Chapter 364: The Three-Tribulation Thunder Beast
The first talisman flared to life, wrestling his chaotic, warring Spirit Roots into submission and preventing them from tearing him apart from the inside.
The second talisman activated, and an explosive surge of life force erupted, enveloping his entire body in a verdant glow.
Instantly, a golden light shimmered over his withered left arm. It was as if a divine scalpel was carving out the invading toxins from his very marrow. Then, following the natural cycle, Metal gave birth to Water. A gentle warmth spread through him, washing away the last vestiges of bone-deep cold from his Meridians.
When Water, in turn, gave birth to Wood, the effect combined with the potent technique of the Ten Thousand Woods Return to Spring Talisman. In a breathtaking display of regeneration, his grievously wounded body healed in an instant.
Witnessing this, the three great serpents formed from the thunder pillar shifted their strategy. They suddenly linked head-to-tail, coalescing into a single, rotating ring of pure destruction.
It was a vortex of elemental fury.
The razor-sharp gales of golden energy.
The bone-shattering frost of absolute zero.
The corrosive miasma of virulent decay.
The two sides were locked in a brutal war of attrition, a contest of wills to see which would break first.*Rip!*
Chen Tian’s robes, already damaged, shredded into confetti. His flesh became a canvas of carnage and regeneration—grievous wounds would tear open one moment, only to be sealed by shimmering light the next. His face grew visibly paler, his life force draining away with each passing moment.
The three serpents of the thunder ring circled relentlessly, unleashing their tripartite assault. Sometimes they attacked in sequence, other times their powers merged into a chaotic, unpredictable storm.
Any other cultivator would have been annihilated in a heartbeat, their body and soul erased from existence. Even from over half a mile away, the sheer spectacle of it was enough to make one’s blood run cold.
Time crawled by. To the distant observers, it was but a few breaths. But for Chen Tian, trapped in the eye of the storm, each second stretched into an eternity of torment.
Fortunately, he endured.
As a genius with three Spirit Roots, he was not only treasured by his Master but also backed by the full might of his family and the support of numerous powerful factions. If even he couldn’t withstand this, the disappointment would be immeasurable.
By the end of it, Chen Tian was a wreck. The Spirit Silkworm Treasure Robe was reduced to scorched tatters. The Clear Profound Water-Splitting Mirror had crumbled into glittering dust. The Jade Entwined Gold Ring was snapped in two. He was barely recognizable as human.
And yet, his aura was climbing, surging higher and higher with ferocious intensity.
Under the relentless assault of the three serpents, a Golden Core was gradually solidifying within his dantian. Swirling across its lustrous surface, one could faintly discern the flowing lights of gold, water, and wood.
Chen Tian lifted his gaze to the tri-colored tribulation clouds. A grin split his bloodied face—a smile laced with both triumph and mockery.
The second wave of Turbid Thunder hadn’t broken him. Instead, it had tempered him, forcing the synergy between his three Spirit Roots into perfect, harmonious fusion. This Earth-Grade Golden Core… was his to claim!
However, a deep, world-shaking rumble once again echoed from the heavens.
The tri-colored clouds began to churn, rotating clockwise and bleeding into one another. Gold, water, and wood merged into a single, massive, gray-black vortex of doom.
An impossibly heavy pressure descended. The crushing weight slammed down, forcing even spectators like Jiang Chen to brace themselves, their bones groaning under the phantom load of a mountain.
The triumphant smile on Chen Tian’s face froze solid.
The gray-black vortex grew ever more turbid, a suffocating curtain of darkness that threatened to smother the world. Under the tremendous pressure, the nine-story Rain Pavilion began to groan, emitting a series of muffled pops as cracks spiderwebbed across its structure, releasing torrents of living water.
