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🕑 Added 2022-02-09 15:34:10 +0000 UTCTitle: Tribulation Attraction; Blades of Poseidon's Trident (2)
On a far island in between the wide expanse of ocean, a woman with almost silverish hair with a tinge of blue that was long enough to even cascade over the floor viewed gazed at the same direction with eyes that burnt with passion.
'This breath... this pressure...'
*Weng*
*Weng*
*Weng*
Suddenly, the platform she stood over trembled and the woman quickly rushed in. Almost disappearing. In her hand was a staff that Ja Sun would recognize since he had something similar. The Staff was completely silver with an orb floating over its head. This was none other than one of the rewards for capturing Poseidon's intent and was called Bo Saixi's Staff.
At the end of the dimly lit hall was a giant golden trident that continued to tremble slightly as the woman fell down to her knees with a pious expression.
"Is a new successor chosen?"
---
*Whir*
*Whir*
*Whir*
Deep into an unknown portion of the ocean lay a gigantic 300 meters long corpse of a blue-striped Anaconda with the aura of a peak beast still emanating from its body. However, there was also a foreign pressure leaking from within its corpse.
Deep into the mountainous corpse, amidst acid, flesh, and blood with stench terrible than century-old sewage sat a man cross-legged. His long, sunny blonde hair now turned pitch-black dyed with red of the corpse. His healthy complexion was now a thing of the past as fluids lathered his pale, snow-white skin. His buff physique deflated to dreamers of a healthy body— a thin man with ribs sticking out and flesh merely wrapped around his arms with seemingly no hint of muscles.
A whirl of crimson aura continued to revolve around him. A hint of menace was apparent on his calm face as he meditated. A hint of evil, that is.
"A tribulation..." The man croaked with a hoarse voice, "Not mine... not mine. I've only a single spirit bone left. That Deep Sea Demonic Whale King is harder to deal with than expected. I'd have to... look somewhere else—"
*Puh*
The man suddenly vomited fresh blood once again as his body shrunk slightly for the umpteenth time. Gritting his teeth, the man opened his eyes. His previously beautiful eyes now two orifices for his purely demonic blood-red eyes.
Veins bulged around his temples and he scowled, "Stop with your resistance already, Redstar!"
"You think you've won?" A cruel chuckled broke within the man, "Qian Xunji. I have taken everything from you and you don't even realize it!"
Qian Xunji bit his lips and began suppressing Redstar's will once again. The plan was a success. Qian Xunji managed to absorb Redstar and redirect his own martial soul to change into something else yet he didn't estimate Redstar's hatred correctly that turned into a strange form of energy cursing Qian Xunji at a set interval.
"Soon..." Qian Xunji muttered. If anyone elder from Spirit Hall would see him then they would be shocked to find his strength already at rank 98!
"I will return."
"As a god."
---
Dark clouds crackled with ocean blue lightning as they began to form a large whirlpool overseeing not only the Sky Piercing Mountain but also the surrounding regions. Discharge Eagle and others were stunned to see fragments of golden slowly and gradually coalesce within the eye of the dark whirlpool. Instead of attacking the Discharge Eagle, the ocean blue whirlpool of lightning struck the golden brilliance that congealed in the center, forming a net of blue lightning that continued to channel its energy in the center.
"What is... this?" The Discharge Eagle looked at the formation of the tribulation with a hint of fear in his eyes. For some reason, the black and white vines could no longer remain stable and they began to crumble already, revealing a deathly pale Ah Yin who sat cross-legged near the Thunder Hell Prison Vine with blood leaking from her facial orifices. If the blood was cleaned, various burst veins could be seen around her temples and her eyes as she, too, glared at the dark whirlpool with a shocked expression.
"Yin, hurry! Breakthrough!" Petals pleaded as Ah Yin replied in a daze, her injuries already healing once again in the meantime, "I can't... my domain cannot spread further than 50 meters around the base of the mountain, and can't you feel it? My breakthrough is being forcefully suppressed."
Hearing all this, Petals gasped in shock. She couldn't feel this indeed. However, once she put her focus on Ah Yin instead of the surrounding currents of divine energy emerging from the whirlpool of the cloud, she couldn't help but grow silent.
"It's... the divine energy. It's under someone's control..." Petals whispered.
"What's going on?" Discharge Eagle glared in Ah Yin's direction. Her lips curved into a mocking smirk, "Didn't you want a tribulation? There you go. Your death comes knocking. Face it like the brave little bird you were when inciting the tribulation!"
