After several days of intense, tight preparations, even the "Crouching Dragons and Phoenix Fledglings" within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World could not come up with any better ideas. Only then did Wei Yuan feel that everything was ready, waiting only for Hongye to come knocking.
Just then, a sudden throb struck Wei Yuan's heart. Everyone inside the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World began to feel faint alarm as well. The once-calm sea surface rippled with wave after wave, growing increasingly violent.
The shadow within the moon morphed into the head of a three-eyed bird, which slowly opened its eyes. It then spat out a giant black egg bearing golden patterns, which landed upon the edge of Jade Mountain.
The moment the egg hit the ground, it shattered. A small black bird flew out, while the eggshell took root where it fell, growing in the blink of an eye into a stout tree. The little bird transformed in an instant into a giant eagle, swooping down onto the tree and merging seamlessly into it. The center of the trunk split open, forming an aperture shaped like a doorway.
This newborn gate bore some resemblance to the Gate of the Many Realms, though it had not yet opened.
Yet Wei Yuan had no time to study this new tree right now, pouring all his strength into suppressing the upheaval within his mindscape world.
By now, the waves upon the sea had turned even wilder. In the open sea, colossal waves several tens of feet high had surged up, piling layer upon layer, rising higher and higher, surging toward Central City.
Deep within the ocean, spiritual qi welled continuously from the seabed, while heavy leaden clouds appeared across the dome of the sky, gathering toward Central City.
Many mortals collapsed into deep slumber as they walked along. The various Palace of Grand Beginning cultivators working in the Creation of Heaven and Earth Research Institute also withdrew from the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World at the same time.
The auras of all the immortal plants were climbing, their spirituality strengthening with almost every passing moment.
A wind rose once more within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, carrying flecks of spiritual light rich with vitality from the sea and scattering them across every corner of the world.
Yet in the blink of an eye, the towering waves in the outer sea had exceeded a hundred feet.
When Wei Yuan rushed to the outer sea and saw it, he could not resist cursing on the spot!
These massive waves were by no means naturally formed; they were a form of heavenly tribulation! His mindscape world happened to be dominated by water, so this tribulation had manifested as an apocalyptic tsunami and celestial deluge!
Had it merely been this, Wei Yuan would not have complained. But the clouds gathering and beginning to swirl in the sky were plainly no good omen—the more he looked, the more they resembled tribulation clouds.
Two distinct heavenly tribulations appearing within a single mindscape world? Did the Heavenly Dao have no shame at all?
Just as Wei Yuan was cursing, a sudden chill crept up his spine, bringing a premonition of impending doom.
He immediately withdrew from his mindscape world and looked up at the sky. Sure enough, dense clouds blanketed the sky above Qingming. At the center of the vortex, a pair of pale-golden eyes slowly opened, coldly looking down upon the myriad living beings in the world below as if gazing at ants.
At this moment, staring at the tribulation clouds in the sky, Wei Yuan did not even have the energy left to curse.
He was only having his dharma idol break through to the Spirit Nurturing Realm—how on earth had he drawn down a threefold heavenly tribulation? One in reality, two in the mindscape world! For a moment, Wei Yuan was at a loss, not knowing which one he should withstand first.
Were the Heavens dead-set on seeing him dead?
Wei Yuan had no time to complain. He instantly dispatched several dragon guards at full speed to notify the Palace of Grand Beginning cultivators to prepare—mainly for Sun Yu and Xu Henshui to be ready for rescue. If he failed to endure the tribulation, with those two around, there was a chance he could still be patched back together.
Wei Yuan himself rushed toward the northern mountains, entering the top floor of the Hall of Heroic Spirits, intending to borrow the power of the million heroic souls laid to rest here to combat the heavenly tribulation.
This was an idea Wei Yuan had entertained for some time. After being cleansed by heavenly tribulation, the heroic souls might undergo unknown changes. Yet Wei Yuan was somewhat uneasy; after all, most of the people laid to rest here were sent onto the battlefield by him. He wondered whether, if they had awareness in the underworld, they would still be willing to help him ward off the heavenly tribulation.
