Within the Heavenly Tribulation, an Immortal King Phantom!

Rumble! The clouds churned like an earth dragon writhing deep beneath the ground. Li Guanqi raised his head toward the darkening skies, an ominous premonition stirring in his chest. With that thought, the circulation path of the immortal primal energy within his body suddenly changed! Zhao He did not miss this shift. "What is he doing?" Fu Yi seemed to realize something and murmured in disbelief, "Could he be... cultivating a new method right at this moment?!" Zhao He knit his brow, muttering under his breath, "Impossible..." "That is utterly impossible!" "Leaving aside whether he can even circulate a technique he is just learning now, under such heavenly might, comprehending its contents should be completely out of the question!" Regardless of what the two thought, Li Guanqi's immortal primal energy had already begun ramming through one blocked meridian after another. The energy surged; his blood roared. His expression remained unchanged as he immersed himself completely in the profound mysteries of an Immortal Realm cultivation method. The Juque Heart Method was considered very low-tier in the Immortal Realm, capable of supporting cultivation only up to the fifth realm of Mystic Immortal. Yet to the current Li Guanqi, it was more precious than Divine Punishment. After all, it was a genuine method of the Immortal Realm; the speed at which it absorbed and refined spiritual qi was vastly superior to what he had before. Up until now, he had relied on Shiwu's power to assist in refinement. Once he cultivated an Immortal Realm method, he could naturally convert spiritual qi into immortal primal energy on his own. In the past, the immortal primal energy inside him had been as rootless and unstable as floating duckweed. Buzz! Lightning crackled across Li Guanqi's back, and with a roar of energy within him, he completed an entire greater heavenly circulation! Buzz! Li Guanqi snapped his eyes open, an arc of lightning flashing deep within his pupils. The moment his eyes parted, the oppressive aura fluctuating around him grew far more intense! Boom! A thick bolt of lightning plummeted toward Li Guanqi's head! Crack! Li Guanqi slashed out with his sword! Yet the lightning passed straight through the force of his blade and slammed brutally onto his body! Bang! Like a sandbag, Li Guanqi was smashed out of the air and hurled into the earth! Boom! Every tree within a hundred zhang was instantly reduced to ash beneath the lightning's destructive might. In the massive crater, Li Guanqi lay face down, his skin torn open and flesh exposed. As for the few pursuers still bound in midair, they detonated into bursts of bloody mist in the span of an instant. Lying in the charred crater, Li Guanqi's vision blurred slightly. *The Mystic Immortal Tribulation... can only be endured with the body?* The truth was precisely as he surmised. The Mystic Immortal Tribulation had to be weathered by pure physical resilience! This was why certain specialized pills were extraordinarily precious. Pills that helped a cultivator overcome the Mystic Immortal Tribulation were priced even higher than those used for the Heavenly Immortal Tribulation! Before Li Guanqi could catch his breath, the lightning rampaging through his body threatened to throw his power into complete chaos. He circulated the Juque Heart Method to forcibly suppress the restless energy. After this brief period of adaptation, he was already adept at running the technique. With its aid, he refined all the residual lightning power within him into immortal primal energy! His blood boiled, and his injuries began to mend at rapid speed. Dragon scales had peeled back, exposing mangled flesh—the wounds were quite severe. Before he could fully recover, the second and third bolts of lightning crashed down in rapid succession! Li Guanqi exhaled a breath of turbid air. With no time for further thought, he pushed his physical strength to its absolute limit. Boom! Boom! Crash! The ground caved in several dozen zhang, expanding the crater to three hundred zhang across! Fu Yi swallowed hard, his eyes flickering with dread. "What a terrifying Mystic Immortal Tribulation! What kind of monster is he?! That is more than ten times stronger than mine was back then!" Zhao He said in a grim voice, "If he were an ordinary fellow, he wouldn't have escaped Tianshu in the first place." Right then, Zhao He looked as though he had caught sight of something horrifying. His pupils shrank to the size of