Chapter 365: Breakthrough to Nascent Soul [4]
There was no escaping it; he could only face it head-on! A trace of madness flashed in Fang Hao’s eyes. He swept his consciousness over his Storage Ring, causing three or four bottles and jars to fly out. Using his only functional left hand, he crushed them all at once, pouring the various Medicinal Pill inside—meant for healing, restoring Chaos Spiritual Power, and stabilizing the mind—into his mouth like candy, chewing them hastily before swallowing.
The immense medicinal potency dissolved within his body, bringing a burning sensation that barely dispelled some of the chill and restored a sliver of his strength.
Then, he performed an action that caused the silver light in the eyes of Lao Jin, who was watching from afar, to flicker violently—he actually stopped defending, instead spreading his arms and using his chest to meet that violent, twisted Five Elements Chaos Evil Lightning! At the same time, he retracted all the Chaos Spiritual Power he had just recovered, tightly protecting his heart Meridians and the Nascent Soul phantom in his Dantian!
"Boom—!!!"
The colorful Chaos Evil Lightning struck Fang Hao squarely in the chest! In an instant, it was as if Fang Hao had been smashed in the chest by a giant hammer; his entire body was sent flying backward, his chest charred, skin and flesh torn open, revealing even the stark white sternum! The burning of Scarlet Flame, the heaviness of Earth, the sharpness of Wood, the icy cold of Profound Yin... all these distinct yet equally violent forces erupted, clashed, and rampaged within his body simultaneously!
"Pfft—!"
While still in mid-air, Fang Hao spat out a mouthful of blood mixed with fragments of his internal organs. His vision blackened, and he felt as if his body was about to be torn apart by this chaotic energy! Yet, holding onto the last sliver of clarity in his mind, he frantically circulated the Chaos Derivation Art. Ignoring everything else, he guided all the violent, multi-attribute lightning energy that had surged into his body toward his Dantian, using it to impact and baptize the small Nascent Soul phantom!
He wanted to use this violent, chaotic Lightning Tribulation power for a crazy tempering! Either the Nascent Soul would be torn apart by this chaotic force, leading to his death and the dissipation of his Dao, or the Nascent Soul would be reborn in the tribulation, becoming tougher and stronger!
This was a gamble! A gamble with his life!
As the violent power rushed into his Dantian, the small Nascent Soul phantom shuddered violently, like a lone boat in a storm, on the verge of capsizing at any moment. Yet, under the impact of this chaotic energy, the Chaos mist on the surface of the Nascent Soul phantom seemed stimulated; it spun and expanded crazily, beginning to actively devour, contain, and evolve these chaotic Five Elements lightning forces! Although the process was slow and painful, and the light of the Nascent Soul phantom flickered, its form—under this crazy impact and the devouring of the Chaos mist—became more solid and clear at a slow but steady pace! Even its seated posture faintly exuded an aura of stability, as unmoving as a mountain!
"Cough, cough... I won the gamble..." Fang Hao slammed onto the ground, feeling that seventy or eighty percent of his bones were broken; even moving a finger caused heart-wrenching pain. But he could feel that the Nascent Soul phantom in his Dantian, though withered, emitted a more restrained and powerful fluctuation after enduring the disaster. The ninth strike had been withstood!
But it wasn’t over! The tribulation clouds churned, and the tenth lightning strike, carrying blinding golden light and an incomparably sharp aura, arrived in an instant like a golden spear thrown by a Heavenly God! Geng Metal Divine Lightning! It governed slaughter and was the sharpest of all!
Fang Hao lay on the ground, almost without the strength to even lift his hand. Watching the golden lightning spear drawing closer, a trace of despair flashed in his eyes, but it was immediately replaced by madness. "Lao Jin!!" he roared with his last ounce of strength.
Lao Jin, who had been guarding the cliff like a statue, saw the silver light in its eyes flash violently! Yet it still did not move. Because Fang Hao’s order was "Guard against external enemies, kill without mercy," and had not allowed it to intervene in the Lightning Tribulation. It just watched silently, its metal palm clenching slightly.
