The Last Attempt
As the beam intensified, a thousand layers of s.p.a.ce stacked on top of one another. From the bottom, light from the heavenly lightning barely pa.s.sed through.
Boom!
The second bolt of Tai Qing Heavenly Lightning struck the inter-spatial wall with a resounding thud!
Alice was startled at the outcome. “It worked?!”
“No…” Stern and Poseidon denied at the same time.
“Oh no!”
They watched as the inter-spatial wall shake violently upon contact. It took the effort of three main G.o.ds but in the end, it was still all in vain!
Cracks started to appear on the wall!
“Let’s go, we’ve done our best!” Poseidon forced a warning through his teeth. Without waiting for the rest, he fled the scene immediately!
Stern didn’t have time to deal with Alice’s shock. He grabbed his sister’s arm, then teleported away from the scene.
The moment the three left, the wall was pierced through like a diamond drill through a block of concrete. When the layers of s.p.a.ce shattered, the bright bolt struck right into the ocean.
A few hundred nautical miles away, Poseidon’s expression darkened. With his eyesight as sharp as an eagle’s, his gaze was focused on Yang Chen’s location.
Stern cursed violently, “d.a.m.n it, how is it possible? I know it’s the Nine Heavenly Lightning, but Tai Qing Heavenly Lightning is only the first one. You mean the three of us aren’t even strong enough to block one?!”
“No, even the Nine Heavenly Lightning differs from case to case. The more a person goes against the laws of the universe, the stronger the lightning will be. The last heavenly lightning we’ve witnessed ten thousand years ago was three or four times weaker than this one. Unless Athena uses her s.h.i.+eld, Aegis, no one can stop it,” said Poseidon.
Christen was still in a daze. She couldn’t believe it was real.
“Then Yang Chen…” Alice’s face had lost its usual grace. She leaned on her brother’s chest and started to grieve. She couldn’t bear to watch.
Stern grabbed his sister’s delicate shoulders. “There’s still one more bolt. After everything has settled, we’ll look for him… or what’s left of him.” There was sadness in his words.
At this point, beneath the storm clouds, Yang Chen was already several meters deep in the ocean. He didn’t have the luxury to think about anything happening outside.
Before he kicked Poseidon away, Yang Chen had vaguely felt an immense aura of fury, between the heavens and earth, lock upon himself!
He didn’t know what it was, but he had a bad feeling about it.
This insufferable manic condition was one of the side effects of the divine light, which would at the same time unleash all subconscious potential. It meant that all his cultivated abilities would be released in one burst without any form of restraint.
Why did he spend his last ounce of sanity kicking Poseidon away? Perhaps it was his pride that made him do it or the fact that he vowed to destroy Poseidon by his own strength and not rely on the heavens to aid him!
Soon after he kicked Poseidon away, he lost control of his actions. The surging force expanded his blood vessels, and a chilling roar forced its way out of Yang Chen’s throat like the sound of grinding gears.
His entire being was squeezed by True Yuan to its limit like a compressed rubber ball right in the path of the heavenly lightning—aimed straight at his head!
Unfortunately, there was great disparity even between all the True Yuan in his body and the heavenly lightning.
Yang Chen felt like all of the True Yuan in his body was sucked out within a matter of seconds. Even his Qi was spilling out his pores!
The blue bolt was stagnant for a moment, engulfing his entire body!
Yang Chen had forgotten what true pain felt like. It was nothing short of being tormented by the fires of h.e.l.l. All he was thinking of was that death could not come sooner!
This indescribable agony, even when compared to the times he was experimented on as a child, was at least a hundred times more intense!
The force of heavenly lightning not only caused severe physical damage, it heavily impacted the soul too!
It was no longer about letting go of this physical body. Yang Chen was aware that rebirth might not be a possibility after this!
His clothes had already vaporized before the lightning had struck. When Yang Chen himself was. .h.i.t, he fell into the icy waters.
The ocean swallowed his body whole. It felt like the full force of the bolt had pa.s.sed through the waters into every single cell in his body!
Other people going through Tribulation Pa.s.sing stage, after facing the wrath of the Tai Qing Heavenly Lightning, often had their souls evaporated!