needlepoints, trembling violently. Fu Yi followed his gaze up to the tribulation clouds above. In the center of the thunderclouds, a golden immortal spirit shimmered continuously, faintly resembling the shape of a throne! Fu Yi's eyes went wide, his mouth agape, his breath turning ragged. "Th-that is..." "An Imm-Immortal King Throne?!" "Impossible... That is utterly impossible!" Not only Fu Yi, but Zhao He's complexion shifted drastically as well. A throne phantom! This meant the Immortal Realm itself recognized Li Guanqi's talent and aptitude. It meant that so long as he had sufficient resources, he would at the very least ascend to become an Immortal King colossus! What kind of level was that? It was a realm that people of the Ten Lands could never touch in their entire lifetimes. Even up in the Nine Heavens, such figures were prominent overlords capable of annihilating three thousand realms with a snap of their fingers! Zhao He panicked. He was no longer considering whether to capture Li Guanqi alive. The enmity between them could never be resolved. "This brat must not be allowed to live!" "So what if he's a monstrous genius?! If he can't survive to the end... he is nothing more than a mere Mystic Immortal!" Crack! The crisp sound of a shattering scroll rang out. Fu Yi turned to Zhao He in shock. "Commander Zhao, you... do you know what you are doing?!" Spatial ripples spread, and several barriers of light materialized. Zhao He had forcibly summoned the Ten Black-Armored Guards of the Tianshu Ascension Hall! Fu Yi was one of the ten squad leaders, and now Zhao He had summoned the remaining nine. That meant the only people left at the Tianshu Ascension Hall were the cultivators guarding the ascension platforms. Zhao He licked his lips. "Of course I know what I'm doing! My Zhao family will bear all the consequences alone, but this brat must die here!" From each curtain of light stepped an imposing black-armored guard. Counting Zhao He, there were eleven Mystic Immortals in total! By this point, Li Guanqi had already sensed their presence, but he felt no fear whatsoever. Once he broke through to the Mystic Immortal realm... these men would not be enough to satisfy his blade! Boom! Boom! Two more bolts struck down. Dazzling purple lightning carried destructive force, seeking to tear Li Guanqi to shreds. Li Guanqi sat cross-legged in the crater, letting the lightning pummel his flesh. His skin ripped and his flesh tore until he was a mangled mess. Half of his face was blasted away, exposing pale white bone, giving him a gruesome and savage appearance. His body shuddered slightly as he poured every ounce of strength into circulating his heart method to refine the lightning into his flesh. He ignored the piercing agony, feeling his body undergo an earth-shattering transformation. In the blink of an eye, eight bolts had passed. The final lightning bolt brewed within the churning clouds for a long while. Rumble! A bolt of purple lightning as thick as a man's thigh plummeted from the heavens, piercing the sky and tearing through the darkness in a flash. Boom! Li Guanqi's eyes flashed like lightning as he released boundless electrical power to meet it! "Aaargh! Come on!" His roar sent chills down everyone's spines. Under their stunned gazes, Li Guanqi transformed into a streak of purple-black lightning. The ground collapsed beneath him as he soared upward against the current, tearing the final heavenly thunderbolt apart with brute force! Looking like a fiend from hell, he seized the lightning and shoved it into his mouth, swallowing the searing energy straight into his belly. With the dissipation of the final bolt, auspicious light flooded the heavens and earth. The dark clouds dissolved into shimmering motes of spiritual light that were drawn into Li Guanqi's body. As this energy flooded his system, his aura skyrocketed at an unbelievable pace! Boom! Boundless thunder-flame immortal primal energy rolled outward in ripple-like shockwaves. A terrifyingly immense pressure comparable to the second level of the Mystic Immortal realm erupted from the sky! Instantly, everyone drew their weapons, looking up into the air with grave expressions. Li Guanqi was bare-chested, his wounds healing at a speed visible to the naked eye. The exposed white bone on his face gleamed with jade-like translucence. Exhaling a breath of turbid air, he slowly opened his eyes. Clenching his fist, Li Guanqi felt the explosive power coursing through his veins and murmured in disbelief, "Is this... an immortal...?"