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3.40 - Tribulation
🕑 Added 2024-07-13 22:00:01 +0000 UTCHeaven’s wrath descended. Lightning filled the sky. Great forks of gold and green and purple and blue arced across the heavens. They struck the ground. They branched between the blackened clouds above. They struck the lone cultivator standing upon the empty peak of a flat mountaintop. They tested his resolve.
He Yu screamed. Pain coursed through his entire being—body and spirit alike. He felt like he was being torn apart, only to be pieced back together so it could all happen again. His meridians surged with more power than he could contain. Heaven’s fury exploded all around him, and his qi raged at the furthest edge of his control.
The rain that had soaked him through on the ascent burned away to steam. Beneath him, stone blackened with each successive strike. The wind continued to scream, and the storm remained unrelenting. All around him, lightning struck the mountaintop. Even those strikes that missed him sent another riot of qi coursing through his meridians. Within moments, he screamed his throat raw.
Heaven’s wrath was unrelenting. Lightning ripped through him. He dropped to his knees, but he kept his arm up, his hand open to the sky. The world fell away, and he found himself within the storm. Deep within the black clouds, whipped by wind and frigid rain, the tribulation continued and He Yu endured.
His qi threatened to rage out of control, like it had during his failed attempt at his breakthrough. It was all he could do to maintain the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering—the only thing he could think of that would give him the strength and resilience necessary to survive. He used every spare ounce of his control to guide the raging qi of the storm into something that approximated the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment.
For what felt like days, perhaps weeks, he fought against the primordial qi of the storm. He wrestled with his own spirit as it rebelled against him—raging through his meridians and sending ever greater torrents of power into his dantian.
As the storm continued unabated, He Yu stood on the edge of a knife. He struggled with not only the fury of heaven, but his own cultivation base. Both tried their best to tear him apart. To test and punish all at once the audacity to defy the heavens as he had.
Fractionally, agonizingly, his dantian began to compress. To collapse. The qi within the vast pool at the center of his spirit raged ever more fiercely against his desperate attempts to yoke it to his control. His meridians ached as more power than he could even comprehend coursed through them, at once carving his meridians open and refining them into something more resilient than they’d been before.
All the while, he endured the assault of memories, fragments of thoughts, insights he’d gained or never fully comprehended, and more. Images, sounds, and feelings battered him, threatening the concentration that allowed him to maintain the fingernail grip on his own spirit.
He was fifteen years old again, first awakening his spirit. He was in the arena facing down Tan Xiaoling with a shard of his broken weapon. He was in a clearing, beaten and bloody, standing against a creature that was half Sha Xiang and half something wrong. He was a lone cultivator on the peak of the world, raising a hand to the heavens in supplication and defiance at once—submitting himself to the very thing he sought to make his own.
The gates of the Cloud Emperor’s Heavenly Palace opened, and a lone figure stepped out. The steps of the Heavenly Palace were infinite, yet He Yu saw the top as though he were standing an arm’s length away. With the eyes of an immortal, he beheld the God of Thunder. His fierce countenance twisted into an expression of rage. In one hand he held a drum, in the other a hammer. Great wings sprouted from his back. He beat his drum, and the deafening roar of his divine fury shook all of heaven and earth.
He Yu stood among the clouds. They were at once bright and dark—a peaceful and tranquil day, and a raging storm that drowned the land. It was only through his cultivation of the Peerless Judgment that he could reconcile the two states and keep his thoughts ordered, even as they threatened to rebel against the contradiction.
The land stretched beneath him, and within were countless evildoers. Cultivators who used their power to oppress—whether because they had given themselves over to corruption or vice, or because the demonic powers they’d harnessed to advance demanded to be appeased with suffering. Bandits stalked the land, preying on those weaker than they—their depravity made King Hao look good and just.
Far to the west lay a golden dome—a formation of such power that He Yu could barely look at it. The Dawn Palace. The prison of the Sunset Empress, Jin Xifeng. The surrounding land corrupted, her spirit too strong for even a formation as powerful as this to contain fully. The beasts and spirits within were hers. They nourished her in her imprisonment, whether they gave of themselves willingly or not.
On the inner sect mountain stood Sha Xiang, gloating in her victory over his companions. She congratulated herself for the attack and the blow she’d dealt. Even now, she made plans with her own coterie to expand her influence within the sect—no doubt to the benefit of the Sunset Court and their imprisoned empress.
To be a hero was to stand against all this and more. To exemplify what it meant to be just, to walk a Way that demanded more of He Yu than he could give. To seek out those worthy of praise and punishment alike. To assist the one, and to defy the other.
He Yu reached out a hand. Li Heng reciprocated. They clasped each other’s forearms and gazed into each other’s stern faces. They turned, drew their weapons, and stood against a tide of injustice.