Just as the golden lightning spear was about to pierce Fang Hao’s skull, he bit the tip of his tongue hard, spraying a mouthful of his life essence blood mixed with his last remaining Spiritual Power onto his chest—where a simple, cracked tortoise shell pendant hung against his skin. This was a damaged defensive Magical Artifact he had obtained in an ancient Cultivator’s Immortal Cave, capable of being used at most one more time.
The tortoise shell pendant absorbed Fang Hao’s life essence blood and Spiritual Power, instantly lighting up with a faint earthy-yellow halo, forming a thin, cracked light barrier that barely managed to protect Fang Hao.
"Pfft!" The golden lightning spear stabbed into the light barrier, which shattered like a soap bubble, and the tortoise shell pendant completely turned into powder. However, the power of the lightning spear was also reduced by nearly half! The remaining small portion of the spear pierced fiercely into Fang Hao’s right chest, passing through his body and bringing out a trail of blood!
"Ugh!" Fang Hao’s body shuddered violently, his vision went completely black, and he nearly fainted. A charred, blood-stained hole in his right chest went straight through, with blood gushing out. But he gritted his teeth tightly, using his last shred of consciousness to guide the sharp Geng Metal lightning power into his Dantian!
The Nascent Soul phantom shook violently again, its surface actually being cut by the sharp lightning power, creating fine cracks as if it might shatter at any moment! But the Chaos mist surged over, enveloping the Nascent Soul, crazily devouring and repairing it. The aura of the Nascent Soul fluctuated repeatedly between breaking and repairing, yet it never truly dissipated.
The tenth strike, a narrow escape from death, withstood!
However, the tribulation clouds showed no intention of stopping. The eleventh lightning strike, carrying a gentle blue light and water vapor, crashed down like a reversed Heavenly River! Gui Water Divine Lightning! It governed nourishment, but also drowning and erosion!
The gentle blue light submerged Fang Hao. It wasn’t violent, but it carried a pervasive, penetrating power, attempting to disintegrate his vitality from within and erode his Nascent Soul. Fang Hao was powerless to resist; he could only rely on instinct to circulate his almost stagnant Cultivation Technique, letting this Gui Water lightning power wash over his broken body and Nascent Soul...
Immediately after, the twelfth lightning strike was a pure white lightning light, intense to the extreme and seemingly capable of purifying everything! An advanced form of Bing Fire Divine Lightning—Pure Yang Heavenly Lightning! Extremely Yang and rigid, it specialized in countering all Yin evil and also had extremely strong lethality against the Soul!
As the pure white lightning fell, Fang Hao’s broken body was like something thrown into a furnace; every inch of flesh, bone, and even his Soul was enduring the burning and purification of the extreme Yang power! The screams he emitted were barely audible; his body twitched violently, and blue smoke even rose from his skin—a sign that the Impurities and even part of his vitality were being forcibly refined and evaporated.
When the pure white lightning dispersed, only a charred body, barely recognizable as human, remained in the center of the valley, lying at the bottom of a chaotic, lightning-ravaged pit. His aura was extremely weak, like a candle in the wind, ready to extinguish at any moment.
Twelve strikes... six more to go.
A finger on that charred body seemed to move, ever so slightly.
Had it not been for the extremely faint rise and fall of the chest, that charred mass at the bottom of the pit would have almost made one think it was a block of wood shattered by lightning. Fang Hao felt as if he had been thrown into a millstone and crushed eight hundred times from head to toe, then roasted for eighty-one days with Samadhi True Fire, and finally soaked in a ten-thousand-year profound ice pit. Pain? That was already a luxury; he felt more numbness now, a trance where his Soul was about to drift away.
The twelfth Pure Yang Heavenly Lightning had almost "purified" away his last bit of vitality. His internal organs were displaced, countless bones were broken, his Meridians were like mud trampled by wild oxen, and his Dantian Qi Sea was riddled with holes. The small Nascent Soul phantom inside, huddled in the Chaos mist, had dim light and was covered in fine cracks, like a porcelain doll that would shatter at a touch.
