Big Qi from Falling Cloud Valley.

Before Qi Yuan could figure out how to untangle this mess, Tu Ruoxu barked, “Take him down!”

With a flick of his wrist, Tu Ruoxu summoned a violently glowing, golden long whip. Crack! The whip expanded wildly in the wind, darting through the air like a venomous golden viper as it lashed toward Qi Yuan’s throat.

At the same time, Piao Genshuo rapidly cycled through a series of hand seals, muttering a rapid-fire incantation. Massive torrents of heavy, Mysterious Yellow Earth energy condensed out of thin air in front of him, slamming together to form a colossal, dark cyan bridge etched with ancient runes.

The Other Shore Heavenly Bridge!

The moment the bridge materialized, a crushing gravitational domain crashed down on the area, freezing the surrounding space in a thick, gelatinous lock.

They were, admittedly, top-tier geniuses. Their coordinated strike carried a genuinely lethal momentum.

But Qi Yuan wasn’t in the mood to play along.

A vicious grin split his face. A blinding, localized sunburst erupted from his palm as he casually swatted a hand down toward the ancient bridge.

BOOM!

The Other Shore Heavenly Bridge—an artifact famously renowned for suppressing all matter—folded like wet cardboard. It didn’t stall him for even a fraction of a second. The construct violently detonated into a shower of dark cyan shrapnel before dissolving into the wind.

Bang! Crack!

In the span of a single breath, Qi Yuan tore through their ultimate techniques like he was swatting away cobwebs. He blurred across the distance, planting a heavy boot squarely on both of their backs, firmly pinning the two geniuses face-first into the dirt.

“Gah! How the hell is Big Qi this strong?!” Piao Genshuo gasped, his cheek grinding against the gravel. Genuine terror flooded his eyes. “We’re dead!”

Pinned next to him, Tu Ruoxu had gone chalk-white. His eyes darted frantically, his “strategic genius” brain desperately trying to calculate a dignified, diplomatic way out of getting aggressively shaken down for his lunch money.

Sensing their panic, Qi Yuan let out a dark, booming chuckle. He shifted his weight, grinding his heel slightly into Piao Genshuo’s spine, perfectly playing the part of an arrogant mob enforcer.

“Well, well, well,” Qi Yuan sneered, looking down at the two so-called righteous geniuses like they were prime cuts of meat. “You little righteous hypocrites actually had the sheer, unbridled gall to jump me? Lord Qi? Are you boys tired of breathing?”

Since they had already handed him the perfect alibi, he might as well squeeze it for all it was worth. It would keep them from realizing the Tai Xuan Holy Scion had just pulled off a Heavenly Dao Soul Formation.

Besides, acting like a ruthless, money-grubbing demonic thug? Please. He had a PhD in extortion.

Qi Yuan leaned down, grabbing Piao Genshuo by his frizzled hair and yanking his head up. He flashed a predatory, shark-like grin.

“Looks like today is my lucky day,” Qi Yuan purred, his voice dripping with malice. “Not only do I hit Soul Formation, but the heavens deliver a fat, juicy Heavenly Extreme Holy Scion right to my doorstep. If I drag you back to The Saint Sect, the bounty will be astronomical. What do you say, boys? Your lives, or your spatial rings? Empty your pockets before I empty your skulls.”

Just as expected, the threat of being sold to a demon sect utterly shattered Piao Genshuo’s remaining bravado. He thrashed like a fish out of water.

“B-Brother Big Qi! Wait!” Piao Genshuo stammered, shaking his head so fast it rattled his teeth. “I lied! That was all a lie! I’m not a Heavenly Extreme Holy Scion at all! I’m a nobody! Tell him, Senior Brother Tu, vouch for me!”

As he frantically backpedaled, he shot Tu Ruoxu a desperate, bulging-eyed wink, silently begging his brilliant companion to play along with the mugging.