The yellow-robed youth with a handsome face seemed to be the leader of the group. He descended next to the old man and respectfully asked, “Elder Huo, can you see what sort of heavenly tribulation that Senior is undergoing? It doesn’t seem to be minor tribulation. Could it be a Spatial Tempering-stage Senior is hidden in the mountain?” His voice carried a faint trace of excitement.
This came as no surprise. Cultivators at Spatial Tempering-stage and higher were a rare sight even in the spirit realm.
The old man shook his head and said, “It isn’t greater tribulation. I’ve seen one before and the lightning was purple and golden. Its might was far greater than this one.”
The yellow-robed youth wore an odd expression and said, “However, minor tribulation isn’t golden. It should be azure. I’ve seen my sect elders undergo it several times.”
The old man wore a solemn expression and doubtfully said, “It seems harsher than ordinary minor tribulation, but it can’t be the metamorphosis tribulation of a demon beast. That has only silver lightning.”
When the Core Formation cultivators saw that Elder Huo was unsure, they wore disappointed expressions.
The winds in the sky have already become more frequent and strong. A windstorm seemed to envelop the area fifty kilometers around the mountain. Black clouds also began to pressure the ground underneath.
As a result, Elder Huo began to mutter to himself and order the caravan to form a circle for the time being and calmly wait for the tribulation to end before continuing forward.
As the sounds of thunder continued to ring, the silver-gold lightning suddenly burst with greater ferocity. It roiled from cloud to cloud and began to strike down in a dense barrage aking to a rainstorm.
As this continued, the silver lightning struck the mountain, breaking apart its top with explosions of dust and rock, easily cleaving the top of the mountain with blinding silver light.
As for the golden lightning, it seemed to disappear upon touching the mountain.
Soon after, thunder began to clap from the center of the mountain. A muffle explosion seemed even louder than the fierce claps of thunder from the sky.
This came as a shock to Elder Huo and the other Core Formation cultivators. The golden lightning was odd in a heavenly tribulation and wasn’t blocked by the mountain rock in the slightest, directly striking the target of the tribulation. This strange scene was something that only occurred with the purple-gold lightning of greater tribulations.
Could it be a type of greater tribulation that the old man had never seen before?
As these doubts welled in the hearts of these cultivators, a piercing azure light shot out from the center of the mountain. In a blur, it emerged from the center of the mountain, containing a faint silhouette.
When the spectators saw this, they knew the person inside the azure light was certain to be the cultivator of great ability undergoing the tribulation.
Unbeknownst to them, this person had emerged from the mountain since it did nothing to block the golden tribulation lightning. He felt that he would better deal with the tribulation’s might in a wider area.
At that moment, the golden and silver lightning striking the huge mountain swiftly changed targets to the azure light.
A long shriek sounded from the azure light and azure light flashed from above the person’s head. A huge cauldron appeared and its lid opened in a blur.
A dense mass of azure threads shot out from the cauldron and fluttered through the air, concealing about half of the sky.
The azure threads completely absorbed the silver lightning into the cauldron, but the golden lightning was still unaffected and brushed past the threads to strike at the person below.
“Good, good, good!” The person in the azure light seemed surprised, but he laughed at the unexpected result.
The person clutched his hands together and raised them to the air. Thunder deafeningly rang and two dense bolts of lightning wildly flashed. Soon after, they spread out, creating a huge net of lightning above him.
In the blink of an eye, the two types of golden lightning struck one another resulting in a crackling explosion. Afterwards, they dissolved into countless thin golden arcs that jumped through the air in a gorgeous display.
The Elder Huo and the others were dumbstruck by the sight.
Many cultivators practiced lightning-attributed techniques in the spirit realm, but when common lightning touched tribulation lightning, they were unable to block it. Rather, the tribulation lightning would absorb it and turning it against its owner.
The cultivator undergoing tribulation in front of them not only cultivated lightning ability on par with tribulation lightning, but he actually dared to use it to block tribulation lightning. He never heard of someone with the gall to do such a thing.
However, the silver and golden lightning dropping from the black clouds seemed unending. In the time it took for an incense stick to burn, the lightning continued to strike and with increasing ferocity.
The lightning was originally as thick as a thumb, but now it was as thick as an arm.
