Chapter 941: Chapter 8: Breaking Through the Tribulation

Above Yan Yu’s head was a gigantic funnel.

Countless green lightning bolts poured down from the funnel, rapidly rushing into the net woven by the Liangyi Micro Dust Sword Formation, where they were viciously torn apart by the Sword Qi that flashed into existence.

Due to the limitation of Yan Yu’s True Yuan, he could only summon four strands of Sword Qi at the same time. Even if he could control them to move and cut swiftly with his Sword technique, it was inevitable that some would slip through the net.

Therefore, Yan Yu chose a different tactic: using summoning and manifestation to replace moving and cutting, immediately dispelling the summoning after each attack and then summoning it again at another location.

This method’s complexity was almost off the charts, but the effect was both magnificent and effective. The constantly flashing Sword Qi intertwined into a net, causing a massive amount of green lightning to burst forth with crackling sounds. Under the sky-covering tribulation clouds, this scene resembled the blazing of countless midday suns, illuminating the entire sky brilliantly for thousands of miles.

From the perspective of a remote military satellite’s camera, the central inland area of Lu Country was shrouded by boundless gloomy clouds, making it impossible to discern Yan Yu’s direction and location. One could only see the brilliance of dazzling lights from afar, a testament that Yan Yu was still alive till now, still struggling against the mighty heavenly tribulation.

At the same time, the first wave of probing from the outside world followed.

Many unfamiliar Transcendents from Jingnan attempted to rush into the Wudang Mountains region, and were soon intercepted by the patrolling Military Mansion Cultivators. A fierce battle quickly erupted between the two sides.

Inside the base, the Team Monks also received the news.

“Should I go?” Liu Longtao asked for instructions.

“No,” Mei Yingxue shook her head, “We have to guard against tactics that lure the tiger away from the mountain or feint to the east and attack in the west.”

“Qing’an Team will go, Li Minghu will stay.”

Li Zhaojiang immediately led his team and set out for the battlefield.

Not long after, more civilian Cultivators attacked from the north, triggering frontline alarms.

“Yang Linhui, take your people,” Mei Yingxue ordered, “Liu Longtao, you stay.”

A moment later, unfamiliar Transcendents from the upstream of the Yangtze River, flowing down with the current, were intercepted by Military Mansion Cultivators.

“I’ll go,” Zhang Huaide stood up, “Captain Zhou stays?”

“Hmm,” Mei Yingxue nodded.

By now, it was clear to everyone. Someone was organizing a part of the Transcendents within Lu Country’s territory, trying to launch an assault on Yan Yu’s tribulation site.

Of course, considering the stringent guard in the Wudang Mountains area and the significant importance of Yan Yu’s Crossing Tribulation to the upper echelons of Lu Country, such actions were almost equivalent to rebellion. Thus, the Transcendents lured here were mostly desperate outlaws with nothing to lose, hardly possessing the capability to breach the defenses.

Mei Yingxue’s decision to dispatch the major teams and retain some of the most powerful Cultivators was precisely to guard against elite Transcendents taking advantage of the chaos to infiltrate– a decapitation tactic, which Lu Country was adept at using, and the enemy might well try to emulate.

To prevent Yan Yu from being distracted, they did not inform him of the enemy attack.

Yan Yu, with the Liangyi Micro Dust Sword Formation, had shattered nearly two-thirds of the second wave of Tribulation Thunder, with little True Yuan remaining in his body. Suddenly, he withdrew the Sword Formation, his hands rapidly executing the Sword technique, and sent the Ten Thousand Bamboo Sword skyward.

The second wave of Tribulation Thunder finally came to an end. The third wave was beginning to reveal its true form from the clouds– it was countless Silver Light Tribulation Thunders, shaped like snowflakes, light as catkins. They appeared to spin and float down gently, but their actual falling speed exceeded that of the Copper Light Tribulation Thunder by a third.

Yan Yu quickly ingested Elixir Medicine and sat down on the spot to fiercely refine the medicinal power. Each unit of True Yuan created in his Dantian was immediately directed to the area near his intestines to envelop the Elixir layers by layers.

At this critical juncture, he strived to recover as much True Yuan as possible before the third wave of Tribulation Thunder descended, completely disregarding the condition of his body.

Under the intense stimulation of True Yuan, the mucous membrane inside his intestines began to bleed in multiple areas, but was promptly stopped by Yan Yu using the Runescript True Essence.

The surge of energy caused a localized increase in temperature within the abdominal cavity, and a strong nausea and urge to vomit rose in his mind. Yan Yu still forced his will to suppress them.

His past life experience as a Mortal Warrior had imprinted on his soul the extent to which his body could endure the ravages of True Yuan.

Taking advantage of the small capacity of his True Yuan, by the time the second wave of Tribulation Thunder descended to an altitude of 4000 meters, Yan Yu had also recovered about seventy percent of his Dantian’s maximum True Yuan capacity.

He looked up into the sky again, only to see a vast expanse of Silver Light Tribulation Thunder, dazzling and brilliant like a sea of stars, diving towards him.

Yan Yu was about to repeat his previous tactic, making the Silver Light Tribulation Thunder spontaneously gather into a funnel formation, then shatter it intensively with the Sword Array, when a sweep of his Divine Sense made him realize something was amiss.

These tribulation thunders are accelerating in their descent!

In his mind, a motion model rapidly materialized: If the silver light tribulation thunder could forcibly accelerate within the Taiqing Mist Formation, then the entire cone would be elongated vertically.

The lower the altitude, the greater the falling speed of the tribulation thunder, the greater the distance between batches of tribulation thunder becomes, making the tribulation thunder within a unit volume even more sparse.

