Chapter 70
Chapter 70: Artifact Tribulation Lightning
A black line stretched across the horizon. Before it even reached them, the cloudless blue sky overhead suddenly spread with ink-dark clouds. Violet-blue lightning twisted through the mass and erupted in jagged bursts, one thunderclap linking into the next.
Countless people were alarmed and flew in.
Tribulation clouds were coming from the horizon, weren’t they? Then why was another set forming right above their heads? Was it the same person? Who was in tribulation?
Right then, Chan Ming tore through space and returned. Seeing the crowd rushing toward the back mountain, he snatched a passerby by the collar. “Who’s undergoing tribulation?”
“I-I don’t know—greetings, Ancestor.”
Chan Ming released him and swept his divine sense over. His expression changed instantly.
Hu Qing?
He shot off at once, rushing to shield her.
At the tribulation site, Hu Qing was setting up a formation, glancing up at the sky with a blank, bewildered face.
What—did the heavens think one tribulation wouldn’t kill her, so it opened up a second one just in case? Was it praising her or trying to murder her?
If she was their real child, they could at least give her a backdoor!
Juan Bu muttered, “Don’t tell me you’re jumping straight into the Integration Stage.”
“Integration Stage?” Hu Qing’s eyes lit up. “Then if I try harder, doesn’t that mean I can go straight into the Mahayana Stage?”
Juan Bu gave a cold laugh. “You think the Mahayana Stage is impressive?”
“Then I’ll try even harder and become an immortal in one shot!”
Juan Bu fell silent, his disdain practically audible.
The array formed. Bai Wen and the Thunder Dragon were still soaring overhead, circling and howling as they flew, as if they’d been pumped full of dragon blood.
“They look bigger again,” Hu Qing said, staring. “My formation won’t even fit them.”
“Good,” Juan Bu said flatly. “Let them take the first hits for you.”
Bound artifacts were supposed to share hardship. When danger came, they went first.
Hu Qing looked up, miserable. The tribulation clouds had fully settled in, blanketing a thousand miles in every direction. The edges of the black cloudbank glowed with a thin gold rim, while inside, tight threads of lightning crowded together like embroidery—stitching her a garden in the sky.
“Just to strike me, the heavens even painted a peony garden.”
It really did look like a rich peony banquet, every blossom spirit showing up with a giant glowing flower for a head to stare at her. “I’m not some monstrous villain!”
Lightning crackled in the clouds, brewing. Above her, the tribulation cloud began to rotate, slowly carving out a deep, ominous vortex. Something writhed inside, about to tear through.
Bai Wen and the Thunder Dragon suddenly let out long, piercing roars. Their tails snapped, and they charged straight into the vortex.
“Don’t—!” Hu Qing shouted, her heart leaping. Those two reckless beasts—if they wanted to take lightning, they could fly lower and wait. Why rush up?
They didn’t slow. They plunged into the sky with savage courage.
The crowd held its breath without thinking. Charge—charge—crack—
Right before Bai Wen and the Thunder Dragon could smash into the black clouds, a bolt dropped like a sword and lit half the heavens red.
Red?
Hu Qing froze.
“Shit!” Juan Bu barked.
No one else understood.
What kind of tribulation lightning was that? Why was it red?
The bright crimson glare painted every upturned face on the ground the same sickly color. With their stunned expressions, they looked more like corpses than living people.
“That’s artifact tribulation lightning,” Juan Bu said.
How could he have forgotten? Lightning meant for artifacts—he’d taken plenty of it in his day. It had been so long he’d almost grown nostalgic.
Artifact tribulation lightning…
Hu Qing went hollow. That bolt had been aimed at Bai Wen and the Thunder Dragon, but they weren’t even mortal-grade yet. How could they have drawn artifact tribulation lightning?
She didn’t deserve them.
“Looks like their spirit awareness has already formed,” Juan Bu said. “That’s why it came.”
Even spirit creatures got struck by lightning when they took human form. Let alone a weapon.
