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Chapter 224: A Deadly Intervention
🕑 Added 2023-06-16 17:38:00 +0000 UTC“What is going on!?” Old Man Spirit shouted. “This… This shouldn’t happen! The tribulation is over! I saw the clouds dissipating. It’s three strikes, always three strikes!”
And yet, the truth was irrefutable. Not only were the clouds regathering, but more and more of them kept appearing. Soon, they were so many that they formed layers, covering more of the sky until they arrived half a mile above the tiny planet. The arcs of lightning that passed between them were thick like barrels and filled to the brim with power.
Jack’s eyes were shaking. Old Man Spirit was gaping in disbelief. Brock tried rushing towards Jack, but a lightning bolt fell before his feet and forced him to step back—it was a warning.
“Stay back, Brock!” Jack shouted. “I’ll be fine! I’ll—”
He didn’t have time to finish his words. A thick thunderbolt crashed on his head, frying his entire body instantly. Its power was way beyond the previous ones—and it was just the first bolt.
Suddenly, Old Man Spirit seemed to realize something. His face hardened, and his eyes narrowed as he shouted in rage, “WHO IS MESSING WITH MY TRIAL PLANET!?”
His voice roared louder than the thunder. For a moment, everything went quiet before another lightning bolt fell—directly on Old Man Spirit.
However, this old man was in his element. Even before the lightning crashed, he pointed a finger at it and shouted, “BREAK!”
The bolt broke. The air opened up and swallowed it, spiting out to the side. Old Man Spirit floated upward, seeming utterly enraged. “I don’t know you are,” he growled, “but if think you can mess with my Trial Planet, you are deeply mistaken.”
He unleashed his complete Dao. Jack was blinded. He had no idea what level of power Old Man Spirit had really reached, but he knew that the D-Grade knight he’d faced was nothing but a tiny fraction of what he now witnessed. The Dao itself rocked and seethed as Old Man Spirit waved a hand at the sky. A titanic silver mace appeared, aiming to crash into the clouds and disperse them. The entire world stood at attention.
“Show yourself!” Old Man Spirit demanded.
The moment the mace was about to strike, however, a second presence blanketed the sky. Jack froze. Old Man Spirit’s mace was broken, his Dao was crushed, and his body was flung downward, nailed into the ground as if spiked by a giant.
Old Man Spirit was unfathomably strong, but whoever was here was someone even stronger. A voice rumbled from the sky, like the far-off whisper of a God.
“Life is sealed in the dark. To those who wield it, death.”
It was a few simple words. Yet, Jack felt his entire world shake and sharpen to a point. He felt equal parts terror and awe. Instinctively, he knew he was really going to die.
His gaze went to the side, looking for Old Man Spirit, but his wide eyes seemed to mirror Jack’s emotions. “It can’t be…” he whispered. “The Life Drop… The power of Enas… You are… Axelor!”
The voice didn’t respond. It disappeared like it had never been there, but the clouds remained, and they were pregnant with deadly lightning of extremely unsafe proportions—all of which was immediately unloaded on Jack’s head.
***
On a far-off starship heading away from Trial Planet, a rag-dressed, yellow-toothed man was meditating. Suddenly, his eyes snapped open, and his head whipped towards Trial Planet. “Axelor…” he muttered, a storm brewing in his gaze.
***
The B-Grade Head Enforcer of the Hand of God was still hovering before the tribulation in space, when her eyes narrowed. “Something is wrong,” she told her captains. “What is this presence?”
She looked into nothingness, reading the screens before her face. Her eyes widened. “An Old One is interfering! No—two of them!” She instantly turned tail and ran away, while her panicked captains followed suit. “System, intervention detected. Report to headquarters. Contain it immediately!”
An explosion of force. Two divine presences collided next to the tribulation clouds, shattering space for a hundred miles in all directions. Even the clouds, for all their holiness, were dissipated.
When the world stopped shaking, Eva looked back at the clouds from a safe distance—thankfully, the only thing in the radius of impact had been an unaffiliated starship, which was now completely destroyed.
“What is happening?” she wondered aloud. “Why did the will of Old Ones appear here? Who were they? Just what is going on inside Trial Planet!?”
***
Jack remained on the ground, standing on burnt grass as an ocean of power thrummed above him. The divine presence had abruptly disappeared, but the clouds remained, and their power was far above the previous tribulation’s level.
Only one thing was clear: Someone very powerful wanted him dead.
“Jack!” Old Man Spirit shouted. “I… I can’t stop it! I’m sorry!”
“Take Broc—”
Jack didn’t even have time to finish his sentence. The heavens opened up. Fire rained down on him, interspersed with lightning of a far greater scale than before. Every bolt shook his soul. The flames threatened to lick his limbs to the bone. The ground was quickly cratered under his feet, melting into a puddle of white-hot liquid.