Within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, the Bingli Divine Wood burst straight through the small cottage where she had been secluded, growing taller and grander until, in the blink of an eye, she became an ice-blue jade tree several tens of feet high. The tree spirit sat upon a branch, waving her hands to scatter flecks of ice crystal that sank into the bodies of her believers. Their eyes turned instantly blue and their bodies swelled, each moving with astonishing speed and wielding boundless strength.
The Bingli Divine Wood pulled her roots from the soil and flew straight north, taking root along the coastline. Ribbon-like bands of blue light drifted from her canopy, deploying rapidly along the coast to form a stout defensive line. Next, several thousand of her believers rushed over at top speed carrying square stone blocks, quickly building a low, three-foot wall along the light bands, which stretched continuously along the coastline.
The Bingli Divine Wood rooted herself deeper and deeper, her trunk gradually sinking lower. This time she held nothing back, moving directly to the front line of defense against the tsunami.
The celestial laurel tree, wreathed in sword qi, arrived here as well. Seeing that the Bingli Divine Wood had established a defensive line of nearly a hundred li in a single breath, it naturally refused to be outdone. Choosing a spot nearby to root itself, it sent two sword qis flying far to the left and right, fiercely carving out a domain of one hundred and one li.
Yet Maiden Yin-Yang appeared, yanked the celestial laurel tree straight out of the ground, and replanted it closer to the Bingli Divine Wood, ultimately allocating it a defensive span of forty li. The remaining sixty li it had claimed was divided among four immortal orchids.
By this time, heaven and earth within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World underwent further change. Origin qi of heaven and earth surged ceaselessly from the void, the world's spirituality growing increasingly dense, while countless minute sparks of life quietly gestated in every corner of the realm.
Central City shook with a tremor. The young Jianmu tree out at sea had shifted into the city, after which it radiated a hazy green light, enveloping the entire Central City within.
On the island not far away, mortals were boarding ships one after another, preparing to return to Central City to take refuge.
Now the wind began to howl, carrying countless dandelion-like motes of light. Many of these motes passed straight through the mortals' bodies, but a few vanished into them.
The waves around the island were already several feet high, making the ships rock violently. Meanwhile, all the immortal plants were busy fortifying the coast, completely unable to spare attention for this side. The mortals could only force their increasingly heavy eyelids open and scramble onto the ships, each vessel departing as soon as it was full.
Above Central City, beyond the vault of the sky, the tribulation clouds had taken form, and a bolt of heavenly lightning crashed down!
Though Jianmu was only a sapling, it was already well over a hundred feet tall, towering like an ancient colossus in the eyes of mortals. Its green light flared brilliantly, canceling out the first tribulation lightning bolt.
Yet this act seemed to enrage the world. The tribulation clouds churned faster, and bolt after bolt of tribulation lightning struck down in what seemed an endless torrent.
Wei Yuan stood on the top floor of the Hall of Heroic Spirits, his divine sense penetrating the roof to scrutinize the tribulation clouds, pondering what manner of heavenly tribulation he would have to face this time.
If this continued, Wei Yuan felt he might not even need to break through to the Scenery Command realm before facing those legendary immortal tribulations ahead of time.
The pair of eyes in the sky was entirely expressionless and utterly aloof—the manifestation of the world's will, which naturally cared nothing for what an ant on the ground might think. As the tribulation clouds formed, a flash of lightning appeared within the pitch-black mass.
Seeing the lightning, Wei Yuan nearly wept tears of joy. After all this time, he was finally facing a genuine lightning tribulation!
A thought crossed Wei Yuan's mind, but he immediately forced himself to forget the items in his storage treasure that could serve as lightning rods. The heavens and earth of this realm were deeply bizarre; he worried that if he so much as thought of it, the variety of the heavenly tribulation would instantly change.
He made up his mind to stay calm this time and endure the first few rounds of lightning before doing anything else. Once the lightning had already started falling, the Heavens surely wouldn't have the gall to switch it up, right?
His plan settled, Wei Yuan sat motionless, quietly awaiting the descent of the heavenly tribulation.
The first tribulation lightning did not brew for long before crashing down directly. It was a bolt of cyan-blue lightning, the most standard variety of tribulation lightning. It struck right upon the roof of the Hall of Heroic Spirits. In that instant, the entire hall seemed to come alive, shimmering with faint light, within which countless mortals seemed to be crying out toward the sky, resisting the tribulation lightning together.