Lightning began to form over the Discharge Eagle as he glared at Ah Yin yet he didn't make any sudden movements at this moment. Instead of dealing with trifles, it was more pressing to prepare for whatever horrendous tribulation was brewing above their heads. What Thunder Hell Prison Vine, what Spirit beast turned human, everything could be disregarded at this moment. Only his survival mattered the most.
Ah Yin was the same. While her injuries healed pretty quickly with her body now only drenched with blood, she was still experiencing an overdraft of her spirit energy. She couldn't expect anything from her spirit skills at this point and continued to siphon off a bit more from surrounding plants she could reach with her domain.
What truly made her feel a sensation of worry after all this time was that through her domain, she realized that the majority of the pressure from the tribulation wasn't three times the ordinary but five. However, such a grand pressure was focused only on one small portion of the region cut off by the tribulation as the ground began to cave in. Underneath, dormant, lay Ja Sun with purplish flesh wriggling all over him.
Even with her almost blind confidence in Ja Sun, Ah Yin felt worried for the first time for his life.
Why was this happening?
What had he done?
These thoughts remained only for a moment giving way to something more concrete and that was the understanding of...
What needs to be done!
"You think you can escape?" The Discharge Eagle guffawed as Ah Yin turned to trek down the Sky Piercing Mountain, not even glancing in the direction of the Thunder Hell Prison Vine that attracted her deeply just a few moments ago.
"I... wish you survive," Ah Yin replied, "What we were going through back then was the competition for the treasure. This Thunder Hell Prison Vine is only alive in physique but not in the mind. The two of us are not like that. So, as a spirit beast who can only empathize with other spirit beasts still facing tribulation... I hope you get to live another day."
"Pretty words will never resolve our grudge!" The Discharge Eagle scoffed. However, his feathers stood to their ends as Ah Yin looked back for a brief moment with her expression screaming ridicule and mockery, "That's right. I pushed you to the brink of tribulation. Don't show your face to me next time or I won't even absorb your spirit bone but hang it on my wall."
"You!" The Eagle screeched loudly yet—
*Rumble*
— quickly stopped the moment the Heavens grumbled.
Chuckling, Ah Yin jumped down without any preparation with the nearby vine soon coiling around her waist to control her landing and within moments Ah Yin appeared next to the spot where Ja Sun lay dormant in. He had 'returned' to the earth to safely absorb the spirit bone.
*Rumble*
Another rumble echoed as Petals cowered within Ah Yin. However, the Blue Silver Goddess calmly observed if the strangely targeting tribulation was affecting Ja Sun's process. None of them could have imagined things would go this wrong this quickly.
*Crackle*
Ah Yin looked up. The Golden light under the tempering of lightning finally gained a form. Three giant golden blades could be seen surrounded by a whirlpool of dark clouds while Ah Yin and Discharge Eagle saw more. Above the dark clouds was a golden mirage of an outstretched arm clenching a giant rod stabbing into the cloud and connecting to the three solid golden blades to form a massive trident. This scene could be viewed from around dozens of kilometers, causing many, many spirit beasts to escape the region and shifting the environment itself.
The trident slowly tilted. Its head now targeting the Discharge Eagle held in his place, the Sky Piercing Mountain, and Ah Yin-Ja Sun duo all at the same time.
Only now did Ah Yin and the Discharge Eagle feel the layered pressure as the Discharge Eagle instantly plummeted to the peak of the mountain, cracks as wide as an average adult human spread onto the mountain's surface and even the ever-resilient Thunder Hell Prison Vine had tiny cracks spreading over its surface.
Even Ah Yin was pushed into the ground with fractures spreading through her bones and tears appearing on her recently healed body. She couldn't move at all while remaining forced to sprawl on the ground regardless of her efforts.
'Damn it!' She wished to howl but could even barely groan!
"What are we going to do? What are we going to do? It's just like that time! Just like that day! This pressure. This aura... It's him!"
Petals continued to mutter 'It's him' continuously as Ah Yin instantly inquired about it.
"It hadn't been long before I was born and gained a sentient conscience when I felt a tribulation weaker than this one but still greater than what spirit beasts surpassing the age of 100000 years in cultivation need to go through. After that... probably after successful completion of the tribulation, I felt this very aura. Not only me, everyone in the world similar to me in cultivation did.
The breath of a God, Ah Yin! This isn't just a simple tribulation—"
---
"One of the top ten tribulations manifested under Asura's shift in order— Blades of Poseidon's Trident." An amused echo rang through the very hidden center of the forest. Hearing the voice, a burly, dark-haired man in a regal armor bowed instantly and exclaimed, "My lord, if this is indeed another one of those top ten tribulations then chances are that whoever beside the Thunder Hell Prison Vine remains may not survive.