Considering that lowering the altitude of the tribulation thunder would severely reduce reaction time, it was no longer necessary to take this risk.

Thoughts flashing like electric sparks, Yan Yu made his decision in an instant, hands forming seals, he once again released the Yin-Yang Dust Sword Formation.

Tangle!

Sword Qi lines kept flashing, circling, piercing, slicing the dense silver light tribulation thunder into shreds. Meanwhile, Puppet Azhen also activated the remaining Xuan Guang Rulers, breaking apart those edge tribulation thunders inconvenient for the Yin-Yang Dust Sword Formation to destroy, one by one.

Compared to the copper light tribulation thunder, the speed of the silver light tribulation thunder was faster, and it often shifted laterally while falling, increasing the difficulty of making multiple hits with a single Sword Qi line.

Yan Yu tightened his spirit to the fullest, the model of a cone in his mind spinning furiously, densely packed with various falling points of light.

At every moment, a multitude of light points were shattered by the Sword Qi, vanishing within his Sea of Consciousness. Many scattered light points continued to fall. They were then quickly converted by Yan Yu into the breaking route of the Xuan Guang Ruler, issuing commands through the Divine Consciousness Residence to Puppet Azhen.

Puppet Azhen also operated at full capacity, continuously firing Light Flowers into the sky. Direction, angle, speed, trajectory – everything was precise to perfection, breaking apart the overlooked tribulation thunders steadily.

Although it only lasted a few dozen seconds, it felt as long as several months. When the Xuan Guang Ruler finally ran out of energy and there were still two to three hundred silver light tribulation thunders left, Yan Yu quickly tossed a Qi-boosting Elixir into his mouth, then began rapidly executing sword techniques, controlling the Ten Thousand Bamboo Sword to carry out the final sweep.

After breaking the last tribulation thunder, he immediately sat down with crossed legs on the spot and began frantically refining the medicinal effects.

True Yuan nearly depleted, Magic Treasures all spent, Flying Swords roughly sixty sets left… Although he wasn’t quite at his wit’s end, one might say he was running on empty.

Yan Yu looked up at the sky again, seeing the oppressive tribulation clouds finally dispersing in all directions, casting down a golden beam from the center, sweeping the solemn atmosphere below the tribulation clouds away.

Is it over?

Yan Yu felt a weight lifted from his heart, about to stand up supporting his knees, when he suddenly realized something was awry.

The Golden Core hadn’t formed!

Crossing the tribulation tested not just one’s life, but also tempered one’s temperament. Once the tribulation passed, it should have been like emerging from a chrysalis, becoming immortal, with the True Yuan in the Dantian immediately condensing and collapsing, ultimately turning into a golden, dazzling pill – the foundation of a Golden Core Cultivator’s Dao.

At present, although there wasn’t much True Yuan in the Dantian, there was no sign of condensation either, enough to prove that the heavenly tribulation was far from over!

Yan Yu raised his head to look into the sky, indeed seeing that golden light beam falling straight down, enveloping the entire top of Sky Pillar Peak.

When the golden light touched him, Three Flowers Gathering at the Top, and instantly an extremely warm feeling surged onto his heart, as if he were bathing in a hot spring, his Dantian, which was nearly exhausted, filling up again.

Merit Divine Light.

All of a sudden, Yan Yu had an epiphany, realizing that this was the so-called Merit Divine Light. In his second life, he first captured Empress Yuanzhen, protecting the south from harm; then brought down the Eclipse Queen, safeguarding the peace of the northern land. How many lives of the common people had he saved in the process? Even if no one in the world knew, how could it be concealed from the magnificent Heavenly Dao?

Saving lives, letting those fated to die live on, this was the greatest merit!

Yan Yu was completely enveloped by the Merit Divine Light, not only was his True Yuan replenished, but his temperament was also refined. For a moment, he even lost himself, his ears full of the profound sounds of the Dao, his cultivation realm began to rocket up swiftly!

The next second, thunder roared in the sky, forcibly breaking his state of self-forgetfulness.

Yan Yu looked up to the sky once more, only to see that the golden beam had disappeared, and from the emptiness above, endless heavenly light fell, within which there was an abundance of golden, dazzling fire meteors, plummeting toward the surface, the speed nearly a thousand kilometers per second!

Golden Light Tribulation Thunder!

The straight-line distance from the tribulation clouds to the Earth’s surface was over ten thousand meters, but the speed of these golden light tribulation thunders was even more terrifying. It took only a few seconds to approach the Earth’s surface, releasing massive amounts of light and heat during the process, with long trails continuously heating the surrounding air, even creating intense atmospheric vortices that stirred the entire Wudang Mountain region into a storm, trees uprooted, birds and beasts in panic cries, like the passage of a typhoon.

However, Yan Yu, showed not even the slightest hint of panic; his right hand forming seals, he fully stimulated the Yin-Yang Dust Sword Formation, his left hand changed the technique to command the remaining Ten Thousand Bamboo Swords, and at the same time his Divine Sense activated Puppet Azhen who raised its head to hastily spit out the Crimson Feather Nine Phoenix Fire, sending out all of his remaining Sword Qi, Flying Swords, Spells… towards the endless tribulation thunders above with full force!

An immense light flow burst in the sky, countless golden light tribulation thunders exploding simultaneously, bringing about a terror akin to a supernova explosion, the intense radiance visible within half of Lu Country. Shockwaves tore open the tribulation clouds upwards, stirring huge amounts of the stratospheric air, ejecting energy streams akin to solar flares into Earth’s outer space, even affecting many nearby satellites, their exteriors instantly ablated, structures fractured into dust, and even their internal circuit boards were completely scrambled!