However, after half a day had passed.
Soul Duke’s face was ashen.
BOOM!
The lightning continued to roar, and this ti, the Divinity Transformation lightning tribulation grew even more intense. The dark clouds in all four directions beca even denser!
Beneath the dim and gloomy sky, a torrential rain began to fall.
At the center of the thunderclouds, upon those ancient and ghostly doors, runes were unexpectedly being carved, and the doors even grew a fra!
The Wrathful-Eyed Vajra of the original third-grade tribulation had transford into a Four-Ard Vajra.
"A fourth-grade... a fourth-grade Heavenly Tribulation?!!"
Lei Dong, who was beside Soul Duke, was overjoyed; this was the aura of a Heavenly Tribulation he was familiar with.
Originally, when he saw Li Dalong breaking through a third-grade tribulation, he knew deep down that with Li Dalong’s aptitude, he shouldn’t be limited to anything less than a fourth-grade tribulation.
He also understood the Li family’s predicant, which had forced Li Dalong to attempt only the third grade. But he never expected that now, for so unknown reason, Li Dalong would actually dare to attempt a fourth-grade Heavenly Tribulation!
Amidst his joy, a trace of worry also flashed across Lei Dong’s face. For this fourth-grade Heavenly Tribulation, Li Dalong’s foundation was unstable, and those dead souls had not yet been integrated into his Nascent Soul; how could he possibly contend with it?
Sure enough, in less than an hour, the Four-Ard Vajra’s frenzied bombardnt of the ghostly doors caused them to teeter on the verge of collapse, and cracks even began to appear!
"Hahaha!"
Soul Duke let out a great, triumphant laugh. However, his laughter ca to an abrupt halt.
He saw it: in the sky, that Four-Ard Vajra had beco an Eight-Ard Vajra!
"This is madness! Brother Dalong, have you gone mad?!!"
Lei Dong clenched both his fists and shouted towards Li Dalong, who was at the center of the lightning tribulation.
The original fourth-grade Heavenly Tribulation was already a situation of near-certain death, and the ghostly doors that Li Dalong’s Nascent Soul had transford into had already been bombarded to the point of near-fragntation. And now, he had actually, proactively, drawn forth the fifth-grade lightning tribulation!
That Eight-Ard Vajra, its oppressive might was so strong that it made the very air roar, and in the sky, the lightning descended like pillars!
It wasn’t just him.
Even Soul Duke gazed in horror at the fifth-grade Heavenly Tribulation.
Li Dalong’s ghostly doors had already been cracked open; even if they were perfectly intact, beneath this Eight-Ard Vajra, they likely wouldn’t last for the ti of ten finger-snaps.
"No, that’s not right. That’s not right. Why would he choose to face a fifth-grade Heavenly Tribulation? If he were attempting a fourth-grade tribulation, that would indicate a mindset of giving it a desperate gamble. But if it’s the fifth grade..."
Soul Duke could feel his wrinkled hand, hidden within his sleeve, trembling.
He could not see Li Dalong’s expression from within the lightning tribulation, but he knew with absolute clarity that a man who could force the Wu Clan back without giving an inch, who could endure years of humiliation while carrying heavy burdens within the Wu Clan, and who could hide on the Wu Clan’s ancient battlefield for a hundred years, was definitely not a madman seeking his own death!
He faintly sensed that the very thing he had feared most had happened after all.
"No, I don’t believe it... could it be... could it be that coffin?"
In that brief mont, though the site of the lightning tribulation had not yet changed, Soul Duke felt a sense of crisis rising in his heart. After only a flash of thought, his Domain had already unfolded, pulling the nearby Lei Dong into its bounds!
"Soul Duke?!!"
Lei Dong reacted in an instant. With no ti to wonder why Soul Duke would attack him at this mont, his own Domain unfolded in a flash. ’Three Thousand Thunders’ protected his body, blocking the countless spirit bodies assailing him from within Soul Duke’s Domain.
