Long Di and Lord Whiskers kept their gaze on the crack, then onto the soldiers, back on the crack then to the soldiers once more. They repeated the actions a few more times in perfect synchronicity until their gaze became fixed on the soldiers.

The hearts of these hardened men froze once this happened.

****

Long Di himself was inexpressive from start to finish, which was terrifying, to say the least. But the shidashi mao was grinning at them, which was horrifying!

Long Di then raised his sabre and the shidashi mao widened its grin.

Xue Zhuang white-knuckled the air as he looked at Long Di. “Please.”

Shu.

The sabre edged closer to the formation and Lord Whiskers’ grin widened ever so slightly.

“Don’t.”

Shu.

“Mercy.”

Shu.

“You.”

Shu.

“Milk.”

Shu.

“Vibrating colon plug.”

Shu.

“I will call you daddy.”

Bam! Bam! Bam!

Long Di unleashed furious slashes into the formation with malice and abhorrence!

“This in no way reflects my feelings towards you,” Long Di stated as he condemned everyone here to death.

Like hell it didn’t!

Who did he expect to believe him!?

Pling! Pling!

More cracks appeared and the shidashi mao’s grin was face-splitting by this point.

It raised a single paw and smashed it into the formation, shattering it and exposing the experts within to the full power of the heavenly levyance tribulation lightning!

“Ah!”

Screams rang out as the tribulation lightning killed thousands upon thousands of soldiers.

Not even the commanders were able to survive.

Shu!

Long Di shot through the flood of lightning with Lord Whiskers and located the general who was desperately trying to hold on.

His skin was a burnt mess that was constantly being torn off.

The blood-red veins on his body were flaring with red flames. He was burning his essence blood for a tremendous increase in strength. This was what allowed him to survive the tribulation for this long!

As soon as he saw Long Di, he unsheathed a weapon that was instantly destroyed by the tribulations.

Long Di brought his sabre down with a merciless slash, bisecting the general.

“Meow!”

Long Di looked up and saw Lord Whiskers looking in one direction. After rushing over, he saw that it was Xue Zhuang holding the third elder of all things hostage.

He held the third elder by his neck, and another palm was placed on his back. At the same time, countless red dots were on his body, creating a strange energy that held the tribulation lightning at bay, but it was obviously dimming and at a rapid pace at that.

“D-Don’t come any closer!” Xue Zhuang wore a vicious expression as he stared at Long Di.

Because of this boy, he lost everything!

As Long Di stared at Xue Zhuang and the third elder, he cocked his head to the side in wonder.

“Ho ho ho, this is precious.” Long Di laughed a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh.

Seriously, it was like someone pronouncing what a laugh sounded like. It was bizarre and even Whiskers had to do a double take on what it just heard.

“No? Don’t do it again?” Long Di asked his companion before he looked all around in confusion.

Vrrrm!

“What the-”

Suddenly, the heavenly levyance tribulation lightning underwent a subtle change, something that Long Di felt immediately.

This drew a bad feeling from both of them.

“Something is coming…” Long Di could feel something heading for them.

He and Lord Whiskers backed away slowly while keeping their eyes peeled for whatever it was that was coming.

They didn’t know when, but at some point, the roar of the thunder was muted somehow.

It was eerily quiet even though heavenly levyance tribulation lightning bathed them even now.

Xue Zhuang felt creeped out by this. “What’s going on?”

Though he wasn’t obligated to, Long Di answered him. “Death.”

Shu!

Boom!

Something shot through the sea of lightning and smashed apart the protective energy that Xue Zhuang constructed.

“Puah!” He coughed up his last mouthful of blood as a massive halberd pierced through both him and the third elder!

The third elder looked at Long Di with widened eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, but the blood that bubbled up gagged whatever it was he wanted to say.

Soon the light dimmed from his eyes, and both he and Xue Zhuang were blasted apart!

Long Di couldn’t care less for Xue Zhuang’s death, and even less could be said about the third elder.

He stood rooted to the spot solely because of the halberd before him.

The halberd was composed of entirely heavenly levyance tribulation lightning. Yet, there was something… off, about it.

Long Di saw runes atop it, but the runes looked still, dead even. It was full of energy, but at the same time, it was devoid of it. It was a curious thing.

Shu!

‘Danger!’

Long Di’s cultivation technique rang out as a sword cut through the sea of lightning straight for his head!

Note that this was while he was under Lord Whiskers, so this thing was coming for him specifically!

He could swear he felt the heavenly levyance tribulation lightning sea around them lessening ever so slightly when it formed.

Psssh!

Long Di’s sabre smashed into the heavenly levyance tribulation lightning sword, causing it to shatter into a million pieces.

He could feel a strange energy burrowing into his body.

“What pure heavenly levyance tribulation lightning energy…” Long Di was surprised at how pure this energy was.

It was about as pure as the energy in his star cores was.

It should be remembered that Long Di’s star cores are lit up only after collecting enough purified heavenly levyance tribulation lightning energy. In addition, this can only be done after it’s been purified enough through his cultivation technique that took advantage of all his opened main meridians for a grand cycle.

