Chapter 125: The Golden Core Tribulation

Chapter 125: The Golden Core Tribulation

The deafening explosion echoed through the chamber, shaking the dust from the high ceiling arches.

Every eye snapped toward Asher’s direction.

The concussive blast blew the fog of malice from Jules’s mind, shocking him back to reality. His bloodshot eyes widened in sheer disbelief as he stared through the settling smoke. His jaw worked, trying to form words, but his throat had gone completely dry.

Even Seana whipped her head around mid-parry, her dark eyes narrowing through the slits of her porcelain flower mask. She assessed the sudden surge of golden radiance for a fraction of a second, noted the shift in the battlefield’s balance, and immediately pivoted back to lock down the dual-blade executioner.

In the center of the shattered stone, Asher stood tall amidst the drifting dust.

He had not raised his hands.

Floating steadily before his chest was his longsword, Myriad Forge, bathed in a brilliant, blinding golden luminescence.

Faint, intricate golden lines coursed across the dark fabric of his tattered robes, as though his newly refined Metal Qi had begun bleeding through his very pores, reinforcing the threads into woven armor. His black hair drifted lazily in the expanding aura, and at the corner of his lips rested the faintest hint of a cold, confident smirk.

The trance had shattered his previous limits.

A sword was not merely a piece of sharpened steel swung by muscle and sinew. It was an extension of his intent, an anchor of his soul, and a physical vessel for his will.

I can command it... with thought alone.

And beneath his ribs, his spiritual foundation had undergone a qualitative metamorphosis.

Level 6 — The Core Formation Realm.

Asher lifted his right hand. He didn’t grip the hilt; he merely flicked two fingers forward.

WHOOSH!

Myriad Forge tore through the air like a golden shooting star. Dense Metal Qi spiraled tightly around the blade, cleaving the atmosphere with a piercing shriek.

The heavy executioner reacted instantly, raising its massive broadsword to block.

CLANG!

The collision sounded like a temple bell detonating. The kinetic shock drove the construct’s heavy boots sliding back two full meters across the bedrock.

Before it could regain its footing—

Asher vanished.

The executioner’s hooded head snapped up. A flash of pure gold blossomed directly in front of its face.

Asher was already there.

His fingers closed around the hilt of Myriad Forge mid-air. He cleaved downward in a fluid, merciless arc.

SHING!

CLANG!

The executioner scrambled to raise its guard, but the sheer downward momentum buckled its arms, forcing its heavy blade downward.

Asher did not halt his momentum. His wrist rotated with clinical precision.

Myriad Forge slid along the inner edge of the executioner’s steel, altering the vector of force in a heartbeat. The construct attempted to leap backward to reset its spacing, but it was already too late.

One step. One breath. One sword.

SHING!

A blinding golden crescent sliced diagonally across the executioner’s chest armor, carving through the runic metal like parchment.

The construct wrenched its torso aside, barely evading a core-shattering strike.

Dark, oily Qi erupted from its frame as it lashed out with a desperate horizontal sweep to sever Asher’s waist.

Asher leaned back, his spine bending like willow wood.

The colossal black blade hissed past his face, cutting nothing but the breeze.

As the blade passed, Asher pressed his left palm against the flat of Myriad Forge. Golden Metal Qi flooded the steel until it hummed at a deafening pitch.

Then, he released it.

WHOOSH!

The sword shot from his palm like an arrow.

The executioner instinctively tracked the weapon’s trajectory with its gaze—and in that split second of distraction, its fate was sealed.

Asher’s fingers twitched.

In mid-flight, Myriad Forge executed a sharp, impossible ninety-degree curve in the air, looping cleanly around the construct’s defensive guard to strike its exposed spine!

CLANG!

The construct barely shifted its shoulder in time to deflect the blow, but the impact violently staggered it forward.

Asher materialized directly behind it.

His palm opened, and Myriad Forge snapped back into his grip as if magnetically tethered to his soul.

He thrust forward with both hands.

BOOOOM!

A concentrated, hyper-dense beam of golden Metal Qi erupted from the tip of the blade, tearing through the executioner’s lower back and blasting the multi-ton construct straight into the basalt wall!

CRASH!

Spiderweb fractures spread across the stone pillar behind the construct as it slumped into the rubble.

Asher lowered his blade, his breathing steady, his black eyes as tranquil as a frozen lake. He was no longer a swordsman swinging a weapon; he was a sovereign commanding his domain.

BOOOOOOM!

Suddenly, a terrifying, world-shaking detonation ripped through the air.

Except this time... the sound did not originate from within the chamber.

It came from the heavens far above the palace ceiling.

The entire subterranean hall groaned. The other five executioners halted their movements simultaneously. The young cultivators froze, their gazes shooting toward the cracked stone rafters in alarm.

What was that?

A cold dread gripped their chests. Was the Ancient Palace deploying an even higher-tier guardian to suppress them?

——————————

[Outside the Ancient Palace...]

The sky above the mountain range had completely transformed.

Thick, abyssal storm clouds churned in the upper atmosphere, spiraling into a colossal, apocalyptic vortex that spanned dozens of kilometers. Streaks of brilliant silver and azure lightning danced violently through the swirling dark, descending in jagged pillars toward the earth.

"What is happening up there?!"

Estelle stared up at the sky, her voice laced with unconcealed maternal panic. Her thoughts immediately flew to her three daughters trapped inside the ruins.

"I don’t know..." Roan’s expression was carved from grim stone, his fists clenched so tightly his nails bit into his palms.

Three full days had passed since the younger generation entered the palace gates. Throughout that time, the ruins had remained unnervingly, deathly quiet. That silence had frayed the nerves of every sect leader present.

And now, the heavens themselves were breaking apart.

"May the ancestors watch over them," General Valeric Ashford murmured, his military posture rigid, though the veins bulging along his neck betrayed his internal turmoil for Nyren and Oren.

BOOOOOOM!

A colossal pillar of heavenly lightning cleaved the sky, slamming directly into the central spire of the Ancient Palace!

Then another! And another!

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!

The earth shook beneath their boots as the elders looked on in helpless awe.

——————————

Deep Inside the Palace...

Within her dark bone pavilion, Qing Lian extended her spiritual perception toward the ceiling, watching the swirling celestial vortex with wide, disbelieving eyes.

"How...?" ​