Yet, he still wasn’t dead. The Chaos Derivation Art was still instinctively operating at a snail’s pace, and wisps of Chaos Spiritual Power were arduously repairing his damaged Meridians. The various Medicinal Pill he had swallowed earlier, along with the residual medicinal potency of the two nascent soul forming pill, were also holding onto his last breath at the final moment.
"Cannot... sleep... if I sleep... it’s truly over..." Fang Hao’s consciousness floated in endless darkness and excruciating pain, the only remaining sliver of clarity like a candle flame in a storm, weak yet stubbornly burning. He remembered a lot: the humbleness in the chore yard, the ecstasy of obtaining the Chaos Pearl, the life-and-death battles, and those twelve scorching nascent soul forming pill... Damn it, the Immortal Pill I risked my life to refine, I’ve only eaten two, and there are ten more I haven’t tasted! What a huge loss!
This unwillingness, or perhaps his obsession with wealth, actually allowed his consciousness, which was on the verge of dissipating, to forcibly coalesce a little more.
Just then, the tribulation clouds overhead, suppressed to the extreme, roared deeply again after a brief silence like the calm before a storm. The clouds churned, their color becoming deeper and more eerie, no longer merely pitch black or a single attribute color, but beginning to present a murky dark gray that seemed to gather all the negative energy in the world! An indescribable, terrifying pressure filled with the aura of destruction, decay, and ending poured down like substance, more terrifying than any previous Lightning Tribulation!
"What... what kind of lightning is this?" Fang Hao’s remaining consciousness caught this aura, and his heart sank sharply; it was a fear derived from the instinct of life. Previous Lightning Tribulations, though diverse in attributes and terrifying in power, always carried traces of some "Dao" in heaven and earth, whether blazing, heavy, sharp, icy, or pure Yang. But the aura brewing in this thirteenth lightning strike held only pure, naked—destruction! Ending! It was as if it wanted to completely erase the one Undergoing Tribulation, along with every trace of their existence, from this world!
"Lightning of Annihilation?" An ancient and terrifying term appeared inexplicably in Fang Hao’s almost stagnant mind. Legend had it that only those Cultivator with Heaven-Defying Foundation, or those bearing great Karma and great Karma, could possibly trigger this Lightning of Annihilation that represented the end! Under this lightning, vitality was severed, the Soul annihilated, and everything turned to nothingness!
No! I am not reconciled! Fang Hao roared silently in his heart. He wanted to move, to crawl up, to fight one more time, but his body felt as if it didn’t belong to him; he couldn’t even move a finger. He could only "feel" helplessly as that dark gray, terrifying lightning light exuding the aura of ending slowly condensed in the clouds, like the eyes of the God of Death, coldly locking onto him.
On the cliff, the silver-white light in Lao Jin’s eyes flickered more violently than ever before. For the first time, its simple logic core experienced the complex emotion of "hesitation." The master’s order was "Guard against external objects, kill without mercy," but what threatened the master right now was the heaven and earth Lightning Tribulation. Yet if the master died... its existence seemed to lose its meaning. Its metal palm raised slightly, aiming at the tribulation clouds in the sky; the metal plate on the outside of its arm slid open, revealing a pitch-black cannon muzzle, and searing white energy began to condense and compress within it, emitting a low hum...
Just at the moment when Lao Jin was about to "violate the order" and intervene!
At the bottom of the pit, at the Dantian position of that charred body, the Chaos Origin Pill, which had been silent and only passively protected the master when the Origin was about to extinguish, seemed to sense the pure, extreme aura of destruction outside; it suddenly, violently, and autonomously began to vibrate! A force of Chaos Origin, purer, more majestic, and more "active" than it had been during the Profound Yin Ice Lightning, erupted like a sleeping Dragon awakening!
This power was no longer gentle or passive assimilation and repair; it carried an indescribable, domineering, and ancient aura that seemed to want to create the world and evolve all things. It instantly broke through the congested Meridians in Fang Hao’s body, dispersed the lingering aura of destruction, reached his limbs and bones, and finally, without reservation, injected itself into that small, cracked, and dying Nascent Soul phantom huddled in the Chaos mist!
"Hum—!"
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