After a few more hours, it’s becoming more and more clear that Senior Song won’t be able to last much longer. Each hit from the bolts causes her frown to grow larger and a shudder to appear in the small spherical shield around her body. More of the bolts are piercing through the barrier and hitting her actual body.

This is actually beneficial to her long-term health, as tribulation bolts temper and purify your core for the next level. In the same vein, though, it is still killing you in the short term.

I still wait until the last possible moment.

Unfortunately, not everyone will wait or have the capabilities of knowing when that will be. I can see that Elder Gu is preparing himself to do a big action.

There’s a chance I may not have to do anything…

My thoughts turn to what I know of his ability. As it is quite clear that he is a swordsman, it makes me wonder what he’d be able to do to help with this situation.

Which makes it even more curious when I see him take out a talisman. Even to my untrained eyes and without my scan, I can see that this is special, as it glows and pulses with a golden light.

From my guess, its effects can’t be less than the core formation level. His eyes shine with a hesitant but still confident light.

It’s clear that he’s making a sacrifice of sorts.

He tosses the Talisman in her direction towards the cloud. I quickly expect the clouds to turn on him, but before they can do so, it explodes into a mist of color in shapes. All my scan shows me is there now are four familiar shapes.

Swords.

They slowly drift over to her as she struggles, seemingly with a heavy weight.

The moment that it met her shield, is when a massive congregation of bolts soared out of the clouds towards Elder Gu.

Luckily, he was ready for this.

Using a straight sword, he faces it directly and does a seemingly simple movement.

He faces it direct, raises the sword up above his head, and brings it down. All in one smooth motion.

But that’s just what I see. My scan shows the true way of things.

The moment he moved; the flow of air changed.

I can see wisps of energy subtly move around him, along with the path of the sword. It is reminiscent of qi, but has a different feel. It shifts in seconds from flowing like water, to being as sharp as the teeth of a dragon.

At every point where he moved, I could feel danger emanating from his body with my scan. It’s to the point where I feel that if I distracted him, I might die from the action.

… is this the Sword Qi I’ve read about?

Before I can think anything further, he finishes the motion. The sword qi erupts from the edge of his blade and carries forward, no longer attached to the sword.

Right as the bolt was about to hit him, it was split into two by the sword qi and dissipated.

My healing aura is suddenly activated, healing my body.

I can’t help but feel surprised, as I see my hands shaking in fear. Despite my healing aura, the level of lethality shown in just that move caused my body to instinctively produce a fear reaction.

And I got it lightly.

Some of the foundation establishment sect members near his position directly ran away as soon as he started the motion, while others froze in place. It didn’t appear to be a conscious action, but their body is just reacting from the proximity of it.

For those of higher cultivation, it’s easier for them to sense sword qi, while I’m using my scan to make up for that on my end.

In this case, the elder made no attempt to shield those around him from the effects of his attack. All of his energy was directed towards stopping the tribulation bolt that headed his way.

But the Tribulation wasn’t done with him yet for interfering. Two more bolts soared towards him, and just like the previous time, he waves his sword in a seemingly A simple manner to protect himself.

His body moves like a blur, while also appearing to be slow. Considering the speed of the bolt and his movement, there’s no way we should be able to see his actions. But somehow this technique allows such a thing. An illusion of sorts, generated from his movements.

Like before, he cuts through the tribulation bolts like a scissor through paper.

However.

Despite his speed, strength, and technique, we all can see him stand there.

All until he collapses onto one knee, coughing blood from internal injuries. Luckily for him, his flying sword somehow keeps him stable and balanced. Soon after, some people around him fly back over to him with potions that he quickly drinks.

… I wouldn’t have been able to survive three bolts. Maybe one of those, but definitely not that many. Especially from a Nascent Soul tier tribulation. And that would have been coming at me instead.

It looks like my plan to help should be shelved, as his actions appear to have solved the situation.

Dang. I was hoping to see if I could get resistance to tribulation bolts…

I quickly put away the items I had taken out, except the small plate. I keep that on my leg, as a secret way to survive sudden death.

By the time I’m finished, I can see that the talisman swords are now revolving above Senior Song's head, projecting a shield over top the one that was already generated around her.

Her face finally relaxes, but soon after I can see her peek over at Elder Gu with a complex look.

Okay. I’m almost totally sure they used to be lovers before her change. The guilt he shows towards her must be because he couldn’t be with an “ugly” woman.

He seemed to still care for her, as evidenced by him taking such a loss today.

… though, she is otherworldly attractive right now, so that might have played a part.

Nonetheless, losing a talisman that produced effects of a mid-Nascent Soul tier is a major action. Adding to that, he suffered for interfering in a tribulation, causing him to be attacked and severely injured for it.

I don’t even have to use my medical scan to tell that he suffered multiple internal injuries that will stay with him for a long time, requiring a lot of healing (meaning a lot of additional costs).

All to save her life.

One might think that instead of taking such a personal action, you would just have to take distance from the tribulation cloud and send something over from there… but the clouds just form over you, no matter where you are. And contrary to the person who the tribulation was originally meant for, you can’t benefit from helping them.

There’s been attempts to use sacrificial people for other’s tribulations, like forcing a weak individual to give a strong item to a favored person, all with the intention that they would die in the process.

The world knows.

The bolts also go after the person, or people who made that person do the action.

Especially in this world of dog eat dog, that action usually meant many people were involved in forcing a person into that situation. In the past situation, a terrifying occurrence of multiple clouds forming over a variety of people’s heads happened, killing many, many people from the domino effect.

Now, sacrificial people aren’t even slightly considered, unless it is a single person’s decision.

…

The rest of the tribulation goes smoothly, with Senior Song even having the swords stop protecting her a bit, to allow her to use the bolts for refinement.

During this time, Elder Gu leaves to return to his tower to recover and has everyone else leave as well.

Despite that, I can still sense many eyes (via spiritual sense) viewing this location.

Near the end of the tribulation, the clouds dissipate and send one final bolt before disappearing. Senior Song remains in position and eventually floats down. Once she gets back to where she originally started floating, she then releases her stance and flies down to me on her sword.

The look she gives me has me shivering.