Stellar Transformations

B9C6: Mutated heavenly tribulation

Qin Yu and Li’er are standing side by side on the shore of a blue lake, looking at a silhouette in the distance.

At the moment, the sky is gloom, the ground is dark and storm clouds are raging. The whole sky has a strange dark red color, looking as if it has become a huge furnace. A purple tribulation cloud is floating in the sky while a myriad of serpentine electric sparks are flashing.

Boom!

A purple thunderbolt strikes down at that proudly standing figure with a boom, carrying a seemingly irresistible force. That figure below the cloud is none other than Xiao Hei, who is going through his 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation. Xiao Hei raises his head to stare at the tribulation cloud with his sharp eagle eyes.

As the thunderbolt is striking down, he suddenly utters an eagle cry.

A swirl appears with Xiao Hei’s Xiao Heiing its center. That purple thunderbolt is unexpectedly sucked in by the swirl then goes into Xiao Hei’s stomach. Swallowing thunderbolts is the move Xiao Hei is best at.

“Li’er, this is the 3rd thunderbolt. When taking on tribulations, other people all defend themselves with formations and restrictive spells first then withstand the thunderbolts with holy weapons, but Xiao Hei mostly swallows the thunderbolts. To him, the thunderbolts are even powering-up treasures.” Qin Yu says happily with a smile.

Li’er looks at Xiao Hei in the distance with a note of praise in her eyes, saying: “Big brother Qin Yu, Xiao Hei is a special divine beast. Even divine beasts are divided into high, middle and low classes. Xiao Hei is definitely not inferior to Fei Fei.”

Qin Yu smiles to the point where his eyes begin to narrow.

This is not because he is happy for Xiao Hei, but because Li’er called him ‘big brother Qin Yu’.

Her calling him so was brought about by a plan he and Hou Fei came up with a month ago. With Hou Fei getting into action and him acting the fool, they put on a good play and eventually succeeded in forcing Li’er to call him big brother Qin Yu. Even now he still revels in this very much.

Of course, he cannot let her know what he feels.

Boom!

The 4th thunderbolt strikes down with a boom. Dust and stones quickly fly up as if there is an ongoing storm. The pressure given off by the thunderbolt is frighteningly great, but Xiao Hei spreads his wings and opens his mouth, creating a swirl again. Part of the thunderbolt’s energy is absorbed directly while the remainder bombards Xiao Hei’s body.

“Awesome, it feels awesome bathing in this thunderbolt.”

Xiao Hei’s voice resounds through the sky. He even stretches his wings wantonly. When the lightning comes into contact with his wings, most of it is absorbed directly and only a small part of it actually hits the wings with very negligible damage.

“Perhaps no other divine beasts can bathe in thunderbolts like this.” Qin Yu is very happy.

Li’er also says with an indifferent smile: “Last time Fei Fei went through the 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation very easily. But judging by Xiao Hei’s situation, perhaps he’s going to overcome this tribulation even more easily than Fei Fei did. Look, this is already the 5th thunderbolt.”

When she has just finished talking, the 5th thunderbolt strikes down at Xiao Hei’s body.

Xiao Hei spreads his wings wantonly. An indistinct blood-red light moves along the surface of the wings. At the same time, various electric sparks flicker around his body unceasingly. This time Xiao Hei does not swallow the lightning with his mouth because he feels that this thunderbolt is somewhat oppressive.

The 5th thunderbolt hits Xiao Hei’s body with a boom. The blood-red light moves extremely fast at once.

Whizz!

Like cotton sucking up water, the blood-red light unexpectedly absorbs more than half of the thunderbolt right away. The remaining lightning cannot even hurt Xiao Hei in the least. The 5th thunderbolt thus has been defeated in such an incredible manner.

“Xiao Hei, don’t be too careless. We’ll return after the 6th thunderbolt.” Qin Yu says with loud laughter.

Even though he warned Xiao Hei not to be too careless, his last sentence shows that he does not pay too much attention to the 6th thunderbolt either. After all, he saw Hou Fei go through the 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation so naturally he knows that the 6th thunderbolt is only a bit more powerful than the 5th.

“Don’t worry, big …”

Xiao Hei’s voice is stifled. Qin Yu’s face changes color greatly while Li’er takes 2 steps forwards all of a sudden staring at that tribulation cloud.

Boom ~~~

The whole world seems to start to rumble. Meanwhile, countless serpentine electric sparks are generated from all over the dark red sky again then gather towards the tribulation cloud like a controlled pit of snakes.

