The legends of the merit golden clouds were true. Once Li Ling summoned them, the ominous sense of an unavoidable thunderstorm bearing down on him vanished without a trace.
It reminded Li Ling of his mortal days, when he had stood exposed on an open road during a thunderstorm. That bewildered fear, the heart-stopping feeling that lightning might strike him at any moment, remained vivid in his memory.
But once he entered a large building, with solid walls to shelter him, he was undoubtedly much safer.
Even someone terrified of thunder would instinctively feel the reassurance of being sheltered.
Rumble, rumble...
Muffled thunder sounded overhead. Amid interwoven chains of lightning, the vortex-like tribulation clouds slowly revolved.
The heavenly tribulation feared by everyone in the cultivation world had descended just like that, without warning.
Li Ling had heard that cultivation was far harder for nonhuman beings than for humans. They did not need to wait a thousand years; the mere hurdle of assuming human form subjected them to a thunder tribulation.
That was roughly equivalent to Foundation Establishment.
But precisely because of this, they had accumulated little karma or tribulation debt. Their tribulations were nowhere near comparable to those of truly mighty cultivators.
Li Ling had no idea what the heavenly tribulations of other mighty cultivators looked like. A dazzling surge of lightning came pouring down, as though someone in the heavens above had hurled a spear forged from light.
Boom!
Amid a terrifying crash, a foot-thick Thunderbolt struck straight down!
Li Ling felt goosebumps rise all over him and his hair stand on end. Not only his body, but even his thoughts seemed to freeze!
By the time he recovered a little, the Thunderbolt had struck overhead.
The Golden Cloud Canopy covering his head blazed with light. The eighty-one merit