My intent alone is only enough for the Thunder Hell Prison Vine to survive an average tribulation."
In front of the man was a massive emerald lake with lush and verdant growth all around its edges. On the calm surface of the lake lay a silver spike that reached as high as ten meters. The water around this beautiful but plain silver spike rippled again, "Not necessary. The Thunder Hell Prison Vine already took a lot of unnecessary resources to have pushed through the ordinary bottleneck of its growth. While the strength of the Thunder God is indeed within the species, it is merely a portion of it.
We cannot afford to directly confront a tribulation under the category of top ten tribulations."
Nodding, the expression of the dark-haired man turned calm once again and he didn't speak anymore.
---
"A tribulation that is the direct attack of the divine? What are you talking about?" Ah Yin frowned internally.
"I have sensed these forms of tribulations for only eight times on this continent and all of them are faced by spirit beasts. Unlike ordinary tribulation, no one has survived this form of tribulation. Although I don't know its name, or what kind of tribulation this is, I'm sure it's of a level that I would have to go through if I really mustered the courage to breakthrough back then...
This makes me wonder... I dodged the tribulation by becoming a spirit soul, why am I being chased by tribulations all the time?" Petals whined.
"Focus," Ah Yin groaned, "A tribulation has its rules, too. What's the difference between an ordinary and this tribulation?"
"It's an attack!" Petals snapped, "A direct attack from the divine. No beast can survive this attack so they no longer try to breakthrough. The difference between this and an ordinary tribulation is that this is no longer a tribulation!"
Ah Yin's face was pushed deeper as the mirage of the golden hand pulled back slowly, as if readying its arm to throw the trident.
"Think you can do something?" Ah Yin finally questioned Petals seeing that she wasn't able to calm the Spirit Soul.
"Sorry... spirit beasts simply cannot successfully endure the kind of tribulation designed to end them, including me. But... that Discharge Eagle wasn't of that level. Then how? Why?" Large drops of tears began to emerge from the corner of Petals' eyes as she began sobbing softly, making Ah Yin sigh a bit further.
'If we survive... I don't want a spirit soul who cries in my head when I'm about to die... wait, why would I even think of dying after surviving? That damn grandson! Made me almost step on a darker path!'
After what felt like an eternity but in reality wasn't even more than five seconds, the hand shoved forward and let go of the elusive pole of the trident. The wind picked up instantly as the dark whirlpool of clouds was dispersed in a moment.
"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!" The Discharge Eagle screeched as it was unable to move at all. With its eyes reddening, despair wreaking havoc in his being, he let out a last-ditch effort!
Thick bolts of lightning erupted from every needle-like feather on his body. Countless bolts of lightning instantly shot against the three golden blades.
*Crash*
*Rumble*
Every bolt of lightning reached the trident successfully. Every bolt of lightning hit the trident.
Yet, as it did disperse at a moment's notice, not a single mark could be seen and the only thing the attack managed to gain was an extra second as the trident made an arc through the sky and plunged downwards in the next moment.
The three blades finally broke free from the illusory construct of the pole as the rightmost blade shot in Discharge Eagle's direction. After all, the beast had invoked the tribulation and he shall face it even if it is only a portion of its strength.
The leftmost blade strangely moved in the direction of the nearby spirit beast— The Thunder Hell Prison Vine.
An extraordinary spirit beast that hid terrifying strength. Even if dead in mind, the beast's existence mustn't continue any longer.
Finally, the thickest of the three blades— The center blade, shot directly in Ah Yin's direction.
"Ahhhh!"
"Stop screaming! Of all the things locked, you're the only one that can move so sack up and use the spirit skills and spirit bone related to you!" Ah Yin snapped at Petals as she hurriedly nodded and wiped her tears.
"If I go all out, it may injure your spirit core!"
"We'll see to that later!"
Not waiting a moment longer, Petals disregarded everything and instantly mobilized everything that she granted Ah Yin that can hurt someone.
An imperial white-black spirit rings formed behind Ah Yin as the blade already reached closer to her.
At this point Ah Yin felt the Discharge Eagle simply disappearing as she bit her lips in distress. Not only that, Ah Yin heard a loud, menacing roar from the peak of the mountain.
On the peak of the Sky Piercing Mountain, one of the three blades easily stabbed into the Discharge Eagle and morphed into motes of golden light that engulfed the beast before disappearing. It was as anti-climactic as one could expect from an overlord squishing an ant yet as the second blade reached the Thunder Hell Prison Vine, the cracks on the Bamboo plant suddenly ejected ink-black spirit emergy that turned into a minuscule pitch-black dragon instantly letting out a roar to the sky!