“What’s going on? Doesn’t a tribulation generally end when the energy of its tribulation cloud has been spent completely in the bombardment? Why does this tribulation cloud gather lightning again as it did in the beginning when it had just formed?” Qin Yu immediately has a bad feeling.

Since antiquity, every heavenly tribulation has struck down one thunderbolt after another until the energy of the original tribulation cloud is used up.

Only in the beginning can lightning be gathered to form a tribulation cloud. Nobody has ever seen a 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation that unexpectedly gathers electricity again to power up the tribulation cloud when the 6th thunderbolt is about to strike down.

Li’er looks coldly into the sky with an unprecedented serious expression in her eyes.

“Big brother Qin Yu, I’ll use the method of my clan to check it out a bit.” She tells Qin Yu.

Immediately, she sits down with legs crossed and her hands seem to turn into thousands of hands. Multiple green beams of light shoot out from her body, enfolding her in them. At the same time, she closes her eyes.

Li’er’s mouth then slightly moves. Various golden rays of light radiate from the edge of her mouth. She opens her eyes in a moment and shouts to Xiao Hei: “Xiao Hei, do your best. Don’t even think about fooling around. If you’re careless, both your body and soul will be destroyed completely.”

Xiao Hei gently nods, but his eyes shines with an indistinct red light.

Even now Qin Yu still does not know what Li’er’s race is. But he knows that despite her very slow progress in practice, she has many magic powers and is simply unfathomable. According to what she said, these are some special secret techniques of her clan.

When she already said so, it is obvious that … Xiao Hei is very likely to be struck dead by this 6th thunderbolt.

Whizz!

A noise that seems like the sound of the breathing of nature is heard. The electricity absorption speed increases a hundredfold in the blink of an eye. When that noise disappears, the lightning in nature has been absorbed completely. Right afterwards, the tribulation cloud begins to shake.

Boom!

Speed, an extremely terrifying speed,

A dark purple thunderbolt that is as thick as an arm strikes down. In terms of thunderbolts, one with the thickness of an arm is exceptionally small. As this thunderbolt is formed from the entire energy of a tribulation cloud which has absorbed electricity twice, it is easy to imagine how frighteningly powerful it is.

Xiao Hei has gone mad. His eyes are glistening with a red light. He spreads his wings to the utmost. The red light on his body surges forth completely, occupying an area of 2 to 3 m in radius. He yells again and that swirl is created once more, but this time the swirl spins even faster and also has a larger range.

That blackish purple thunderbolt as thick as an arm shoots at the swirl.

The swirl is shattered immediately. That thunderbolt is really too powerful for Xiao Hei’s swirl to withstand. It then pierces through 2 to 3 m of the red light easily like a small needle penetrating a thick layer of snow.

The red light only absorbs a very small part of the lightning in the process so there is still a great amount of electricity left.

Screeching!

Screeching like crazy!

Qin Yu cannot help starting to tremble because he can feel that Xiao Hei is currently on the border between life and death.

The extremely hard feathers are smashed. Blood scatters. Not even Xiao Hei’s tough feathers can withstand the power of the thunderbolt. His flesh is immediately blackened and scorched by the lightning. Qin Yu goes mad as soon as he sees this scene.

All of a sudden —

Xiao Hei’s entire body gives off an extremely black type of darkness. This darkness is very pure, so pure that it even swallows the rays of light around it. At the same time, Xiao Hei’s body disappears completely, leaving behind only the darkness. That thunderbolt eventually hits the darkness with a boom.

“So that’s what he is!”

Li’er murmurs in a low voice with brightening eyes. But Qin Yu does not pay attention to what she says. His mind is being focused completely on Xiao Hei.

Xiao Hei has been following Qin Yu since he was little so if Xiao Hei dies, it will simply be an unbearable blow to him.

The sky has now regained its calmness and changed back to its former blue color. Except for that area of the ground which has been scorched and blackened by the tribulation, no places have been affected. But that mass of darkness is boiling and twisting nonstop.

After a long time, the darkness gradually calms down then immediately turns into an eagle-headed man. As soon as Qin Yu feels his aura, he knows that this is none other than Xiao Hei, whose body is slightly thin like that of a juvenile.

“Big brother.” Xiao Hei looks at Qin Yu and says.

“Are you okay?” Qin Yu feels that his whole body is sweating. Just now he was really on tenterhooks.

Xiao Hei says smilingly: “Somehow the last thunderbolt of that 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation became much more powerful. If I hadn’t gone all out, perhaps I really would’ve been destroyed by it, but I did. Even though now I’m pretty weak, some hidden troubles caused by using that forbidden technique in the past seem to have been removed completely.”

Qin Yu’s heart is filled with joy.