Something felt off to Hu Qing, but there was no time. Her own tribulation lightning suddenly shook loose from three different directions, all slamming toward her skull.
She activated her grand array in a panic. “Bai Wen! Thunder Dragon! Hold on!”
Every man for himself.
Three bolts fused into one and crashed down. The grand array caught it, but the barrier shuddered violently.
“Hey—hey—hey, wait!” Chan Ming, stuck at the edge of the range, went pale. “Does that count as one bolt or three?”
Even the other Ancestor-level figures were stunned. They’d all gone through tribulations. It had always been one bolt, one count. Since when did lightning combine like that?
Qin Yang started pinching his fingers at the clouds, counting fast. “Chan Ming, even if three bolts merge into one, we’ve still got over two hundred left.”
Chan Ming’s eyes bulged. “Nonsense!”
Mahayana tribulation was eighty-one bolts. Mahayana ascension was one hundred and eight. What was his daughter, that she’d get more than both combined?
Qin Yang turned and scanned the crowd. “Could it be one of us is also in tribulation? Tribulation on top of tribulation—everything crashing together?”
It was possible.
They started taking headcount on the spot, pointing and counting, shouting names. By the time they finished, Hu Qing had already taken several more thunderous hits in a roar of light.
No one here was in tribulation. No one off in the distance. No one who had gone out. None of the Mahayana cultivators in seclusion had emerged, either.
In a crack of space no one could detect, a group of immortals watched in stillness.
“It really is artifact tribulation lightning,” one said. “And red lightning at that.”
“These two artifacts have excellent quality,” another replied.
Quality, not grade. Some artifacts were fixed the moment they were refined. Others could continue to rise. The white python and purple dragon in the sky clearly belonged to the second kind—endless potential.
“I didn’t expect Little Li Realm to call down artifact tribulation lightning,” an immortal murmured. “We never had that back then.”
“The laws of the Immortal Realm must have filled in,” someone else said.
They talked with their sleeves tucked and their hands hidden, watching the dazzling white and purple shapes above. Inevitably, their gazes slid down to the cultivator at the center of it all.
“That woman is their master?”
“And her tribulation lightning—this is eye-opening.”
Even in the Immortal Realm, tribulation lightning didn’t put on this kind of show. Person tribulation and artifact tribulation tangled together, turning the sky into a blooming garden of light.
Was she truly guilty of something unforgivable? If so, shouldn’t it be white lightning, or black? This pure blue-violet carried no malice, no killing intent, only overwhelming force.
Could it be… the heavens were trying to perfect her?
“On the day Zhe Liu was cursed and chased off,” one immortal said lazily, “it was her.”
The immortals who hadn’t been there jolted.
They had already decided Zhe Liu was dead. However he died, it meant the woman below was not simple.
The speaker stared upward. “This tribulation may be a blessing.”
A blessing?
Hu Qing didn’t feel blessed at all. She felt like the heavens had picked her up like a ruined tool and decided to smash her until she either broke or became useful again.
“Are you trying to kill me?” she shouted up after another bolt finally cracked her barrier.
Crack-crack-crack—lightning lined up and dropped in a neat, terrifying queue.
Hu Qing panicked and forcibly summoned Xue Sha Pearl to take the hit.
The moment it appeared, it was drowned in blue-violet lightning. Its tiny red body flashed green, and it spat out a stream of pure outrage before diving straight into the ground and vanishing.
Hu Qing nearly screamed. If Xue Sha Pearl ran, was she supposed to use Emotionless Thread? That thing couldn’t even block water, let alone lightning.
Then—Devil Emperor Token?
The Devil Emperor Token radiated danger the instant she thought of it: Don’t you dare. If you pull me out, you’d better be ready to be hunted down by the Devil Clan.
Hu Qing had nothing left to use.
Bai Wen and the Thunder Dragon were still being struck in the sky. Chan Ming stamped and clapped in helpless panic.
At a time like this, he couldn’t go over, couldn’t intervene, couldn’t even toss her a formation plate. During tribulation, any outside interference would only make the lightning worse.
So what now?