Chapter 162: The Tribulation

Chapter 162: The Tribulation

Lothe barely registered the messages. Core Formation. The next realm was finally within reach. Yet he could barely remain conscious. His cultivation had reached its threshold, but his body had suffered devastating backlash from the improvised technique.

Even if he wanted to break through immediately, he was in no condition to do so. He needed time.

Unfortunately, the universe had other plans.

His gaze shifted downward. The Crimson Lotus Sanctuary was disappearing. Its colossal petals dissolved into crimson sparks, and its roots withdrew from the battlefield.

Far below, Seana’s sword arm finally dropped. The Blood Moon Sword slipped from her fingers. Her body swayed.

"Lothe..."

Her voice was too faint to reach him through the distance. Then her eyes closed. The crimson aura surrounding her flickered. And she began falling.

Lothe’s pupils contracted. "Seana!"

He tried to move. His body refused. For one horrifying instant, he could only stare as Seana fell through the air.

"No!"

He forced spatial Qi into his meridians. Pain exploded through his body, and his vision darkened. The thin spatial platform beneath his feet shattered.

CRACK!

Lothe began falling too. He gritted his teeth. He couldn’t even maintain his position in the air anymore. But Seana was falling, and he wasn’t going to let her die.

"VOID STEP!"

Space twisted beneath him. A spatial anchor flickered into existence. Lothe vanished.

He reappeared several dozen meters lower. His meridians screamed, and blood poured from his mouth. The spatial anchor collapsed behind him. Seana continued falling.

He was still too far away. "Hold on!" His voice came out as little more than a rasp.

He forced another trace of spatial Qi from his damaged meridians. "VOID STEP!"

Space cracked. He disappeared again.

A heartbeat later, Lothe appeared beneath Seana. He caught her in his arms.

BOOM!

The impact drove him downward. His exhausted body couldn’t fully control their descent. They plunged through the air, and the force nearly tore Seana from his grasp. Lothe wrapped both arms around her, shielding her with his own body.

"SEANA!"

His feet struck a floating slab of broken stone. CRACK! The slab shattered beneath them. He fell through it, still clutching her. With the last fraction of spatial Qi he could command, he twisted their descent sideways and landed hard on a larger fragment of the shattered Palace.

THUD!

Pain ripped through his body. He nearly blacked out. But his arms remained locked around her.

For several seconds, neither of them moved. "Seana?"

Her eyes fluttered open. She managed a faint smile. "Little fox..."

Her fingers weakly caught the edge of his robe. Then her eyes closed. Her body went limp in his arms.

For a moment, Lothe couldn’t breathe. "Seana?" He gently shook her shoulder. "My love?"

Nothing.

His expression changed. He pressed two trembling fingers against her wrist. A faint pulse. Weak, but present.

Lothe released a ragged breath. She was alive. He brushed the blood from her lips with his thumb. "Don’t you dare leave me, Seana."

His arms tightened around her. For once, the guy who had remained calm throughout the entire battle had no interest in anything beyond the woman in his arms. He had destroyed the core.

He had saved the valley. He had reached the threshold of Core Formation.

Yet he could barely move, and the woman he loved had collapsed from exhaustion. He lowered himself onto the broken stone, keeping Seana close. His entire body shook. He couldn’t recover his Qi. He couldn’t repair his meridians. He couldn’t even guarantee that he would remain conscious for much longer.

But he held her. That was all he could do. For now.

Then—CRACKLE...

A faint silver light flickered behind the clouds. Lothe slowly raised his head.

Another strand of lightning crawled across the distant heavens. KRRRZZZT!

His brows drew together. The Ancient formations had collapsed. The crimson-black storm had vanished. So why was the sky gathering energy?

He stared upward. The silver lightning multiplied, illuminating the clouds with unnatural flashes. A strange pressure descended upon the valley. Lothe felt it against his skin, and his exhausted meridians responded with a faint, painful tremor.

He recognized that pressure from the cultivation records he had studied. A heavenly tribulation.

His expression darkened. "...You’re kidding me."

He looked down at Seana. She remained unconscious, her breathing shallow. Then he remembered the notification that had appeared during the battle. His breakthrough threshold had been exceeded. Core Formation was waiting.

But his meridians were damaged, his Core was almost empty, and he had barely managed to catch Seana. And now the heavens wanted him to undergo a tribulation?

"Perfect," his tone was flat. "Absolutely perfect."