After Xiao Hei had used that forbidden technique, Qin Yu felt that Xiao Hei had changed. Originally Xiao Hei had an ice-cold air about him but after using that forbidden technique, he had a ‘frighteningly chaotic’ air.

However, now Qin Yu feels that the air about Xiao Hei has become pure again, or to be exact, purely dark and ice-cold.

“Big brother Qin Yu, I have to warn you about something.” Li’er tells Qin Yu with no traces of a smile on her face.

At the moment Qin Yu is in a very good mood because his brother Xiao Hei has overcome the tribulation. He says with a smile: “Feel free to tell me about it, Li’er. Ha-ha … don’t put on such sad a face … ha-ha … Xiao Hei passing the 6-in-9 Heavenly Tribulation is an exciting event.”

Li’er says with a sigh: “Brother Qin Yu, if the calculation I did using my clan’s secret method is correct, your tribulation later will be exceptionally powerful. I hope you’ll be cautious.”

Qin Yu is startled.

“What do you mean?” He finds what she said somewhat mysterious.

Li’er says with a shake of her head: “I can’t explain this secret to you. By telling you so much I’ve already broken my clan’s rules. I can only warn you that you have to improve your power as much as possible. Don’t be anxious about the tribulation. Before taking it on, you have to do your best to power up and make yourself ready.”

Seeing her current expression, Qin Yu knows that she does not want to say much so he nods gently and takes her words to heart.

……

Because there is quite a distance between the Nine Demons Hall and the Qian Long continent, it takes Di Nai’s forces a very long time to arrive. A half year after Xiao Hei’s tribulation, the long-lasting calmness in the Qin dynasty finally starts to be disturbed.

Poof ~~

Blood spatters. Heads roll.

Several hundred grim-faced Xiuyaoists charge directly at some other Xiuyaoists.

“Di Nai’s troops, you even dare to infiltrate into the Qin dynasty. Looks like you all have a death wish.” The leading Xiuyaoist says with a cold laugh. “Could it be you don’t know that any Xiuyaoists entering the Qin dynasty without permission shall be killed?”

Those other 7 Xiuyaoists look at each other.

Now they have been surrounded so naturally they cannot run.

“Sir.”

A short-haired Xiuyaoist suddenly kneels down and says: “Sir, even though I have been following Di Nai, there was nothing that I could do. Because he took our transmitters away, none of us was able to contact outsiders. We have been forced into doing this.”

“Shan Ling, how dare you betray our lord?” Another Xiuyaoist on Di Nai’s side stares at that Xiuyaoist furiously.

The short-haired Xiuyaoist, however, rebukes angrily: “Betray? That Di Nai fella uses collective punishment to limit our freedom and even set up an illusionary formation around the base so that we can’t go out. We didn’t even know where we were staying. All we could do was obey his orders. I’m already sick of living like that.”

The leading Xiuyaoist says with glittering eyes: “Tell me where Di Nai is. If you do, not only will your life be spared, you’ll even be rewarded handsomely.”

“Di Nai is very cautious. The Xiuyaoists like us usually stay inside a huge illusionary formation. When we come out, we have to follow the guardians. After several turns, we have already gone several hundred thousand li so it’s simply impossible for us to find out where Di Nai’s base is.”

“Only Di Nai and the several guardians know the location of his base, right?”

“That is true, Sir.” The short-haired Xiuyaoist says respectfully.

The leading Xiuyaoist of the Stellar Tower frowns for a while then says: “Spare this surrendering Xiuyaoist. Kill all the others.”

“Ah, please spare me.”

2 other Xiuyaoists, who just now were very adamant, immediately kneel down and beg.

The leading Xiuyaoist from the Stellar Tower says with a cold laugh: “Do you two know where Di Nai’s base is?”

The 2 of them are startled then shake their heads.

“You 2 waited until the last moment to surrender instead of doing it in the beginning. Besides, you’re totally useless. You’re the worst kind of trash.” The leading Xiuyaoist utters a cold humph. The flying sword under his feet takes the lives of these 2 Xiuyaoists immediately. Several other hundred Xiuyaoists then shoot their flying swords together.

Countless flying swords soar into the sky and pierce through the bodies of those several Xiuyaoists in an instant. Their blood is scattered all over the air. Only the short-haired Xiuyaoist is still living.

…

During this night, fighting breaks out at a good several places on the border of the Qin dynasty with 10 hostile Xiuyaoists appearing at every place, who are all killed. However, Di Nai dispatched far more Xiuyaoists in his first attack than that and quite a few of them have already entered the Qin dynasty.

The retaliatory killing is about to start!

End of b9c6.