The first bolt struck so forcefully and suddenly that Yoshika’s bodies were nearly knocked over by the shockwave. The magic of the Sky Hall dampened the blast, keeping everyone but Rika safe from the effects of the tribulation. The barrier protecting Rika shattered like glass under a blacksmith’s hammer, but when the blinding flash of lightning subsided, Rika herself was completely unharmed. Though it hadn’t held, the barrier had managed to at least deflect the tribulation’s first assault.

Yoshika wasn’t sure how many there would be—her own heavenly tribulation had consisted of only two bolts, but she’d heard that no two were the same. Supposedly a higher number of bolts was often considered easier, as the trial would spread the same amount of energy across multiple attacks. It would be impossible to predict until the trial was over, however.

Rika wasn’t wasting any time, already conjuring one of her duplicates and frantically drawing new defensive formations to replace the spent barrier. It wouldn’t compare to the barrier that she’d drawn with Yoshika, but every little bit counted. Yoshika watched with fascination as the Sky Hall pulsed with a wave of Stone essence that swept away the molten remnants of her barrier formation, replacing it with fresh smooth jade. She also noted with interest that she couldn’t tell Rika’s clone apart from her original body anymore, and that both clones seemed fully focused on the formations they were drawing. Had she reached some kind of epiphany about her technique during the breakthrough?

Rika didn’t have time to finish her formation before the second bolt struck. Ignoring the qi doppelganger entirely, the bolt slammed unerringly into Rika, who barely had enough time to throw her arms up to block the strike. Yoshika held her breath, consciously willing herself not to try to run forward and help her friend—it would only make things worse. Two more doppelgangers appeared on either side of Rika, reaching up to take a portion of the blast while the first continued to work on the formation—the integrity of which had been protected by the Sky Hall.

When the second bolt was finally spent, Rika’s doubles were gone. Her arms were charred and bloody, and her entire body shook as she got back to work on the formation—it wasn’t over yet. The bolts were clearly weaker than those that had struck Yoshika during her third stage breakthrough, which was a small relief, but not enough to assuage her concerns. Rika had lost two of her copies already, and had no way to restore herself between strikes. If Yoshika tried to heal her, the tribulation would only punish both of them.

A thin bubble of force snapped into existence over Rika as she finished her formation—a tiny shield to bleed some of the next strike’s energy. Then, she joined hands with her double and closed her eyes. Yoshika watched in awe as the blackened skin on Rika’s arms began to return to its usual healthy tan glow—though still a little bit pink and raw. One by one, the burns across her body faded away as if they hadn’t even happened—and appeared on her double. Yoshika blinked in surprise—what was that?!

Another swell of lightning essence cut off her thoughts as the third bolt struck. This time, Rika was fully prepared, and both of her bodies reached up to create telekinetic barriers between her and the bolt of divine lightning. It crashed through the formation and both projections as if they hadn’t even been there—though Yoshika knew that at least some of its power must have been spent against them. Rika’s bodies clasped their hands together, gritted their teeth, and simply stood their ground, desperately trying to withstand the heavenly scourge.

After a seemingly eternal moment of tension, the lightning bolt dissipated at last, and Yoshika gasped as Rika collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut—her doppelganger nowhere to be seen. Panic gripped Yoshika as she rushed forward, glancing up at the sky, she saw that cloud hadn’t yet dissipated. Rika had spent everything, but her trial wasn’t over yet!

“Rika! Wake up Rika, it’s not over yet! Please, get up!”

Yoshika’s voices rang out in chorus, soon joined by Eunae’s as she realized what was happening. To her immense relief, Rika slowly stirred awake, standing on shaky legs and blinking up blearily at the sky. She looked awful—scorch marks played across her body in a horrific fractal pattern, and her clothes had been mostly burned away.

“Wh—how long was I...?”

Eunae’s voice cut through the tension as Rika trailed off.

“Just a few seconds! There’s one more Rika—you have to withstand one more!”

Rika blinked in confusion at Eunae, then her eyes sharpened and returned to the sky once again.

“Oh, fuck!”

There was no time for more preparations, no tricks, no fancy techniques. Rika took a deep breath and lowered herself into a solid stance. The mana in the air was almost impossibly dense—the Sky Hall refusing to allow any of the tribulation’s divine power go to waste—and Yoshika felt Rika drawing every bit of it into herself. She could only imagine what was happening internally, but she could picture Rika forcing as much essence into her body as she could possibly withstand, reinforcing her body to its absolute limits. She was going to take the last bolt head on.

“Wish me luck.”

The final bolt struck before either Eunae or Yoshika could respond, and this time they were knocked back by the force—they had gotten too close, and even the Sky Hall could only do so much to protect them from their own foolishness. Yoshika scrambled back to her feet, but by the time she stood, it was over. For a moment, Rika’s blackened, smoking form stood resolute in her stance—then, she fell forward lifelessly onto her face.

For the second time in as many minutes, Yoshika was gripped by an intense panic. No! She had to be alright. Yoshika refused to believe that her friend would die here. She rushed forward with all of the haste she could muster—expending her own resources freely as she pushed her Absolute Awareness to its absolute limits and used her Lightning God Transformation to arrive at Rika’s side in an instant.

Placing all four hands on Rika’s body, Yoshika held nothing back as she flooded life-giving Wood essence into her friend. Rika’s shape was bad. She wasn’t breathing, and her heart wasn’t beating—before Yoshika started cultivating, she would have thought that her friend was dead. She wasn’t, though. Yoshika could sense Rika’s aura faintly, and her bond with Rika still remained strong in her domain. Yoshika remembered Elder Qin once telling her that to high level cultivators, bodily death was hardly even an injury so long as the soul remained intact. Rika wasn’t at that level, and her injuries were clearly quite grave, but as long as her soul still lived, Yoshika wouldn’t lose hope.

The entire world fell away as Yoshika focused on only Rika. Using the life-giving power of Wood essence, Yoshika forced Rika’s body to continue working even without her heart or lungs pumping. Unlike with Jung, there was no disease fighting her efforts, and Yoshika was able to support the function of Rika’s internal organs without too much fuss while she worked on repairing the most dire of her burns. The scoured flesh was replaced by fresh, pink skin—still tinged with Rika’s natural tan complexion.

Yoshika couldn’t be certain how long it had taken her, or how much of her essence she’d spent on it, but eventually Rika was restored to the point where she wasn’t in mortal danger—except for the part where her heart remained still. Rika’s soul still lived, but it was quiet, laying dormant and weak without a functioning body to connect itself to. Yoshika’s work wasn’t done yet.

Concentrating even further, Yoshika did something she’d only done once before—and only to her own body. She focused as deeply as she could, going smaller and smaller as she searched for the parts of Rika that she conceptually knew existed, but didn’t know how to sense. As she did, Yoshika was pleased to note that Rika had begun the process of cleanly converting her cells into essence at an even rate—she would not be getting stuck at the infamous xiantian barrier that martial artists typically struggled with.

She set aside the distraction as she finally found what she was looking for. A series of physical threads running through Rika’s entire body, starting from her head and running its way down her spine before branching off to connect every single part of her together. Dae had called it the ‘nervous system.’ Yoshika wasn’t entirely certain how it worked, but she knew that they were supposed to carry energy through the body rather than simply lay completely empty and lifeless as they were now.

With absolute precision, Yoshika guided the tiniest fraction of lightning essence that she could possibly muster through Rika’s meridians to the place where the body and soul were bridged—a confluence of physical and metaphysical where the concept of life became enmeshed with the very real life-giving organ—the heart. Though the mote of lightning essence was so small as to be almost impossible to sense, as soon as it crossed that threshold, it pulsed through Rika’s entire nervous system, causing every muscle in her body to spasm uncontrollably—including her heart.

That first spasm seemed to set off a chain reaction, and Rika’s heart began to beat of its own accord once again. With her heart beating, the rest of Rika’s body quickly followed suit, an involuntary gasp filling her lungs with air before she started coughing painfully. It took Rika a few minutes of heaving breaths and coughing fits before she completely returned to consciousness—during which Yoshika continued to heal her more peripheral injuries to the best of her ability.