For this sword to be filled with this type of energy meant that it’s already been purified to the extreme. Even more unbelievable was that this energy was flowing into his body without any effort on his part.

As of now, Long Di’s was approaching the peak of the four-star-core realm with unnatural ease.

“Hold on. Something’s wr-”

Vrrrm!

Long Di’s cauldrons trembled as he realised that they were slowing down. All of them!

“Oh, no.” Long Di understood all too late that this sword was composed of the same energy the halberd was.

Its stagnant nature was melding into his body and fusing with the rest of his energy. This in turn, caused his own core energy to begin stagnating as well. Because of this, the circulation of his cultivation method staggered and slowed despite his best efforts.

Realising the problem, he then tried to expel the energy as quickly as possible, but was horrified to find that he couldn’t expel it. Instead, more energy just kept pouring into his body!

He was getting stronger by the minute sure, but it was also bringing his cultivation technique to ruin!

“Damn it…” he was drawing a blank on what to do. His body was drawing in the ambient energy against his will.

It was like a man drinking poison to quench his thirst. The end result for this would surely be the same.

Whiskers wasn’t sure what was happening, but it could tell that something was wrong.

“Meow!?”

“I-I can’t explain it in a short time, but TL;DR, my energy is trying to kill my cultivation technique!”

“Meow!”

“I’m really glad for you Whiskers, really I am, but I have something that is an issue right now. We can think about what is not an issue for you lat… hold on, I think I get i-”

‘Danger’

His senses rang out again before a circular shield came wheeling through the lightning-borne sea that assaulted them on all sides.

His sabre danced in his hands as he brought it crashing down on the shield before it could do him major harm.

Bang!

Once more he destroyed a projectile that seemed hellbent on taking his head clean off.

As it burst into particles of lightning, Its sweet poisonous energy soaked into his body granting him a boon of energy that he was sure would be all but stripped of him later on.

After all, if he didn’t have a usable lightning-attributed cultivating technique then what worth would there be of all this lightning energy within?

Even worse, if he had no such cultivation technique to speak, then would the copious amounts of divine heavenly levyance tribulation lightning be content to sit in his body like the world’s most extravagant squatter!?

He couldn’t say, but damn it all if he felt like it wouldn’t work out in his favour. The thoughts of a vat of lava suddenly turning into a paper lantern only to be lit aflame and burnt to ashes by its extreme heat suddenly found him and it left him in a rush to solve his current plight sooner rather than later.

Shu!

Another weapon came sailing towards him not long after. The frequency was increasing and that brought with it its own myriad of problems.

Bang!

S-Shu!

He slashed it as soon as it entered his range, but not before another followed in the shadow of the first weapon and it was this that finally drew new blood from him!

Soon he was beset on all sides by heavenly levyance tribulation lightning comprised weapons of all shapes and sizes.

What was even more staggering was that the sea of heavenly levyance tribulation lightning around them was thinning out.

Whiskers was trying its best to limit the number of weapons that assailed him, but the numbers kept increasing until not even Lord Whiskers' defences could withstand it for long. Red blood soon stained its white fur, but it refused to leave Long Di’s side. It would stay for as long as necessary to ensure his safety as best as it could.

Conversely, but not by much, Long Di’s cultivation was rising at a terrifying rate, but at what cost!?

His profound myriad heavenseize physique was full to bursting right now and his dantians were all full!

So what now!?

“Hold on!”

Something occurred to Long Di right this minute. Whiskers had long ago told Long Di that it was not feeling the Heavens’ disdain for it at this moment, which left it at a loss.

Truly, Long Di hadn’t realised it, but he now recalled that Lord Whiskers’s killing intent was strangely absent this entire time.

Its killing intent was a manifestation of its hatred towards the Heavens for its denial of its very existence. Any sort of heavenly tribulation immediately turns into a heavenly execution in an attempt to wipe it out.

The odd thing was that since the beginning of this omen-like phenomenon, Whiskers hadn’t felt any sort of denial from the Heavens.

Whiskers was at such peace because of it that it didn’t even realise this abnormality until Long Di brought up the matter of the strangeness of this heavenly levyance tribulation lightning, which was the first time in its life it had felt this.

“If you’re not drawing its hatred, then that means it’s putting it aside for me, and even then, it’s not expressing any sort of killing intent and is only trying to wipe out my cultivation technique by giving me purified ‘poison,’ so it can throttle it,” Long Di sounded his thought to make sure what he was thinking made sense.

“This purified poison is dead heavenly levyance tribulation lightning energy. Even after it became mine, it’s still stagnated. Meaning that I have to unstagnate it. I’m pretty sure that isn’t a word by the way, but moving on. To unstagnate it, I’ll have to draw out the hatred of the heavens!”

A stroke of enlightenment found him! “That means all I have to do is pose an even greater danger and disdain towards the Heavens. That way I will draw its ire and hatred and we will see if it will still gift me a dull blade instead of a sharp sword to cut me to ribbons!”

He then looked towards Whiskers and he had it struggled to last through their besiegement.

“Protect me Lord Whiskers! This is gonna be rough!”

“Meow!”

[Author’s Notes: if you like what I'm doing, consider becoming a patron at https://www.patreon.com/Discere to support me]