Imperial God Emperor

"Ah..."

Lu Li frenziedly struggled and bellowed like a trapped beast.

Countless beams of purple lightning, which resembled the chains used to hold a deity captive, suffused from all directions and held down Lu Li's twenty-meter-tall figure, such that he was unable to shift his footsteps no matter how he struggled. They then mercilessly pierced into his body, causing the black flames that had been burning around his body to turn into wisps of black mist and eventually become controlled by the virile lightning...

In the meantime.

Ye Qingyu's figure gradually floated upward.

His black hair fluttered as the streaks of purple lightning around him formed a pair of wings on his back. As if wearing the battle robes of a divine king, he gained an unprecedented vigor.

He was the all-domineering king within this field of thunder and lightning.

More than two hundred small ancient  fiendgod formations became exposed as they generated thunder and lightning within several tens of kilometers of the parasol tree. These were the Formation Emperor Luoso's primeval formations which Ye Qingyu had set up earlier.

Although small, they were personally written by the Formation Emperor after all, and so regardless of how shabbily Ye Qingyu arranged them, they would still have sufficient capability to kill a Saint. Besides, he possessed extremely high skill at using primeval fiendgod formations, and thus could shake the world as soon as he used them.

Each of these formations was only the size of a palm but possessed unpredictable might. They were arranged on the surface of the grasslands in the same way that stars were arranged in the cosmic Void.

"No, ah... I don't believe... you... scumbag... How can... master this kind of power... How... are you so strong?" Lu Li bellowed insanely and shrillingly as balls of black flame erupted from all over his body. Struggling, he yearned to break free of the purple lightning chains and charge over to kill Ye Qingyu.

However, these chains were overly frightening. Accompanied by the non-stop crackling out of the explosive noises of lightning shuttling through space which were melodiously splendid like no other, a cluster of at least several hundreds of thousands of lightning beams, each as thick as a fingernail, held Lu Li down and rendered him completely unable to move.

Ye Qingyu's gaze was ice-cold.

"When one acquires power that doesn't belong to them, they wouldn't know how to use it. When one's intentions are bad, they can only fall into the way of the evil demons... Thunder and lightning, disintegrate this evil demon for me!"

He continually employed a formation technique in his hands.

As one of the founders of the formation martial way, the Formation Emperor Luoso's method of gaining Dao was unique.

Among the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors, the Lightning Emperor Qin Ming used his Heaven-defying resources to bear the weight of Heaven's will and master the laws of thunder and lightning, thereby becoming the first martial emperor of the Human Race. His method of gaining the Dao was the traditional method of the era of deities and demons. Instead, Luoso, whose martial talents were not as Heaven-defying as Qin Ming's, changed his destiny by using a formation techniques to gain the Dao. As the most prominent human wizard of all time, he was able to create something out of nothing, and single-handedly developed the way of formations to the fullest, himself becoming a pinnacle. Thereafter, myriad human geniuses of later generations took to the way of formations, but nobody could surpass him and bring it to the next level.

During the later generations, those people who attained a sliver of what the Formation Emperor had attained could already be called a master. However, these formation masters placed emphasis on functional applications such as formations, defenses, formational killings, concealments, and transmissions. Generally speaking, if a formation master - even one who would normally be able to contend with Saints - was to encounter a surprise attack unprepared, even a Heaven Ascension realms pinnacle expert would be able to kill them.

The technique Ye Qingyu employed was apparently not Luoso's formation technique, and was not limited to killing within a formation.

The formation handprint technique was one of Luoso's secret arts.

Legend had it that back then, while Luoso was fighting against his archenemy, he needed not to set up defensive or killing formations beforehand, and instead could activate an endless supply of formations just by casually drawing in the Void. With just a single thought, he could turn the world into an ocean of formations and blend his body into it, thereby becoming invincible.

The library which Ye Qingyu obtained from Luoso's palace mostly contained Luoso's early experiences but also mentioned the line of thinking of the formation techniques. Although these were elementary methods, they suited Ye Qingyu perfectly, allowing him to comprehend, fathom, and make progress as a beginner.

While in the palace, the million-year-old spirit had warned Ye Qingyu that Luoso's manuscripts were not relevant to the present and thus should not be blindly learned. Nevertheless, this did not quash Ye Qingyu's curiosity.

In reality, he had been secretly trying to comprehend those manuscripts after obtaining them. Unfortunately, he had neither the time nor opportunity to display these techniques.

However, having reverted to a plane of the Fiendgod Age here, it was the perfect time for him to unleash the shackles and display them to his heart's content.

He thus continually exerted the formation technique, producing a series of illusory handprints which drifted like lightning lotuses into the field of thunder and lightning.

An electric radiance burgeoned at once.

In accordance with Ye Qingyu's manifestation of the gestural technique, every lightning chain and ancient seal unleashed an unknown power, instantly causing Lu Li's body to "leak air" and shrink to a regular human size...

The wisps of black flame became controlled by the thunder and lightning, and thereby dissipated into the Void.

"Ahhh, no..." A sinister despair emerged on Lu Li's face.

As the final wisp of black flame was lost to the thunder and lightning, his body became completely no different from a normal human's. No longer was his skin pitch-black and his countenance strange, while the black hair on his body disappeared, returning him to his original appearance.

It was highly evident that the Black Demon qi in his body had been dispelled.

Those dissipated black flames contained an evil and strange aura which was similar to that of the tombstones' aura in the sea of tombstones.

Instead of dissipating, a fist-sized ball of black flame, confined by six of Ye Qingyu's formation handprints, was turned into a ball of light which landed in Ye Qingyu's hand and was then kept into the [Cloud Top Cauldron] for him to study and find out what kind of power it contained at a later time.

Meanwhile, as the last of his formation handprints shot forth, the sky of lightning streaks petered out and instantly disappeared. The surroundings once again became a sunny day of boundless beautiful scenery, with the only aberration being a lightning pillar shield which confined Lu Li within.

By this time, the strange power that he previously possessed had completely disappeared, while his bodily aura was only at the mid-level of the Immortal Step realm.

Evidently, the source of his earlier power was none other than those black flames, and the moment they were forced out of his body, he reverted to his original form and atrophied terribly.

The ferocity on his face had turned into fear and awe.

He looked disbelievingly at Ye Qingyu, completely flummoxed as to why this smelly bug was able to discharge such great power so suddenly, and wondered if Ye Qingyu had also obtained some heaven-defying opportunity in the 18th district.

A hint of greed flashed across his eyes at this moment.

However, he quickly hid his expression and forced out a stiff smile, saying, "I must admit that I've lost. This matter will go no further. I swear to never trouble you and the Celestial Phoenix Maiden ever again, so please let me go."

Ye Qingyu was speechless.

Does this fellow have dog shit for brains?

He actually wants me to let him off at this stage?

Does he think this was all a child's game?

"How did Tian Huayu, Priest Yu Sheng, and the rest die?" Ye Qingyu gradually descended beside the lightning pillar and asked across the streaks of lightning, "Where has the Four Stars holy girl gone? And the Third Prince of the Mizar Race as well. Tell me everything you know or I'll give you a jolly good time."

"What? Gimme a jolly good time? What you saying?" Lu Li's eyes widened on his disbelieving face. "You mean you want to kill me? You must be out of your mind, do you know who you're talking to? I'm one of the Divine Sky Sect's most outstanding disciples, you..."

"I shall give you three breaths of time. If you don't speak, I'll let you taste the feeling of ten thousand  streaks of lightning feasting on your body," Ye Qingyu interrupted, looking ice-cold.

He had discerned that this disciple of the Divine Sky Sect was dumb to a definite extent and was the kind of person who would long have been beaten up and dumped into the sewers if he was not shrouded in the halo of the Divine Sky Sect. It was truly a miracle that this kind of person was able to live until now and still go swaggering about.

"You... you're truly crazy, my father's the third law-enforcement elder of the Divine Sky Sect and an invincible Saint. If you kill me, the curse in my body will break and leave a brand on your body. My father will then find out about this and hunt you down no matter how far you run, and you'd soon much rather be dead. You... ahhh!"

Lu Li was both shocked and outraged.

This was the second time someone had dared to threaten him so crudely. The first person to talk like this to him was the Celestial Phoenix Maiden, and that was why he was so determined to kill her. However, while these words were still lingering in the air, Ye Qingyu had already callously worked up his power of thunder and lightning. Accompanied by ten thousand cracks of thunder, a series of purple lightning streaks bombarded Lu Li's body.

The next moment, the stench of bodily waste wafted.

Lu Li suffered incontinence even before a round of punishment was over, and was paralyzed within the lightning pillar. Squealing like pigs to a slaughter, the sinister and harsh look on his face turned into that of pain and imploration.

"I say... I say... stop now... ah..." Lying on the ground with his body bent into a shrimp's shape, he spewed saliva as he squealed pig-like.

Ye Qingyu stopped.

Lu Li's behavior time and again lowered his estimation of an Immortal Step realmexpert. It was truly hard for him to believe that someone like the former could cultivate to such a realm.

Lu Li gulped mouthfuls of breath.

"How dare you... you... do this to me... me... Those people were... plotted against by the Four Stars holy girl... I... the Ancient Sky Dragon Sect's Tian Huayu was... assassinated by me... because he... he..."

After the first round of torture, this elite disciple of the Divine Sky Sect lost all of his will and showed no further resistance, and thus let everything out of the bag.

"The Four Stars holy girl?" Ye Qingyu's heart turned cold.