Jack found himself trapped there, drowning in pain and quickly submerging into temperatures he couldn’t possibly endure.
He was going to die.
Suddenly, a second titanic presence flooded his being. This one came from inside him—from the Life Drop, whose depths he was still unable to reach. The presence said one thing: “Two can play this game.”
Jack no longer had any idea what was happening. A valve opened inside him. The thin barrier containing the Life Drop’s powers collapsed, releasing a veritable ocean of life inside him. His entire body was suffused with power. Every single injury he had was healed, and his exhaustion disappeared, instantly reverting him to full power. But a ton of energy still remained, and it escaped his body as a green sphere, pushing back the fire, lightning, and molten dirt. Suddenly, Jack was hovering in a sphere of perfect safety in the middle of extreme danger. It was similar to how he had used his Dao to counteract the old man’s Dao Domain.
“You have three seconds to prepare,” the voice inside him said again before disappearing. The Life Drop’s barrier reformed, and no more energy escaped. The green sphere protecting him swiftly began to degrade in power, as it was ground down by the incredible heat outside.
Three seconds? Jack wondered. What—
But there was no time to think. Three seconds was a considerable amount of time for someone of his level, but not enough to waste on the how and why of the world. All the questions he had could wait. Right now, he had to hurry and prepare, because the barrier would fall soon, and he would die.
Prepare how? he asked himself, set fully to the task. There is no way I can survive that tribulation. It’s just too strong. Unless…
A wild thought crossed his mind, and once it appeared, it refused to go away. He closed his eyes, instantly reaching his soul space, where the multi-colored fist hovered powerlessly, still blocked off by the Dao of the universe. After all, officially, his tribulation wasn’t over.
But someone up there wasn’t playing by the rules. Therefore, neither would Jack.
With a roar, he used the entirety of his mental energy to slam into the thin barrier that contained his Dao. It screeched and cried for help, but the life energy was keeping all other Dao at bay. It was alone.
Jack’s soul clenched its fists and tore at the barrier. He smashed it again and again. His punches fell like comets, and before his mind could realize exactly what was happening, a crack was formed. It quickly enlarged before the entire barrier broke apart.
For the first time, Jack felt his Dao. It was beautiful. It was him. His entire life and will, crystallized into one shape. It was the sword he’d fight with and the hill he’d die on.
It was like discovering a crucial piece of himself that had always been missing. How had he fought without his real Dao? How had he even lived?
He reached out a hand and touched it. It fell into place in his soul. Instantly, his entire world shifted. The Dao currents he’d seen under the effects of the Dao Sprouting Pill were now everywhere—they were part of his normal sight. His body was filled with such power that his mind took some time to comprehend it.
He felt like a god—an immortal.
Jack had broken through. He had become a D-Grade cultivator. Right here and now, in the unlikeliest of circumstances, with two gods fighting over his head, he had somehow succeeded.
And, in a flash of awareness, he realized that breaking that barrier with his own two fists was the most suitable way to break through.
Before he could comprehend the weight of his power increase, blue screens flooded his vision.
Congratulations! Perfect Dao Seed of the Fist (peak+) → Dao Tree of the Fist
Congratulations! E-Grade → D-Grade
Congratulations! You have developed your own, personal Dao, becoming an immortal member of the universe.
All stats +50
Free stat points per Level Up: 5 → 10
Level Up! You have reached Level 125.
Congratulations! The Bare Fist Brotherhood faction has reached the D-Grade. New functions unlocked in the faction screen.
Congratulations! For being the first cultivator on your planet to develop a Dao Tree, you are awarded the Title: Planetary Overlord (1).
Planetary Overlord (1): A Title awarded to the first cultivator to develop a Dao Tree in an Integrated planet. A sign of great potential, marking the owner as a person worthy of the Immortal System’s assistance.
Efficacy of all stats +15%.
Jack’s body convulsed as it was flooded with power. His stats, which were already extraordinary, had just been pushed through the roof. He felt like he could break a mountain with a single punch.
The greatest increase in power wasn’t in stats, however. It was qualitative. His Dao had increased so vastly in potency that he couldn’t fathom how he ever beat someone of this level while still an immortal himself. Rather than a piece of a greater Dao that he simply borrowed, he now had a power of his own. The difference was unimaginable.
He felt his soul thrumming with an ocean of power, like he was a god himself, and he felt a resonance with the world around him that went beyond words. By simply willing it, he could exert control over his surroundings, influence them with his Dao.
Of course, at this level, his mind was much faster than a normal human’s. Despite all these changes, only two seconds had passed since the voice spoke. One remained. Which meant…
Even amidst the danger, Jack grinned.
Class Upgrade available. Please choose your new Class:
