“It’s ending! There’s one last bolt!”

Is it finally over? The elders beside me had tears in their eyes as if they had witnessed their family dying in a natural disaster and were unable to do anything to help. But it’s not over yet! There’s still that vortex in the sky that’s building up a really, really big thunderbolt. I can sense it. My tail’s telling me by standing erect. I’ve only used up that single tower so far during this whole tribulation; I think it’s been pretty successful. But the Red Phoenix Sect…, yeah. They must hate me. The heart devils inside of them agree with me.

“Reinforce the formation!” The elder next to me shouted into the cone that amplified his voice. We were in a crater surrounded by a whole bunch of Red Phoenix Sect members. The tribulation had destroyed almost the whole sect. The formation that the sect members were using to defend against it required a lot of qi in the area to power, and every time it blocked a strike, the area would be void of qi. So we’ve had to traverse through the whole sect, absorbing every ounce of qi while leaving behind a path of destruction. Once, a sect member said the easiest way to stop the tribulation was to kill me, but the elders were afraid of their eggs being broken. I knew hostages were the way to go. Hmm, this reminds me a little of the Godking—he tamed a phoenix, right? Should I try? Well, I don’t think I’ll be able to considering I’m surrounded by a whole sect and the only thing that’s keeping me from being mobbed is the tribulation. If only there could be another tribulation after this one….

“Lucia.”

Hmm? “Durandal? Why’d you come out?”

Durandal’s forehead wrinkled as he rubbed his chin. “I think I’m about to breakthrough to the earth realm…. There’s this strange feeling I’m getting.”

“Really?” How come Durandal cultivates so much faster than Puppers? I know Puppers spends more time being dead and all, but the disparity shouldn’t be this great. I think Puppers is still somewhere in the mid-ranked spirit realm. Or maybe he’s high-ranked now. Hmm.

“Yeah.” Durandal pulled a sword out of my interspacial ring and munched on it while looking up at the tribulation clouds. There was a red dome covering us, and a thread of qi extended from every sect member up to the barrier. The vortex in the clouds was still getting larger and larger and it was rumbling a lot. Even though it was just sound, the ground was trembling and the barrier fluttered. “I’m going to hide in mini-DalDal before that lightning falls.”

I wish I could hide too.

“It’s coming! Brace yourselves!” The elder with the cone shouted. With a crash, a pillar of lightning that was wider than a small town crashed onto the barrier. The whole world turned red, and I couldn’t see anything. Did I die? I tried to say something, but no sound came out. The roar of the thunder was too loud. I’ll pinch myself. Ow! Alright, I’m still alive unless I can feel pain after dying too. This…, if I didn’t have the Red Phoenix Sect volunteering to help me out, how the hell was I supposed to survive this!? How long has it been? Ten seconds? Twenty? Hmm. Maybe my eyes are broken? Everything’s still red. Oh! Unrelenting Path of Slaughter! There we go; I can see again. Eh…. Are those cracks on the barrier? And are they getting … bigger? The barrier broke! Gah! It hurts! Shit! It feels like my face is melting off! Impenetrable Shell, Armor of Slaughter! It, it’s not enough! I’ll pull random houses and buildings out of my interspacial ring to use as makeshift shields! They’re disintegrating, but at least they provide a little over a second of shelter each.

I didn’t count the number of buildings I went through, but the final pillar of lightning finally went away. My clothes had melted off, so I donned my pink and black robe that the Shadow Devil Sect had provided me. They had insisted I wear all black, but I didn’t want to look like an ordinary mook, so I requested a pink top to differentiate myself. It’s much comfier than the Red Phoenix Sect’s robe, but that’s probably because Ilya stole those tight robes from someone whose proportions didn’t match mine. I’m not fat! I deactivated my Path of Slaughter and looked around. Hmm. There’s a lot less people than I remember….

“Are the eggs safe!? W-wait! That pink and black robe…, those ears and fluffy tail! You’re Heart Devil Lucia!” The elders seemed to have survived; though, they looked a bit ragged. Now, while they’re still injured, I’ll take this chance to escape! Flee!

A fireball flew past my head and nearly burnt off my ears. “Stop right there!” If you want someone to stop, don’t throw fireballs at them! “Seize that foxkin!”

It’s a good thing that final pillar of lightning lasted for so long. I bet most of the disciples are blind right now and their ears should still be ringing, so it’ll be harder for them to notice me as I slip by. Why didn’t Durandal let me learn any stealth techniques? There were so many! The Slippery Loach Sect, the Fast Cockroach Sect, the Unseeable Sect, all of them had skills that I could use to steal food from places unnoticed, err, I mean, to escape from a mob of angry people! Durandal said it’d take ten times the effort to achieve half the result if I practiced a stealth technique because of my giant tail. I can be sneaky if I tuck my tail into my robe!

Speaking of Durandal…, he came out and grabbed me before I could run away from the crater. “It’s starting.” He pointed at the sky. “My tribulation.”

…Well, shit.

“Whoever catches that foxkin will receive—” The elder stopped midsentence and stared at me. I was back by his side as if I had never left at all. It seems like I can run faster after reaching the earth realm. “Uh. You came back? Are you going to return the holy eggs now?”

I copied Durandal and pointed at the sky. “It’s not over.”

The elder frowned at me before looking up. Then his face paled. “H-how?” He lifted the cone and brought it to his lips. “R-ready the defensive formation!”

A collective groan rang through the air. The Red Phoenix Sect members seemed to be in no position to do anything, much less ready a formation. One of the members knelt at the elder’s feet. “Ancestor! We’re in no position to defend against the rest of this tribulation! The whole sect is in ruins and over half of our disciples have perished! The ancestral beast has already fled! This, this isn’t an earth-realm tribulation. It’s a sky-realm’s!”

“We have no choice!” the elder lifted the cone and pointed it straight at the kneeling person’s face and yelled into it. “Disciples? We can always get more! Buildings? We can rebuild! Phoenix eggs? Fuck! Can your wife give birth to phoenixes!?”

“A-Ancestor….”

The elder raised the cone and whipped it across the kneeling person’s face. …Ouch, that must’ve hurt. The poor fellow went flying. “We defend this foxkin to the death! If the eggs are destroyed, our sect will cease to exist!”

Ah, I love being defended. It makes me feel like I’m wanted. The Immortal Continent’s been really nice to me.