He Yu drew his guandao, coursing with the power of heaven. Darkness covered the land, and evildoers reigned. As he swept the curved blade across the scene before him, sheets of lightning poured down from the sky.
He Yu stood atop the clouds, a magnificent palace above and around him. He gazed down upon the world with the discernment of an emperor. He judged the worthy and unworthy alike, and meted out their appropriate reward.
The heavens opened and for the briefest moment, he saw. Felt. Knew.
The Eternal Dao.
It was gone an instant later. A single glimpse was all he could take. It was too vast, too incomprehensible to bear. But he had his Way. The seed that had taken root hadn’t yet sprouted, but he knew what he needed in order to nurture it. To cultivate the Way he’d begun. The path that united his nature, his spirit, and his intent.
It had always been his dream to be a hero—a legend. That was exactly what he would do. It was what he’d been doing. How he’d arrived here, on this open mountaintop, enduring the fury of heaven. To follow his Way would take resolve. He knew the trials ahead would dwarf those he’d faced already. But with as far as he’d come, he could face them. If he failed? Then he would try again and keep trying until he broke, or until he succeeded.
He Yu sat atop a lonely mountain peak and cultivated the Cloud Emperor’s Peerless Judgment. Before him, rose a single pillar—the first stage of the Empyrean Ninefold Body Tempering. It shimmered with golden energy, like the power of heaven condensed into physical form. As he turned his focus ever more inward, he pressed on his dantian.
His qi rushed through his meridians, a turbulent mix of heaven, wind, and water. As it flowed back into his dantian, he felt that now-familiar pulse. He pushed back against the growing outward pressure. He directed his qi into his spiritual center, pushing more and more into his core with each breath. Slowly, his dantian compressed. As it grew smaller, it grew more dense, and the outward pressure increased. Each time it shrank, the pressure more than doubled. Each doubling, He Yu felt ever closer losing control.
Then it collapsed. It was near-instantaneous—the expanse of his cultivation base that he’d been growing all this time compressed to a brilliant sphere no larger than his thumbnail. In the next instant, it exploded with power. Qi rushed through his entire being, somehow even more potent and closer to the edge of control than before. His dantian shone with the brilliance of ten thousand lanterns. An additional pair of pillars joined the first.
His dantian completed its collapse, his qi condensing into a solid mass of power in its place. It was smaller than before and shone with soft golden light. The visions continued for some time. Eventually, they abated along with the storm. The qi raging within his newly forged Golden Core and through his meridians calmed, returning to the controlled and familiar flow he’d cultivated over these past two years. When He Yu opened his eyes at last, he saw only clear blue sky above.
Occasionally, a tremor would shoot through his body. An arm or a leg would spasm in memory of the trial he’d just endured. His meridians felt hollowed out, like they’d been carved open with a trowel. His dantian—his Golden Core—was empty. At least that was his first impression. On further inspection, he realized that his cultivation base had simply become far more dense. It was all still there, just compacted. Made more potent. He was empty only with respect to his newfound capacity.
He lay on his back and stared upwards, simply happy to have survived. He didn’t know how much time had passed. The visions in the storm had felt both instant and eternal. The only point of reference he had for such an advancement was the time it had taken him to fail. He’d spent over a month stuck in his cultivation chamber, struggling against his own uncontrollable cultivation base.
As he pushed himself into a seated position, he put his hand in something viscous and foul. All around him were the impurities of his breakthrough, more than he’d ever exuded. Thankfully, the open air made the stench more bearable than usual. He’d have to find a stream or a spring to wash himself in before returning to the sect.
He Yu stood and flexed his spirit. Qi surged through his meridians. The surrounding air grew charged and heavy, and he could smell the distinctive scent of fresh-fallen rain. The sensation of tremors left over from having his body wracked by lightning translated to a sort of flicker as he moved. Casual motions seemed to almost jump from one position to the next. Despite being weighed down by the sludge of impurities, his robes still moved as though tugged by a wind that seemed to exist only in He Yu’s vicinity.
The sensation of his qi was at once more controlled and more primal. It felt like the storm he’d endured had taken root inside him—contained within his newly formed core. His cultivation had become more potent and dense, and his new core could contain so much more. He Yu guessed it would take weeks, maybe more than a month, to cultivate up to his current capacity without the help of medicines. He desperately wanted to take a pill and get a head start, but first thing came first.
It didn’t take long to find a pond fed by a natural spring. After washing himself off and changing into a new set of clothes he’d brought along in his storage treasure, he finally took a restorative pill. It did little, but it was a start. He activated the Sky Dragon’s Flight, and launched himself off the side of the mountain, half flying, half falling as he made his way back to the inner sect with his newly formed Golden Core.
Comments
Literally Goose
Great chapter, interested to see the reactions to this!!
silder
Yes! Can’t wait for the aftermath