Finally, Rika groaned miserably and started to sit up—before she was tackled back to the ground by Eunae in a bone-creaking embrace. Eunae’s tears ran freely down her face as Rika struggled awkwardly under her grip.

“Rika! Thank—hic—thank the ancestors you’re okay! I...I thought that...”

Rika tried to return the embrace, though her position on the floor made it a bit difficult. She tried to chuckle, but it came out as more of a raspy cough.

“Hey, I’m fine! Don’t thank your ancestors, it was Yoshika that saved me, right?”

Yoshika rose to her feet unsteadily, a bit worn out from the effort of healing Rika. She spoke in Jia’s voice, trying to wave off the attention.

“It was nothing. You survived the trial under your own power—we just healed you afterwards. Congratulations on your breakthrough, Rika!”

Eunae didn’t seem to have any intention of releasing Rika, and Yoshika wanted to give them their space, so she quietly excused herself and retreated to the edge of the Sky Hall, where Hyeong Aecha was standing by at rigid attention. Yoshika had nearly forgotten about her—again.

“How are you doing, Miss Hyeong?”

Hyeong Aecha returned Yoshika’s greeting with a polite bow.

“I am well, Magus Ambassador Lee, thank you for asking. Do you require anything of me?”

Yoshika always felt a bit uncomfortable about Hyeong Aecha—her subservient attitude and vague, unspecified relation to Dae made her hard to talk to. Yoshika had considered just asking what her deal was, but didn’t want to take advantage of Aecha’s servility to push her into talking about something uncomfortable.

“No, Miss Hyeong, we were just trying to make conversation. Has there been any activity outside we should know about?”

Hyeong Aecha shook her head.

“No Miss, it’s been quiet, although...”

She trailed off, and when she didn’t seem like she was about to elaborate, Yoshika gave her a gentle nudge.

“Yes? If something’s on your mind, you can tell us.”

Hyeong Aecha pursed her lips and nodded tightly.

“Pardon my presumptuousness, but I believe that the lack of activity might be a greater concern. While you were, erm, busy, our observers seem to have left. There is nobody currently waiting for us outside of the Sky Hall.”

Yoshika blinked in surprise and checked for herself. Surely enough, there was nobody outside of the gateway barrier. No Seong Misun, no xiantian observer, not even a token scout to inform someone important in case they emerged.

“That is odd. What do you think it means?”

The maidservant shrugged.

“I cannot say, but I don’t believe it bodes well. I have a bad feeling about it.”

Yoshika couldn’t help but agree. A cultivator’s sense of foreboding wasn’t something to ignore. She still remembered feeling something off for weeks before the descent—she’d learned her lesson, then. Returning to Eunae and Rika, Yoshika brought a new outfit out of her ring for Rika—a simple martial artist's robe that she’d picked up during her stay in Yamato.

“Rika, get dressed. I know you’re still injured, but I think we need to move.”

Rika didn’t argue, extricating herself from Eunae’s grip and nodding thanks to Yoshika before quickly changing into the robes—which were way too small for her, but she didn’t seem to mind the exposed arms and legs. Eunae furrowed her brows.

“Yoshika? Is something wrong?”

“We don’t know, but there’s nobody outside even after the tribulation just struck. Hyeong Aecha has a bad feeling about it and so do we. The whole city should know we’re about to leave this chamber after that.”

Eunae’s frown deepened.

“And if there’s nobody waiting for us outside, then that means something else has gotten their attention. Something so important that not a single person can be spared even for something as important as the Sky Hall reopening.”

Rika glanced up from trying to adjust her ill-fitting robes, wincing as her movements reminded her that she was still injured.

“What could be so important it calls for the entire palace’s attention?”

Yoshika had a few ideas, but didn’t like any of them. Both of her faces had matching frowns as she responded in chorus.

“We don’t know, but it can’t be good. Be ready for anything, but we have to move now.”