The Emperor's Domineering Favor, the Evil Consort's Unparalleled Reign

"The fourth stage?" Ying Li looked at the teacup in her hand, feeling the pleasure of the spiritual energy flowing through her body. She was filled with emotion. If only her grandfather could see this scene. From childhood to adulthood, all she had ever heard was her grandfather's sighs and all she had ever seen was the disappointment in his eyes. If only he knew that she had finally broken through the gate of soul cultivation.

"Hey, little girl, you're already getting cocky after just the fourth stage? You should know there are sixty-three stages from Soul Cultivation to Spirit Lord. At your snail's pace, when will you ever finish?!" The alluring man looked at Ying Li's somewhat dazed expression and shook his head contemptuously.

"Can I... cultivate to become a Spirit Lord?" Ying Li asked incredulously, looking at his increasingly powerful hands.

That's a Spirit Lord capable of destroying heaven and earth. Only four Spirit Lords have appeared in the Spirit Realm Continent in a thousand years. Will she be the fifth?

The alluring man gave her no chance to catch her breath, lifting Ying Li up in one swift motion. He exerted force in his hand, transforming his spiritual energy into a nine-section whip, which he then used to strike Ying Li repeatedly.

"Ugh!" Ying Li couldn't dodge in time, and the whip struck her calf. Her right leg went weak, and she almost fell down.

The alluring man continued his work, a sudden smile spreading across his face. "You died under that devil Ying Luo's whip. Now you're at the fourth level of soul cultivation. Let me see if you've really improved!"

Ying Li bit her lip tightly, recalling Ying Luo's relentless pressure, her own miserable death, and the way the entire Ye Ling City looked at her like an idiot. She steadied herself and shouted at the alluring man in a deep voice, "Come on!"

The whips rained down on Ying Li's head, and she dodged them swiftly to the side. Her body's agility was now at least twenty times greater than the night before; she could react almost instantly to the location and speed of the whips and make evasive maneuvers.

The alluring man smiled with satisfaction as he watched Ying Li's nimble movements, but his actions became more than five times faster than before!

Just as the whip was about to strike his right arm, Ying Li stomped his right foot on the ground to gain momentum, and his body shot backward. The whip missed its mark, and Ying Li's lips curled up slightly. What a close call! Luckily, he dodged it.

However, the next moment, two crisp "crack" sounds rang out, and Ying Li felt a burning pain in her chest. The nine-section whip struck Ying Li below her collarbone at just the right time. The force of the whip collided with the spiritual energy in Ying Li's body, almost instantly shattering the spiritual energy that Ying Li had desperately gathered. She was thrown heavily to the ground, dragged for seven or eight meters, and finally stopped in a cloud of dust.

Ying Li was breathing heavily when a metallic taste rose in his throat. With a "plop," a mouthful of hot blood sprayed onto the ground in front of him, turning blackish-red the instant it hit the ground.

"Girl, don't be too smug. You're still far from it!" The alluring man stopped his nine-section whip, looked at Ying Li who was trembling all over, and said with a sneer, "Just one whip was enough to disperse your spiritual power at the fourth level of soul cultivation. It seems that your spiritual power is nothing but a shoddy trick to fool people!"

Ying Li bit her lip hard, staggered to her feet, ignoring the dirt all over her body, and said in a deep voice, "Again!"

"Good, you have guts!" The alluring man smiled slightly, staring at the blood at the corner of Ying Li's mouth. He then swung his nine-section whip, and deep blue spiritual energy flowed into it like blood. Ying Li looked at the ice-hard spiritual energy whip and remembered how she had died under such a whip. Her eyes turned cold, and her hand, which had been touching her chest, fell to her sides. She stared intently at the whip's trajectory, repeatedly shooting, dodging, falling, and getting up...

As the sun set, Ying Li, covered in blood, finally escaped with the man's last lash.

"I won..." Ying Li's face was pale, and there was blood at the corner of her mouth. She looked at the nine-section whip that the bewitching man had sent flying into the void, smiled slightly, and said her last words before her vision went black and she fainted.

The alluring man glanced at the whip in his hand, then at Ying Li lying motionless on the ground, and smiled with a mixture of helplessness and heartache. "Yes, you won."