At the bottom of the canyon lay a clearing several li across. On the surrounding cliffs, the light of formation runes flickered faintly. This was the Eight Desolations Spirit-Locking Formation that Qin De had ordered his men to lay, enough to reduce the fluctuations of the heavenly tribulation's early stages to a minimum.
"Uncles, Eldest Brother, Second Brother, Yu, move back to the edge of the formation. I'm about to begin." Qin Chen walked to the center of the clearing, turned, and spoke calmly to everyone.
Feng Yuzi and Mu Qing exchanged a glance and nodded solemnly. Taking the three Qin Family brothers with them, they retreated to a raised platform several li away and watched the situation in the clearing tensely.
In the center of the clearing, Qin Chen sat cross-legged.
He assumed no elaborate stance and took out no magical treasures. He simply closed his eyes and adjusted his breathing.
One breath out, one breath in.
With his breathing, the spiritual energy between heaven and earth around him began converging upon him at an utterly terrifying speed.
Boom!
Suddenly, Qin Chen's eyes snapped open. The Xiantian Paragon true qi he had kept firmly suppressed deep within his dantian erupted completely at that moment, without the slightest restraint!
A pillar of dark-gold true qi shot skyward from the crown of his head, piercing straight into the heavens and instantly shattering the poisonous miasma above the canyon!
Rumble-
Almost the instant Qin Chen released his aura, the previously clear sky abruptly darkened.
The spiritual energy within a hundred-li radius seemed to come under some terrifying pull, surging madly toward the sky above Black Wind Grand Canyon. Fierce winds howled, sending sand flying and stones tumbling, and the gray-black poisonous miasma was instantly ripped apart by the violent air currents.
Layers of leaden black clouds materialized in the sky, expanding wildly at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Ten li... twenty li... thirty li!
In just a few breaths, those pitch-black tribulation clouds covered fifty li of sky, shrouding all of Black Wind Grand Canyon in suffocating darkness.
Deep within the tribulation clouds, purple lightning serpents could faintly be seen darting wildly about. The muffled thunder sounded like the roars of ancient ferocious beasts, shaking even the earth into a faint tremble.
"This... how is this possible?!"
Standing on the platform, Feng Yuzi had completely lost his usual air of an accomplished master. He stared fixedly at the despairingly immense tribulation clouds overhead, his voice trembling.
"When ordinary cultivators attempt to enter the Golden Core Realm, they draw only the Four-Nine Heavenly Tribulation, with tribulation clouds covering no more than ten li! But Chen's clouds... they cover a full fifty li! This pressure, this sheer magnitude-how is this a Four-Nine Heavenly Tribulation? It's clearly almost on par with the Six-Nine Heavenly Tribulation that Nascent Soul stage cultivators undergo!"
At his words, the hearts of the three brothers, Qin Feng, Qin Zheng, and Qin Yu, instantly sank to the bottom of a ravine.
Qin Feng clenched his fists tightly, his nails digging deep into his flesh. Blood ran between his fingers, but he was utterly unaware of it.
Qin Zheng bit his lip hard, his expression tense. Qin Yu was so frantic that his eyes reddened, and he wished he could rush forward to shoulder that terrifying heavenly lightning for his brother.
"Third Brother..." Qin Yu murmured, a hint of a sob in his voice.
The oppressive heavenly might that reached into the depths of his soul left him, a martial artist who had not even reached Xiantian, barely able to breathe. Only by leaning against Qin Feng did he keep himself from collapsing to the ground.
Yet things were utterly different from the despair and worry gripping everyone on the platform.
Qin Chen, at the very center of the lightning tribulation, slowly rose to his feet.
He tilted his head up. The fierce wind tossed his long hair, but there was not the slightest fear in his deep eyes. Instead, a flame called "excitement" danced within them.
"So the standard is high? Just what I wanted." The corners of Qin Chen's mouth curled into an arrogant arc.
No one knew just how many trump cards he had accumulated over the past three years.
Within his Storage Ring quietly lay three sets of supreme-grade defensive formation disks capable of withstanding an all-out strike from a Golden Core Paragon, dozens of Lightning-Attracting Talismans drawn with the blood essence of high-tier demonic beasts, and three whole bottles of supreme-grade spiritual pills capable of instantly restoring all his true essence and repairing damage to his flesh.
The only reason he had never taken them out was that they were all system rewards, and their origins would be difficult to explain to his father and his two teachers.
But now, beneath this heavenly tribulation that no one dared approach, within this ocean of lightning that cut off all probing, he could finally unleash all his reserves without any reservations!
"Come on! Let me see what the lightning tribulation of this world can really do to me!"
Qin Chen threw his head back and let out a long cry. His voice rang like a dragon's roar, soaring straight into the clouds.
Crack-!
As though enraged by Qin Chen's provocation, the roiling black tribulation clouds overhead suddenly contracted inward. Immediately afterward, a violent bolt of eerie purple lightning as thick as a bucket came crashing down toward Qin Chen, like a spear of divine punishment tearing heaven and earth apart, carrying a terrifying aura that could destroy everything!
In that instant, every tiny detail of Black Wind Grand Canyon was illuminated. The blinding lightning made Qin Yu and the others in the distance instinctively close their eyes, and all they felt was the deafening roar reaching their ears.
Faced with this terrifying strike, powerful enough to reduce ordinary cultivators to scattered ashes and smoke, Qin Chen brought out no defensive magical treasures, nor did he activate the formation already laid down.
He abruptly raised his head, a near-tangible brilliance bursting from his deep eyes. Then he made a move that nearly shattered everyone's liver and gall with fright-bending his knees slightly, he shot skyward like an arrow loosed from its bow, charging straight toward that violent purple lightning of his own accord!
"Third Brother! Don't!" Qin Feng's eyes stretched wide as he cried out involuntarily.
"Has Chen gone mad?!" Feng Yuzi was so frightened that his entire body shuddered, and he even pulled out several hairs from his beard.
What cultivator undergoing a tribulation did not hide cautiously beneath layers of formations and magical treasures, terrified of being touched by even a trace of tribulation lightning? Taking it head-on with one's flesh as Qin Chen did, even actively charging to meet it, was simply unheard of!
Yet Qin Chen, in midair, brutally overturned everything they knew through his actions.
"Shatter!"
With a furious shout that resounded through the clouds, Qin Chen pressed the fingers of his right hand together like a sword. The immensely dense dark-gold true qi within him surged wildly, instantly gathering at his fingertips into a dazzling qi sword several zhang long.
He swung his arm and, with an unstoppable, overbearing momentum, slashed savagely at the descending purple lightning!
Boom-!!!
The sword light and lightning collided thunderously in midair, unleashing a burst of light a hundred times more dazzling than the sun. The violent shock wave became tangible ripples visible to the naked eye, sweeping wildly in every direction and scouring great swathes of rubble from the hard rock walls on either side of the canyon.
Before everyone's incredulous eyes, that bolt of purple lightning, representing the will of heaven and earth and containing the might of destruction, was forcibly cleaved in two down the middle by Qin Chen's supremely overbearing strike!
Like smashing rotten wood and withered stalks! Unmatched in might!
The shattered lightning did not dissipate. Instead, it transformed into thousands upon thousands of tiny purple lightning serpents that darted wildly through the air, instantly weaving an ocean of lightning dozens of zhang across and swallowing Qin Chen whole.
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