No one doubted Lu Yun’s mastery of formations anymore. Ordinary formation masters had to etch runes into stones and use them as anchors to set up formations. However, Lu Yun could imprint lines in the air with a simple wave of his hand and deploy formations out of nothing!
No formation master present could accomplish that feat. Only grandmasters who’d reached great heights in the field could conjure formations out of thin air. Neither Formation Thirteenth nor Qin Xianhuo had been at that level.
“Setting up formations without physical anchors… that’s a method that only exists in tales!” A flushed formation master stared doggedly at Lu Yun’s hands, taking in every minute move.
“How is this possible?!” Jin Heyi was flabbergasted. “How old is he? Not only can he refine the Heaven Descent Pill, but he can also set up formations without anchors?!”
It was still within the realm of possibility for Lu Yun to refine a miracle pill that called down a pill tribulation. That merely meant he was a pill genius, and one of those that came along every ten thousand years. But to deploy formations without needing formation stones? That took years of polishing the craft! Even if Lu Yun had started cultivating as a fetus, he couldn’t have reached such heights in both fields!
Is he an old powerhouse who’s come back to life by possessing Lu Yun’s body? But that doesn’t make sense either, not even those old freaks of nature would’ve mastered both pill and formation dao. Besides, if he really were an old soul, he would’ve quietly cultivated in a remote area, waiting until he’d recovered part of his power before reemerging in the world. He wouldn’t have attracted so much attention, being both a youth sovereign and the Dusk governor…
Possibilities chased each other in Jin Heyi’s mind; he couldn’t figure out what was going on with Lu Yun. But it’s all fine, he won’t survive the tribulation!
He wasn’t alone in his view; most of the crowd held the same belief.
Endless lightning pierced through the blessed land and struck down like heaven venting its wrath. The pill had originally been the sole target, but now the tribulation was targeting Lu Yun as well.
Though his formations managed to repel the lightning strikes, the shockwaves that resulted from each hit still injured him. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth and his speed at setting up defensive formations had visibly decreased. The ones that were in place began wobbling, ready to shatter at any time. Once they did, not only would the pill be destroyed, Lu Yun himself would be killed too.
Back in the gazebo, all color had drained from Qing Han’s face. He tried to rush out numerous times, but Lu Shenhou and the others always stopped him.
“This is Lu Yun’s tribulation!” Wu Tulong said seriously. “You’ll cast your life aside for nothing if you charge in!”
Qing Han bit into his lip until it drew blood. The Formation Orb! That’s right, Lu Yun can protect himself with the Formation Orb! He calmed himself somewhat, but his expression remained dark.
Bam!
A great rumble shook the entire blessed land, signalling the collapse of Lu Yun’s greatest formation and leaving both human and pill directly exposed to wild bolts of lightning.
“Dead!”
“That bastard Lu Yun is finally dead!” The Feng and Qing Clans, as well as a few other immortals who resented Lu Yun, burst into riotous laughter.
“Hahaha, a good death, a fantastic death! A cultivator should’ve never attempted to refine a Heaven Descent Pill!” Gu Zun laughed to his heart’s content.
Qing Xun and Yue Longsha remained silent, and many other pill masters looked mournful. The Dusk governor had proven himself to be a foremost pill master by refining this mythical pill. If he’d truly died in the tribulation, it would be a great loss for the world.
“Dying in a pill tribulation isn’t a bad way to go for a premier pill master,” a pill master sighed softly. “If I could refine a pill that summoned a tribulation, I’d be content even if I was immediately smote to death afterward.”
“Once he’s dead, the Daevic Skyfire will emerge. The Skydragon Tendon and Lunar Wings will also be discarded.”
“And… the Sword Pagoda too! Those treasures won’t be destroyed by the tribulation!” Many immortals left their gazebos, expectant and poised to act. Once Lu Yun died, his wealth of treasure would emerge and it’d be time to fight over the loot!
Rumble rumble rumble!
Rampaging lightning had enveloped Lu Yun and his cauldron.
Boom!
A terrible force whipped around the young man as lightning shattered the high-ranking cauldron. All of the onlooking immortals were fully circulating their internal energy, ready to break out in a fight at the drop of a hat.
“Hahahaha!” Within the radius of frenzied light and booming thunder, the young governor burst into laughter. “What can a mere four hundred and eighty million lightning strikes do to me!?”
Bam!
He extended his right hand upwards, all fingers curled in a fierce grab at the skies above him.
“What’s he doing?!” Many found the action familiar, but couldn’t pinpoint where they’d seen that move. Events that happened next gave them the answer. Like an insatiable black hole, Lu Yun’s right hand devoured the endless lightning!
Beneath collective amazement, an enormous vortex gradually took shape. One side tapered off into Lu Yun’s extended right hand, and the funnel opened up into the thick tribulation clouds in the sky!
Thunder Palmstrike!
The death art enabled him to devour heavenly lightning, which tribulations were made of!
Given his current level of strength, he wasn’t able to summon heavenly lightning of this rank himself. Naturally, he wouldn’t waste the emergence of a tribulation.
There were two stages to the Thunder Palmstrike. The first was to channel the heavenly lightning in the sky into one’s body through the palm. The second was to release the lightning.
Normally, it’d take a couple months for a tribulation of this scale to dissipate, but through the Thunder Palmstrike, Lu Yun devoured all of the lightning in only a dozen breaths. The devastating bolts consolidated into a silver thunder core within his body that was immediately suppressed by the Tome of Life and Death.
After the clouds dissipated, clear blue skies returned once again. The unforeseen turn of events caught the readied-immortals off guard, and they even had difficulty reeling their energy back in.
Lu Yun hovered in the air with an unassuming pill on his left palm.
“Fortunately, I haven’t wasted Fairy Qing Xun’s blood.” He landed on the stage and nodded at Qing Xun. Her breath hitched; she could feel a connection to the pill.
It’d been refined with her blood and tempered with her golden immortal principles. The pill would only work for her, or her blood relations. As she beheld the pill with wonder, a great rush of air suddenly formed and drilled toward the unassuming object in Lu Yun’s hand.
