"Third Brother!" At the sight, Qin Yu's heart clenched violently, and his eyes instantly reddened. He tried to rush over regardless of everything, but Mu Qing held him firmly in place.
"Don't be rash! Look!" Mu Qing's voice carried a tremor he could barely conceal as he pointed insistently toward the center of the sea of lightning.
Everyone hurriedly focused their gaze there, and the sight before them left them utterly stunned.
Within that raging sea of purple lightning, Qin Chen had not been blasted into charcoal as they had imagined.
Instead, he floated quietly in midair, his arms spread and his eyes half-closed. Not only was there no trace of pain on his face, but he wore an expression of indescribable ease.
Those purple lightning serpents, powerful enough to melt refined iron in an instant, were now frantically burrowing into Qin Chen's body through his pores and seven facial orifices. A faint, dark golden sheen flowed over his skin, growing deeper and more solid with every scouring surge of lightning.
As the lightning entered him, bursts of crackling like beans popping in a pan came from within Qin Chen's body.
His bones, meridians, and muscles were undergoing repeated transformations that remade him from the inside out, violently torn apart by the lightning's power and swiftly repaired by his true qi.
Threads of black impurities were expelled through his pores, only to be instantly vaporized by the intense heat of the lightning on his skin.
He was actually bathing in the tribulation lightning!
He was actually using this all-destroying heavenly tribulation lightning to temper his body!
"Gulp..."
On the raised platform, someone swallowed with difficulty, the sound exceptionally clear in the deathly silence.
"A monster... he's simply a monster..." Feng Yuzi stared blankly at the figure within the sea of lightning, who looked like a thunder god descended to earth. His voice was dry and hoarse. "Tempering his body with heavenly lightning-just how formidable is his flesh? And how insane is his courage? Even those legendary ancient body cultivators who devoted themselves exclusively to the flesh wouldn't dare be so reckless before a Golden Core stage lightning tribulation!"
Mu Qing also sucked in a cold breath and said with a bitter smile, "Old Feng, the two of us have lived our lives for nothing. Chen isn't undergoing a tribulation at all. He's clearly borrowing the hands of heaven and earth to toughen his muscles and bones!"
The brothers Qin Feng and Qin Zheng exchanged a glance, each seeing profound shock and wild joy in the other's eyes.
Their third brother possessed not only extraordinary talent, but a spirit unequaled beneath the heavens.
With such a person among them, what need did the Qin Family have to fear that it would not flourish?
Meanwhile, Qin Yu, standing at the very front, had completely forgotten to breathe.
He stared fixedly at Qin Chen bathing in the lightning, his fists clenched so tightly that his nails pierced his palms without him even noticing.
As a martial artist forced onto the path of external cultivation because his dantian could not store internal energy, Qin Yu understood the difficulty and pain of cultivating the body better than anyone present.
He had once thought that the limit of external cultivation was merely the Houtian Peak, and that before cultivators who could fly on swords and summon wind and rain, external cultivation was ultimately nothing more than an insignificant, inferior art.
But now, Qin Chen had taught him a lesson in the most stunning way possible.
When the body became powerful enough, even tribulation lightning representing heaven's might could be shattered with a single sword strike!
Even the heavenly lightning that destroyed all things could serve as nourishment to cleanse the sinews and marrow!
"So... the power of the body can actually reach such heights..." Qin Yu murmured. Two blazing fires now seemed to burn within his once-clear eyes.
An unprecedented desire and ambition grew wildly within his chest. If Third Brother could do it, then I, Qin Yu, could surely do it too!
The sea of lightning in midair gradually dimmed as Qin Chen finally absorbed the last of the first tribulation bolt's power.
Qin Chen slowly opened his eyes, and two streaks of cold lightning, almost tangible, shot from them and pierced the void.
He casually rolled his neck, and his bones immediately erupted in a series of muffled, thunderous cracks. A terrifying surge of blood and vitality, several times stronger than before, burst from his body.
He raised his head toward the black tribulation clouds overhead, which churned even more violently after the failure of their first strike and were brewing a second, stronger bolt. A cold, defiant smile curled his lips.
"Is that all the power you have? It's not even enough to scratch an itch."
Qin Chen's voice was not loud, but carried by his true qi, it reached the ears of everyone present with perfect clarity, even drowning out the thunder in the sky.
"You damned heavens, come again!"
Driven by his surging true qi, Qin Chen's arrogant laughter became rolling waves of sound that rushed straight into the highest heavens.
As though they had understood this mortal's provocation, the pitch-black tribulation clouds covering a fifty-li radius overhead began to seethe violently.
Deep within the clouds, the purple lightning began a strange transformation. Threads of dark red light that made hearts tremble darted frantically through the clouds, intertwining.
Rumble-
The muffled thunder was no longer merely a tremendous noise. It now carried a strange vibration that seemed capable of striking directly into the depths of the soul. The air throughout Black Wind Grand Canyon became unbearably thick, making even breathing difficult.
"Retreat! Another ten li!"
On the raised platform, Feng Yuzi's expression changed abruptly. With a fierce sweep of his broad sleeve, he stirred up a gale and swept Mu Qing and the three Qin brothers into a rapid retreat without hesitation.
"Uncle Feng, what happened? My third brother..." Carried by the gale, Qin Yu still stared fixedly at the distant center of the sea of lightning as he asked anxiously.
"The heavenly tribulation has mutated!" Feng Yuzi landed on a mountaintop ten li away, his gaze fixed on the sky and his voice carrying unprecedented gravity. "In an ordinary Four-Nine Heavenly Tribulation, every bolt is pure heavenly lightning. But now, the tribulation clouds have actually spawned Crimson Blood Baleful Thunder! A lightning tribulation like this usually descends only when peerless fiends who have slaughtered countless lives, or unrivaled monsters who defy heaven, make a breakthrough. Its power is far more than just several times greater than that first purple bolt!"
Mu Qing's face was also filled with horror as he murmured, "Just how terrifying a foundation has that boy Chen accumulated, to make the will of heaven and earth fear him so much that it insists on wiping him out?"
Just as the two men reeled in shock and horror, the tribulation clouds overhead abruptly collapsed inward.
Crack-!!
Two crimson bolts as thick as water vats tore through the void like roaring blood-colored dragons, one from the left and one from the right. Carrying terrifying heat that could destroy heaven and earth, they slashed down toward Qin Chen in a crossing strike!
Before the lightning even arrived, the ground of Black Wind Grand Canyon below could no longer withstand the terrifying heat. Solid rock began melting at a speed visible to the naked eye, turning into dark red magma that flowed over the ground.
Facing these twin bolts of Crimson Blood Baleful Thunder, powerful enough to vaporize an ordinary Golden Core stage cultivator in an instant, Qin Chen still used no magical treasure.
He threw back his head and let out a long roar, his black hair whipping wildly. Dark golden true qi erupted from his body like a volcano, vaguely coalescing behind him into an indistinct phantom several zhang tall.
"Well met! Today, I shall use the might of heaven and earth to forge my supreme martial foundation!"
Qin Chen kicked fiercely off the ground. With a deafening sonic boom, he shot into the sky like a cannonball. Rather than retreating, he advanced, actively meeting the two blood-colored lightning dragons.
"Great Wilderness Heaven-Breaking Fist!"
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