The tribulation lightning fell bolt after bolt. Only at the third wave did it shatter the spiritual shield of the Hall of Heroic Spirits and destroy the roof, exposing Wei Yuan within. Then, the fourth lightning bolt flashed and struck down onto the crown of Wei Yuan's head!
The angle of this strike was rather peculiar, aiming straight for the crown of his head, and it was far thinner than ordinary tribulation lightning.
Wei Yuan did not care where the lightning struck. His current dharma body had no distinction between weak points and vital spots; it was a seamless whole from head to toe, uniform in strength, his eyes having the exact same toughness and texture as his fists. Thus, taking lightning anywhere was the same.
With heavenly lightning striking his crown, Wei Yuan felt only waves of numbness spreading across his body, with no other sensation. This was already the fourth wave of tribulation lightning. Heavenly tribulations grew more potent with each successive wave, typically capping out at nine.
Of course, how many waves Wei Yuan's tribulation would have was anyone's guess—it depended entirely on the Heavens' mood.
The power of this bolt was far less than Wei Yuan had anticipated; looking at it this way, taking thirty or fifty waves wouldn't be an issue. But after the lightning struck him, Wei Yuan's thoughts suddenly drifted, and he thought of a very serious problem: what if Hongye arrived while he was undergoing the tribulation?
The moment this question surfaced, Wei Yuan nearly broke into a cold sweat, finding it increasingly plausible the more he thought about it. In that time, two successive bolts struck down, both of which Wei Yuan withstood with ease, yet his thoughts drifted further and further afield. He kept feeling that Hongye had already arrived at the border of Qingming and was about to enter!
The panic in Wei Yuan's heart began to spread uncontrollably. Suddenly, realization dawned on him, and the urge to curse flared up again. What hung over his head was no ordinary heavenly tribulation at all—it was an inner demon tribulation specifically targeting the Dao heart!
Having lacked experience initially, Wei Yuan had fallen into the trap unawares. Right now, he felt more and more strongly that Hongye had already entered Qingming, about to break through layers of interception and appear before his very eyes.
If this went on, the errant thoughts would turn into a genuine inner demon, which would then manifest in the world by borrowing Wei Yuan's Dao power. At that point, seventy to eighty percent of Wei Yuan's Dao power would be seized by the inner demon, and he would definitely be no match for it.
Losing one's Dao heart was a matter of life and death. Wei Yuan immediately focused his spirit and gathered his unity, using the willpower forged from years of battle to suppress the stray thoughts in his mind. Refusing to think about Hongye any longer, he devoted his undivided attention to combating the heavenly tribulation.
Before entering the state of self-forgetfulness, Wei Yuan could not help but inwardly curse the Heavens once more. If he remembered correctly, the inner demon tribulation was supposed to be a tribulation one was bound to face in the Scenery Command realm when the mindscape world shifted from ethereal to tangible and manifested into the world, second in peril only to the Immortal Ascension tribulation. It seemed the Heavens truly did not want Wei Yuan to live, going so far as to arrange even this sort of tribulation for him.
Meanwhile, within the Smoke and Fire of the Mortal World, the massive waves in the sea had finally taken complete form. A crest a hundred and fifty feet high bore down toward Central City with devastating momentum. Amid the crest, countless seaweeds grew wildly like sentient tentacles, tangling together to form a wall of vegetation in an all-out effort to diminish the wave's power.
In Central City, Jianmu stood alone against the lightning tribulation beyond the sky, already struggling to hold on. The various immortal plants had built several low walls five feet high along the coast, behind which were their believers, desperately reinforcing the barriers.
By this time, most mortals were in the city, drowsy and sluggish; only the believers of the immortal plants could still move freely.
At the border of Qingming, an elegant, refined middle-aged scholar walked into Zhike Town along with the stream of people. Carrying himself with an easy posture and bright, clear eyes, he looked about as he walked, filled with curiosity about everything here.
Just as he was glancing around, a commanding voice suddenly rang out from the side: "Hey, you over there! You're new here, aren't you? If you want into Qingming, come over and register first!"
Chapter 590