Another bolt of silver lightning flashed across the clouds. Craaacck! The sound rolled across the valley.

Below, the surviving cultivators began looking upward. General Vaelric Ashford immediately rose to his feet. "Everyone, stay alert!"

Lemo Drackar stared at the sky, the last remnants of lightning around his fingers flickering involuntarily. "That pressure..."

Roan Blackwood’s expression grew grave, his golden Qi stirring around him in instinctive defense. Estelle Argon drew her daughters closer. Illamar San, still recovering from his injuries, struggled to sit upright.

Professor Sy looked toward Lothe, then his eyes widened. "No..."

Lucan turned to him. "What is it?"

Sy swallowed. "Lothe has reached the breakthrough threshold." His gaze shifted toward the heavens. "Core Formation."

The four family heads exchanged tense glances. Vaelric’s face hardened. "He’s about to undergo a tribulation?"

Sy nodded grimly. "But look at his condition! His meridians are damaged, his Qi is depleted, and am sure he’s barely recovered from the backlash of what ever he did."

Adrain clenched his fists. "Can he survive it?"

Nobody answered.

Above them, the clouds continued gathering. Silver lightning crawled across the heavens, growing brighter with every passing second.

Then something unexpected happened.

A faint crimson glow emerged from Seana’s body.

Lothe froze. He looked down at her. The glow pulsed weakly beneath her skin. THUMP.

A thin stream of crimson energy rose from her body, wavering like a candle flame in the wind. Her Blood Moon Sword trembled beside her.

Lothe recognized the energy immediately. Seana’s Blood Qi. But beneath it lay something else.

A spiritual fluctuation he had felt before during the battle, when she had forcibly suppressed her breakthrough to keep the Crimson Lotus Sanctuary alive.

His eyes widened slightly. Her breakthrough... She had already reached the threshold. She had simply refused to advance while people still needed her protection. Now, with the battle over, that suppressed energy was beginning to stir again. Even unconscious, her body was responding to the realm waiting beyond Foundation Establishment.

Lothe looked from Seana to the sky.

The lightning above them suddenly multiplied. One bolt became ten. Ten became a hundred. They crawled across the clouds, illuminating the heavens in blinding silver-white flashes.

Professor Sy’s face drained of color. "Wait..." He looked from Lothe to Seana. Then back at the sky. "That’s impossible."

Asher turned toward him. "What is?"

Sy pointed upward. His voice trembled. "The tribulation... It isn’t gathering over Lothe alone."

Silence fell.

The pressure descending from the heavens had changed. A second spiritual presence was stirring beneath the first. One was deep purple. The other was crimson.

The two auras intertwined above the shattered battlefield, drawing the gathering lightning into a vast spiral of clouds.

Vaelric’s eyes widened. Lemo took an involuntary step backward. Roan’s golden Qi flared defensively, and even Estelle’s control over her wind Qi faltered.

Two cultivators. Two breakthrough thresholds. One sky. And an increasingly terrifying heavenly pressure.

Lothe slowly rose, keeping Seana in his arms for as long as his failing body allowed. His legs trembled. His vision blurred. Every instinct screamed at him to sit down before he collapsed.

He ignored them.

Carefully, he lowered Seana onto a relatively intact section of stone and positioned himself in front of her. If the heavens intended to strike her while she was unconscious, they would have to get through him first.

He barely had enough strength to remain standing. Still, he raised his head. A crooked smile appeared on his bloodied face. "So that’s how it is."

Purple spatial Qi flickered weakly around his fingers. Behind him, Seana’s crimson aura pulsed again. THUMP.

The heavens roared.

KRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAACK!

A colossal bolt of silver lightning tore through the clouds, descending straight toward Lothe.

Vaelric immediately moved forward, but Roan caught his arm. "Don’t interfere!"

The tribulation lightning was already upon them.

Lothe planted his feet. His damaged meridians screamed. His spiritual sea was empty. His body had nothing left to give.

But his eyes remained open. He had survived the Ancient Palace. He had created a technique that shouldn’t have been possible. He had destroyed the core through sheer willpower.

He wasn’t going to fall now. Not while Seana was behind him.

"COME ON, THEN!"

The lightning swallowed him whole.

KRAAAAAAAAAAA-BOOOOOOOOOOM!

The ground beneath his feet exploded. The four family heads stared in horror as silver lightning engulfed Lothe’s figure—and above the unconscious Seana, the heavens gathered a second bolt.?