Arcs of lightning suddenly bombarded the battlefield. Screams of horror and agony sounded for those that were lucky. For those that were unlucky, they found themselves directly blasted into bits and pieces of ash, their souls and bodies incinerated down to the last cell.
Ryu released a roar, his arrow pulling back and suddenly being released in a flashbang of arcing light. It tore a path into the skies, splitting space as it passed by and shooting into the construct that lay ahead.
It looked as though Ryu had completely lost his mind. To attack the skies like this and for seemingly no reason was nothing more than the pinnacle of madness. However, for some reason, it left him feeling exhilarated, as though he was finally free of a shackle that had held him down all his life.
He was Ryu Tatsuya, so what if he attacked the skies? Weren’t they only shocked because they didn’t dare to?
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
In that moment, the clouds above formed an enormous eye, swirling about like the center of a hurricane as its violent outburst only became more and more exaggerated. Without even lifting a figure, every arc of lightning that landed on the ground without even so much as Ryu’s attention toward it tore the armies apart.
Ryu focused his attention on the skies above, his gaze becoming fiercer and more concentrated. Veins popped up across his body, his vision turning red as he focused on the skies above.
What those around didn’t know was that Ryu was using every fiber of his Storm Talent to control the Tribulation Clouds that had been formed above.
Tribulations like this were rare occurrences in the martial world. Unlike some tales that told of cultivators having to step through these to reach higher tiers of power, in practice, this didn’t happen. The actual act of cultivation alone was enough to set up barriers that most would never be able to cross.
The Rites of the Awakening Realm, the pain of opening Pulses and Vessels, the poor survival rate of the Spiritual Severing Realm, the painful accumulating of qi one had to undergo in the Connecting Heaven Realm, the Path Extinction Realm and its continuous tests of the heart and comprehension…
The so-called ‘Tribulations’ were found everywhere and at every Realm. The only so-called ‘Tribulation Clouds’ that appeared to strike at cultivators were only found in fictional tales. The act of cultivating alone was difficult enough alone and filled with more than its fair share of death traps.
However, this didn’t mean that there weren’t reasons for Tribulation Clouds to appear. In some very rare instances, they could appear for a myriad of reasons.
The creation of a treasure or weapon of a certain caliber, a natural phenomena of the Heavens, the creation or birth of a rare herb or creature, the invasion of a world, and in this case…
The birth of a Birthed Phenomena.
The acknowledgement of the Heavens didn’t come so easily. Every birth of a Phenomena would find itself being attacked. Only those that survived would have the right to remain in this world, but many more would find themselves blasted to smithereens along with the comprehensions that had formed them in the first place.
Unfortunately, even those that survived would find themselves greatly weakened. The Heavens were impartial and didn’t care. It wouldn’t be a surprise for a Phenomena to lose as much as 95% of its original strength, weakening it severely. But, even then, just the act of having created one would make one almost untouchable among the same cultivation ranks.
However, what Ryu wanted to do was far beyond this. The only one who understood how maddening his idea was were Ailsa and Yaana. But, neither of them moved to stop him, realizing that he had already made his choice.
Ryu looked into the skies, a wild grin spreading across his face. His veins pulsed about wildly.
The rumbling of the clouds above became fiercer, the eye of the storm becoming large as the vast blackness above began to spiral faster and faster.
The first arc of lightning suddenly sent out a rippling pulse, but it was quickly trapped by the black clouds once again, unable to escape. However, in just that brief instant, it lit up the entire battlefield in a wash of gold as though the sun had peeked out once again.
And then there was a second… Then a third…
As though a revving engine, the clouds pushed its gears but a suffocating pressure held it back.
Blood began to flow down Ryu’s ears, eyes and down between his grinning teeth. However, as though he couldn’t feel the slightest bit of pain at all, he continued to push, the flecks of Royal Blue in his blood shimmering like gems beneath the darkness.
His Storm Talent was pushed to its limits, holding back the Tribulation Clouds for longer and longer. The Heavens only became more furious with each passing moment, the coming Tribulation only becoming stronger as the blood continued to leak from Ryu.
At that moment, the figureheads of the Martial Gods and the head beasts of the Ancestral Beast Army realized just what might happen in the next moment.
“RUN!”
The roar was deafening and yet it was drowned out in the next instant by a rumbling collapse of thunder. It sounded no different than what one might expect when an entire world crumbled from the inside out. In fact, the sound was so loud that many froze, blood and brain matter oozing from the ears as they slumped to the ground…
Dead.
That one rumble of thunder wiped out tens of thousands, more than Ryu had killed even while he was trying.
But, Ryu himself didn’t seem to care, his gaze only glowing brighter as blood continued to spill over.
‘Right there. NOW!’
Ryu roared into the skies, violent arcs of blue lightning flickering in his pupils. In the next instant, his irises vanished entirely, becoming nothing but orbs of hovering blue that released streaks of sapphire to their sides. If Ryu had the attention to spare, he would have realized that he had awakened yet another Qilin Talent…
Unfortunately, his entire world was encompassed by a mighty bolt of judgment descended from the skies.
The pillar of energy was so thick that it covered hundreds of kilometers in diameter at its start, and yet it all concentrated down into a single beam. As for its destination…?
It was the empty eye sockets of Ryu’s Birthed Phenomena.