Shockingly, the jet-black construct could erode quite a bit of the golden blade as it soon turned blunt but not enough as it turned into a golden tide and assimilated the pitch-black dragon and removed more than half of the bamboo.
As the final blade was almost five meters away from Ah Yin, aside from the white and black spirit ring, a crimson spirit ring erupted, too. A phantom of a blue silver goddess tree covered Ah Yin's sprawled body.
The Blue Silver Divine Invincibility. Originally, this was a trump card saved for Discharge Eagle yet the beast was too quick to jump on the gun and ended up dying anyway.
Even if impervious to any attack, the skill was made from spirit energy and should follow the given rule Ja Sun had realized.
Spirit Energy of any form and nature will always be weaker in comparison to the weakest strand of divine energy yet, for some reason, the Blue Silver Divine Invincibility held out.
There was a reason for it.
The Blue Silver Goddess True Avatar!
Aside from the Dissolving Petals, Ah Yin's seventh spirit ring granted her a true avatar which was now in front of Ah Yin in the form of a tiny strand of Blue Silver Goddess floating with a black and white orb revolving around it.
True Spirit Avatar of the tool spirit master is oftentimes stronger than beast spirit masters and Ah Yin's spirit avatar was made from a million-year-old spirit ring! The ability of the true avatar was similar to the Fiery Golden Pupils in a way.
It made Ah Yin's strength increase by two levels irrespective of her rank. Be it her attack, her defense, or her movement. At this moment, she became a beast but was pressed down by the godly tribulation.
The toll of the spirit energy was much greater than just Dissolving Petals to the point that it made Ah Yin scoff. A crimson spirit ring indeed used marginally less spirit energy and the same was the case for the million-year-old spirit ring but this was relative to the standards of a Titled Douluo and Ah Yin was nowhere near a Titled Douluo in terms of spirit energy.
Still, as the blade struck the construct of the Blue Silver Divine Invincibility, a tiny crack appeared on its surface.
*Trck*
The crack was a tiny one yet the longer the blade continued to push against Ah Yin's Invincibility, the greater the crack on its surface grew.
This was the second skill of her sixth spirit ring— Invincible Counter. A causal skill that is returned five times the original attack and reaches the target without fail.
But things weren't so simple.
Although her strength was forcefully increased by two levels, she couldn't hold on. Within Ah Yin's body, her Yin-Yang Pure Core had tiny cracks running over its surface. The longer she persisted, the greater the damage she still went through as unimaginable pain wreaked havoc in her body.
"Burst already!" Ah Yin shouted deeply in her heart. A minute had passed and the Blue Silver Divine Invincibility can hold out for a total of five minutes, giving her four minutes to hold out on.
The surroundings began to crumble under the pressure of the tribulation and the effect of the tribulation's construct experiencing the same attack many times over!
*Weng*
*Weng*
*Weng*
With every shockwave, Ah Yin's body would be pushed further into the ground.
With every shockwave, the cracks in the golden blade would grow further to the point of slowly reaching its entire length.
With every shockwave, the elusive spatial barrier that locked the surroundings trembled!
Blood gushed from Ah Yin's body again as instead of despair, she suddenly felt wry.
'I better... get something good in return for not only constantly healing him but protecting his sorry ass, too...'
She felt her consciousness threaten to slip away. The past week hadn't been easy for her yet and now the pressure of the Tribulation finally served to drive Ah Yin past her breaking point.
*Krt*
"Your spirit core..." Petals whispered softly as Ah Yin's core was on its brink of destruction. This would leave an irreplaceable mark on her cultivation that may cut her path short.
"Whatever... I feel like sleeping now..." Ah Yin chuckled, her eyes closed as she bled through them. The Blue Silver Divine Invincibility flickered in and out of its existence.
The cracks on the blade reached its end yet it fell short...
By the tiniest margin possible.
Petals closed her eyes with a sad expression taking over her face yet as she recalled the sheer rollercoaster of emotions she went through in this short period, a bitter smile touched her lips.
It was a worthwhile experience when compared to staying at the bottom of the pond thinking when the two divine souls would break out and have their revenge on her.
*Clang*
Petals' eyes opened at the sound as a flaming sword without any wielder parried the blade.
It was strange.
The flames were too intense to be considered normal and even if they gave her the sensation of ultimate fire, there was something otherworldly about it.
The flames displayed a level of strength and emotions that Petals felt impossible as instead of facing the tribulation head-on, it snuck into the numerous cracks within the tribulation's body.