Just then, the Ten Thousand Fish Formation blazed to life. Countless spiritual fish swarmed around the Rain Pavilion, their bodies glowing with a myriad of lights as they swam in a protective orbit. A dense wave of water Spirit Qi was drawn from the lake. Part of it flowed into the pavilion, sealing the cracks and repairing the damage. The rest surged like a river directly into Chen Tian’s body.
As a cultivator whose primary focus was the water Spirit Root, the infusion was a godsend. His lingering wounds, his weakened body, his flagging spirit—all were revitalized in an instant.
Envy flared in the eyes of many who witnessed the scene. The power behind the Rain Pavilion was none other than the Nascent Soul True Lord, Grandmaster Shui. While she couldn’t intervene in the tribulation directly, a simple preparatory measure like this was enough to grant Chen Tian an overwhelming advantage.
Jiang Chen couldn’t help but let out a quiet sigh. “The chasm between those with a Master and those without has never been so stark.”
A Master was a backer. Without one, you were nothing but a lone boat adrift on a merciless ocean. It was the fundamental difference between a sect disciple and a Loose Cultivator.
Sect disciples had the backing of their entire sect, never lacking for resources, techniques, or connections. When facing a breakthrough, they had countless strategies and treasures at their disposal.
The life of a Loose Cultivator, by contrast, was brutal. No background, no backing, no network, no resources. They could rely only on themselves. It was tragically common for a Loose Cultivator to struggle their entire life for a single breakthrough, only to have their life’s work stolen at the final moment by opportunistic vultures. Such stories were a daily occurrence in their world.
“A three-headed monster?” someone in the crowd shrieked.
All eyes snapped back to the sky.
From the heart of the gray-black vortex, a pillar of lightning dozens of feet thick descended. But it didn’t strike. Instead, it began to swell and contort, birthing a monstrous, three-headed beast.
Its left head bore a colossal, spiraling horn that looked as if it were forged from a thousand phantom spears, its surface etched with runes that thrummed with lethal energy. With a mere twitch, it launched shards of golden light that shrieked as they sliced through the air.
Its central head was a chimeric horror, part-wyrm, part-serpent, wreathed in an aura of absolute zero. The very air around it shattered into crystalline dust, and the light itself seemed to warp and bend in the extreme cold. Its forked tongue, like two slender icicles, flickered out, and the wave of frigid energy it released flash-froze the entire Black Lake, entombing countless fish instantly in black ice.
Its right head was a grotesque, gnarled burl, its surface a pitted, uneven mass of writhing, thorned, and venomous vines. They twisted around each other, squeezing out thick droplets of black venom that filled the air with an overpowering, nauseating stench of decay.
“If he had four Spirit Roots, it would have four heads!”
“Does that mean five Spirit Roots gets you five heads?”
“Why are you so obsessed with five Spirit Roots?”
Jiang Chen opened his mouth, but found he had no answer.
Chen Bo clenched his fists, his voice tight with anxiety. “Come on, Chen Tian! You have to make it through this!”
At that moment, countless people were cheering for Chen Tian. If he successfully broke through to the Earth-Grade Golden Core, everyone associated with him—family, friends, and allies—would reap unimaginable benefits.
After all, the Golden Core realm had three distinct grades.
The Human-Grade Golden Core was the most common and the least threatening.
But a cultivator who forged an Earth-Grade Golden Core would Awaken a divine ability corresponding to their Spirit Root. Such an expert was a terrifying force to be reckoned with. One could even say that with this breakthrough, Chen Tian was destined to become a future pillar of his sect.
Suddenly, the Three-Tribulation Thunder Beast unleashed a deafening, tripartite roar, signaling the start of the final battle.
A terrifying aura washed over the land.
The metal head struck first. It shook its spiraling horn violently, unleashing a torrential storm of ten thousand golden blades that rained down from the sky.
The water head followed immediately, exhaling a river of glacial breath that flash-froze everything in its path.
Not to be outdone, the wood head let its venomous vines writhe like a source of ultimate poison, weaving the dense toxin into a vast, descending net of pure corrosion—a net designed to unmake all creation below!