At that moment, the figure in the azure light had a faintly changed expression because the huge cauldron seemed to absorb as much lightning as it could hold. The azure threads seemed to be fewer and it began to block even less silver lightning.
As a result, a large quantity of silver lightning began to rain down on the person’s golden net, draining the net’s strength to near the point of exhaustion.
The Core Formation cultivators looked at each other in dismay. Their leader, the yellow-robed youth, muttered, “This absolutely isn’t minor tribulation. Even the tribulation of a consummate Deity Transformation cultivator isn’t this powerful!”
Elder Huo, having witnessed this power, suddenly said, “No, I have heard of this kind of tribulation before…”
“Is that true, Elder Huo?” The yellow-robed youth quickly turned to the old man.
“Yes, I have heard someone mention it once before. However, it was so long ago that I can’t remember it clearly,” the old man said with a deeply contemplative expression.
After all, he wasn’t a cultivator. In his advanced age, his memory has begun to weaken.
The Core Formation cultivators felt somewhat anxious, but Elder Huo was a peak-grade body refiner with power that could rival a Nascent Soul cultivator. None dare to urge him to remember.”
A Core Formation cultivator noticed a change in the sky and suddenly shouted, “Oh no, that Senior doesn’t seem to be able to hold on!”
When the others heard this, they looked over in alarm and Elder Huo snapped out of his contemplation and quickly looked up.
They saw the tribulation lightning suddenly change. The arcs of lightning were replaced with head-sized balls of gold and silver lightning. It was as if a goddess’ flowers were drifting down from the heavens.
The balls of lightning were clearly more powerful than the arcs that struck down. Under the dense and numerous attack, the cauldron was no longer able to endure and let out a mournful drone before withdrawing its threads and shrinking to the size of a fist. In a streak of light, it flew back into the person’s body.
It was clear the treasure suffered grave damage.
The person still continued to channel golden lightning through his hands, but the golden net was soon about to collapse.
Eventually, the net was scattered inches at a time under the barrage of lightning balls.
Just as the spectators believed that the cultivator was about to fail his tribulation, the silhouette to let a bone-chilling snort and he slapped the back of his head to produce a grey misty light. He then opened his head to spit out a pitch-black inch-large rock.
When the grey mist spread itself to receive the balls of lightning, an inconceivable event occurred.
Regardless of the color of balls of lightning, the grey light immediately stopped the balls in their tracks. They appeared as if they were suspended in the air by an invisible force.
The grey light appeared to only have this kind of power against the lightning balls and could do nothing else. But as lightning balls continue to drop down, it continued to gather them up with ease.
Although the grey mist was only a hundred meters wide, in the blink of an eye, it amassed an overflowing number of lightning balls. It appeared filled to the brim as if it could hold no more.
At that point, the person formed an incantation gesture at the inch-large rock in front of him. It surged into a forty-meter-tall mountain instantly.
Immediately, after the silhouette let out a deep and cryptic incantation.
Waves of light challenged through the entire surface of the pitch-black mountain and grey rings began to fly off the mountain, sweeping past the suspended lightning balls.
An incredible scene followed.
When the grey rings began to sweep past them, the balls of lightning faintly trembled, but they didn’t have any greater effect. However, the grey mist seemed to ripple and those ripples soon began to warp.
The balls of lightning eventually grew unstable as the grey mist twisted with greater intensity, causing the balls to strike one another and explode ferociously, scattering countless arcs of lightning everywhere.
Following that, the grey rings trembled and the arcs of lightning seemed to be brought under their control, striking down at the pitch-black mountain in a uniform manner.
The person in the azure light then continued, using the grey mist to dissolve the balls and using the small mountain to absorb the resulting loose lightning.
These actions appeared to be done with ease, but in the person’s heart, he was cursing without end.
Although the Divine Essencefused Light possessed fantastical abilities and he could draw on the Essencefused Mountain to deal with the tribulation lightning, it consumed astronomical amounts of magic power.
Of course, the person in the azure light was Han Li, who cultivated in the mountain for over a hundred years.
At that moment, not only did he cultivate the Vajra Arts to full completion, but he reformed his dissolved Nascent Soul with the aid of spirit medicines.
He completely didn’t expect that Heavenly Tribulation would strike down on him the moment he reformed his Nascent Soul.
Caught unprepared, he had no choice but to deal with it using force.