But just as he was about to counter-attack, he was left completely stunned.
Soul Duke had already vanished from his original spot. His aura was already over 5 miles away, and the speed of his departure was increasing ever more rapidly.
However, this sudden turn of events was far from being as shocking as Li Dalong’s summoning the fifth-grade lightning tribulation at this very mont!
Everyone was now as horrified as Lei Dong had been initially. They stared in disbelief at the sight of the lightning tribulation. That Eight-Ard Vajra, how could it be so incomparably formidable?
"A madman! He probably wanted to risk his life to break through that fourth-grade lightning tribulation, but when he realized he couldn’t pass, he decided he wanted to have a more dignified fall?"
"Alas, his heart was higher than the heavens, but his fate is as thin as paper. I originally thought our Azure Cloud would produce another Divinity Transformation expert, but I never imagined he would be so arrogant as to bring about his own demise."
"Everyone, let’s disperse. What a pity. That senior’s breakthrough of the third-grade tribulation was almost a sure thing. Why was there any need to take such a risk?"
"..."
The crowd from Azure Cloud all let out long sighs. If it had been the fourth-grade lightning tribulation, even though they saw the ghostly doors begin to shatter, there would still have been a sliver of hope for survival. But now, with a fifth-grade lightning tribulation...
They slowly turned around, unable to bear looking back. From the bottom of their hearts, they felt regret for that senior. At the sa ti, they also secretly reflected on themselves, resolving that in the future, they truly must not take such risks. Sotis, sothing that seems to have a chance of success can, in reality, claim one’s life.
That Han Qiusheng’s face was dark. He had long been prepared to fight a battle with the Wu Clan in order to gain the favor of a Divinity Transformation expert, but he never expected it would all co to nothing in the end.
Imdiately after, they departed together with the nurous fellow Daoists from Azure Cloud, heading back towards the region’s interior.
Just as they had traveled 30 miles.
Old Ancestor Tianye, amidst the crowd, still had his brow tightly furrowed.
"That familiar ghostly Qi... and our Ghost Eye Sect’s Gate of the Netherworld... I originally thought it was Brother Dalong breaking through to Divinity Transformation in the Wu Clan’s territory. As it seems now... I can only hope it truly wasn’t him."
As he was lost in thought, he glanced back. The look in his eyes, which had originally held so doubt and worry, gradually widened. The shocked expression on his face would not fade, so much so that he halted in mid-air without even realizing it.
"Brother Tianye..."
A Nascent Soul cultivator, who had originally wanted to discuss sothing with Old Ancestor Tianye, also turned his head back. His eyes, too, went wide like copper bells, and he couldn’t help but cry out in alarm, "Everyone, that... that senior... holy hell!"
As his voice fell, everyone turned around.
They saw only that at the place where the lightning tribulation roared, high above the ghostly doors that floated in the air, a silver coffin had appeared!
Creeeak—
The ghostly doors slowly swung open, making the piercing sound of a long-neglected door, yet it seed all the more mysterious for it, like a voice from ti immorial!
From within the ghostly doors, a dense mass of ferocious ghostly hands shot out like a blooming chrysanthemum, and tightly ensnared the fists swung by the Eight-Ard Vajra!
"Brother Dalong?!!"
Old Ancestor Tianye cried out. The mont the Heaven-Piercing Coffin appeared, he knew—Li Dalong had returned!
And moreover...
He was genuinely confident he could withstand this fifth-grade lightning tribulation!!!
Nearby, Han Qiusheng watched the strange transformation of the distant lightning tribulation, and those ghostly hands which radiated a black Qi as they contended with the lightning of the Eight-Ard Vajra.
Then, looking at the overjoyed Old Ancestor Tianye and the silver coffin above the ghostly doors, the stories he had heard so often in Azure Cloud over the years that his ears had practically grown calluses resurfaced in his mind.
Gulp.
Han Qiusheng’s Adam’s apple bobbed.
---
2/2
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