"What kind of nonsense is this?" Gu Xie wondered if his ears were playing tricks on him.
How had a Nine-Nine Immortal Ascension Tribulation suddenly popped out of nowhere?
Who was the half-immortal here, you or me?
Besides, he had never even heard of any lightning tribulation called the "Nine-Nine Immortal Ascension Tribulation"!
What on earth was a Nine-Nine Immortal Ascension Tribulation?! Did I overlook some ancient record?
Within the Nine-Nine Immortal Ascension Tribulation, Gu Xie could make out the Jade Clarity Heavenly Tribulation, the Qiankun Grand Lightning Tribulation, the Violet Extinction Lightning Tribulation... It was practically as if every lightning tribulation in existence had been crammed together into one.
Rumble!
Before the Nine-Nine Immortal Ascension Tribulation had even fully formed, its residual might was already leveling one mountaintop after another, sending massive boulders hurtling down from the sky to crash at their feet.
Outside the illusion, Dai Bufan's eyelids twitched uncontrollably.
He had originally wanted to see how the Patriarch would overcome his inner demon. Yet before the Patriarch's inner demon could even appear, this sudden blinding flash of lightning nearly dazzled his eyes.
"Whose inner demon is this?!"
Whose mortal applicant had an inner demon that kicked up such a terrifying racket? Even the lightning tribulation he had faced when breaking through to the Body Integration stage couldn't compare to this!
"That kid named Gu Junye," the river spirit said, sitting beside him with legs crossed in a chair sculpted from water.
He controlled all the inner demons and knew exactly who had produced each one.
Dai Bufan jerked his head around, glaring at Meng Jingzhou. "You need to give me an explanation."
Meng Jingzhou wanted to drag Lu Yang into sharing the blame, but then he suddenly remembered that Lu Yang had vanished before the second round of tests even began. Meng Jingzhou thought to himself, 'Could that rascal Lu Yang have known things would go wrong and slipped away ahead of time?'
"He's just a kid. It's perfectly normal to have a vivid imagination."
"What about the Patriarch's inner demon?" Dai Bufan asked the river spirit curiously.
The river spirit waved a dismissive hand. "He might have had an inner demon in the past, but he doesn't anymore. If he hadn't idly decided to form a team, he would have passed on his own already."
...
Daoist Xiantian indeed had no inner demon. He had harbored one during the Great Yu era, but ever since he visited Prison Peak, saw his contemporaries, and witnessed even inner demons being locked up, his inner demon had vanished.
Gu Xie's eyelids twitched as he stared up at the lightning tribulation swirling overhead. If he took action, he would surely expose his identity. If he did nothing, he would be blasted to death by lightning and fail the test.
Why on earth had he lost his mind earlier and agreed to team up with these three?
Daoist Xiantian had never seen a lightning tribulation of such apocalyptic scale in his entire life. He praised in a low voice, "As expected of Daoist Lord Wanfa. Even his inner demon is this formidable."
Gu Xie's expression grew even more stunned than when he had first seen the lightning tribulation. "Who is Daoist Lord Wanfa?"
Daoist Xiantian pointed at Gu Junye. "Him, of course. He's the reincarnation of Daoist Lord Wanfa."
Gu Xie froze. *If he's Daoist Lord Wanfa, then who am I?*
Gu Xie quickly realized that Gu Junye was an impostor.
Courting death!
Wait, no. The world only knew that Daoist Lord Wanfa was at the Tribulation Transcendence stage; they had no idea he was actually already a half-immortal. And someone at the Tribulation Transcendence stage could never encounter an Immortal Ascension Tribulation!
How did Gu Junye know he was a half-immortal?
Keeping his composure, he asked Gu Junye calmly, "How did you know Daoist Lord Wanfa was a half-immortal? Why haven't I ever heard of that?"
Gu Junye turned his head, a lonely gaze welling up in his eyes as though reminiscing about a past life. "What half-immortal? Daoist Lord Wanfa was, of course, at the Tribulation Transcendence stage."
"How could someone at the Tribulation Transcendence stage undergo an Immortal Ascension Tribulation?!" Gu Xie snapped in anger, feeling as if he were being made a fool of.
The corner of Gu Junye's lips curled into a mocking smile, and he spoke with profound weight: "Becoming an immortal is becoming an immortal, and failing to do so is failing. Whence comes this talk of a 'half-immortal'?
"It is nothing more than the idle drivel of worldly folk."
Gu Xie instinctively wanted to retort, but upon careful reflection, he actually found Gu Junye's words rather sensible.
Gu Junye paid Gu Xie no further heed. In truth, he had no idea the half-immortal realm even existed; he had merely improvised along with Gu Xie's words.
Gazing up at the now fully formed Nine-Nine Immortal Ascension Tribulation overhead, he said calmly, "No matter. What began with me shall end with me."
Under the astounded gazes of the other three, Gu Junye slowly drifted into the air, facing the lightning tribulation head-on!
Bathed in the lightning tribulation, Gu Junye stood completely unshaken, as if a silhouette from an eternity ago had manifested in this very moment, enduring through the ages!
At this moment, Gu Xie even felt that the other boy was the true Daoist Lord Wanfa, while he himself was the counterfeit.
The next instant, Gu Xie and Daoist Lord Hanhai both snapped back to reality at the same time: Gu Junye was undeniably a mortal. The only reason he could fly up to face the lightning tribulation and emerge unscathed no matter how much lightning struck him was that this was an illusion!
Chapter 746