However, Yang Chen’s body was once exposed to divine light. And it had been fortified with long periods of Endless Resolve Restoration Scripture practices. His body wasn’t regular by any means, even when compared to the greatest of masters!
The most peculiar thing about the Endless Resolve Restoration Scripture was that it was the most powerful at times of utter desperation and hopelessness!
When the body and consciousness came into contact with the bolt, the scripture was already functioning at speeds a thousand times faster than normal. It rapidly converted the magical powers of the heavens and earth into True Yuan powers within his body. This meant that his wounds were mended as quickly as they were formed!
However, the speed of his recovery was a little slower than the speed of destruction dealt by the bolt. It was barely keeping Yang Chen alive!
A flash of lightning only lasted seconds, but Yang Chen’s suffering felt like centuries of agony.
His body was bathed in electricity, burning into blackened ash. His blood was boiling while his flesh started to melt. It was unimaginable suffering!
When the first bolt disappeared, Yang Chen came to the realization that he wasn’t dead yet. At the same time, the mania, caused by the divine light back then, in his brains had disappeared. The heavenly lightning was itself the most purifying energy between the heavens and earth. With a whiff of its explosive energy, his mania would’ve cleared instantly!
Yang Chen, with his last hint of consciousness, was about to cry!
Why was he suddenly in the Tribulation Pa.s.sing stage?! Time wasn’t certain on the path of cultivation, some people couldn’t make spiritual advancements even after a few hundred years, while others advanced a thousand miles in a day.
However, wasn’t his advancements coming a little too quickly even for him?!
All Yan Sanniang had done was give a vague explanation. Am I so smart that I’ve gone beyond her understanding? Yang Chen thought.
Advancement in cultivation is great. But I have no experience, nor do I have any protective treasures with me. How the heck am I supposed to survive the heavenly tribulations?!
If only Yang Chen knew that the heavenly tribulations awaiting him weren’t the regular type, but the most difficult, agonizing ‘Nine Heavenly Lightning’, he’d probably collapse from rage or at the very least vomit blood.
He thought he’d survived the worst, that he’d lived through the disaster, but Yang Chen suddenly felt another heavnely lightning about to strike again!
d.a.m.n it! It looks like the heavens are really out for blood.
Yang Chen felt the mania creeping back in. If another bolt struck within such a short amount of time, then his chance of survival was slim to none! At this point, his consciousness wasn’t fully recovered either. Reincarnating at this point was nothing more than a fleeting dream!
And… there were so many people waiting for his return. If he died, what would happen to his women?!
When Yang Chen started to lose hope, Poseidon, Apollo, and Diana had built an inter-spatial wall s.h.i.+elding him mid-air!
Yang Chen vaguely felt the presence of the three beings. He initially thought that there was hope, but they could barely contain nothing more than a few seconds of its force before letting it crash on him again!
“Why must you give me false hope...” This was his last complaint when Yang Chen hit rock bottom.
After another strike, Yang Chen could no longer keep himself awake. He was completely unconscious, and amidst the raging storm and the rolling waves, he was tossed about like a lone boat at sea.
If it weren’t for the inter-spatial wall, which did save him a few seconds for the scripture to mend a significant portion of his physical body and consciousness, this bolt would’ve decimated his very soul!
The storm clouds did not disappear. It seemed to have sensed that Yang Chen wasn’t completely destroyed just yet. And as if the heavens were raging over the fact that he was still alive, it concentrated all its power into one final bolt. It was the third and last Tai Qing Heavenly Lightning, much more powerful than the previous!
Yang Chen’s soul had sealed itself within the body, so he couldn’t sense the terrifying bolt brewing above.
At this point, the scripture’s True Yuan within Yang Chen’s body was functioning without his control. It hadn’t given up on protecting its owner. It watched the next bolt approach, and its power wasn’t something his recovery powers could fix. The Endless Resolve Restoration Scripture’s True Yuan decided to begin ‘the last attempt’!
As if giving up on all defense, the scripture functioned autonomously to bring all the True Yuan protecting the body to the dantian. This meant that his body would be completely exposed to the strikes. It floated, fully exposed, at the surface in preparation for utter destruction from the next strike!