Chapter 265 - 264: Heaven’s Might (2)
"I will not let you harm him!" Bai Qingyue gritted her teeth, wiping the blood away with the back of her hand. Her eyes blazed with a fierce, unbreakable devotion. She rapidly changed her hand seals, burning a portion of her resorted cultivation to summon thick, spiraling ribbons of spiritual silk, throwing them forward in a desperate attempt to physically anchor him against the crushing gravity.
The ribbons touched the perimeter of the Heaven Might and instantly combusted into white ash.
A second, and infinitely more violent wave of spiritual backlash slammed into her chest. Bai Qingyue cried out in agony, her knees buckling as her Golden Core violently trembled, threatening to crack under the sheer punishment of opposing the Heaven’s Might.
Before she could hit the floor, two figures rushed forward.
Bai Chen and Su Yin caught her simultaneously, supporting her weight as she fell to her knees, coughing up another mouthful of blood.
"Cousin, stop!" Bai Chen yelled, his voice cracking with sheer panic, his own hands trembling as he felt the apocalyptic pressure radiating from the center of the arena. "You cannot fight it! You will destroy your new foundation!"
"I must... I must help him..." Bai Qingyue gasped, struggling weakly against their grip, her tear-filled eyes locked entirely onto Lin Yuan’s pinned form.
"What is happening to him?!" Bai Chen asked desperately, looking from his bleeding cousin to the crater where the Lin Yuan was trapped. "Is brother-in-law under attack by the Central Continent? Which Emperor is doing this?!"
"It is not the Emperors, Bai Chen," Su Yin answered, her voice laced with profound terror. The Saintess of the Pure Cloud Sect was pale, her Foundation Establishment aura quivering in the presence of heaven’s suppression. "Look at their faces. Even the Void Refinement sovereigns are shocked. This is the wrath of the heavens."
Bai Qingyue wiped the blood from her chin, her breathing ragged, but her eyes sharpened.
"So... this is the talk about Heaven’s Might," Bai Qingyue rasped, her voice trembling but carrying an absolute clarity.
She looked at her cousin, forcing him to meet her gaze.
"Chen’er, listen to me," she continued. "It is a commonly known tale among Azure Cloud City, that one of the ancient ancestors of the Xu Clan, once faced a Heavenly Tribulation of this exact magnitude. When his tribulation began, it first started with Heaven’s Might—this exact, invisible suppression of all life."
Bai Chen listened, his grip on her arm tightening. "Did he survive it?"
"He did," Bai Qingyue nodded fiercely, coughing weakly before pressing on. "He survived the crushing weight of Heaven’s Might, and then... he faced the Lightning Tribulation that followed. But the Xu Clan ancestor did not just endure it; he used it! He allowed the tribulation to strike him, which allowed him to steal the Heavenly Thunder Essence directly from it! He used that stolen essence to forge the legendary Five Thunder Arts! He ran away from the final strikes of the lightning tribulation, surviving by the skin of his teeth, but he survived the Heaven Might!"
Bai Qingyue pointed a trembling finger toward the crater where Lin Yuan was pinned.
"The records are absolute on one specific detail," Bai Qingyue emphasized, a wild, desperate hope blooming in her chest. "They say the Xu Clan ancestor survived because he was an unparalleled expert in body cultivation. Just like my husband! Lin Yuan possesses the Ancient Beast Body!"
Bai Chen’s eyes widened, "So this is Heaven’s Might!" Bai Chen declared, his voice rising with a defiant, unyielding roar. He looked toward the crater, his fists clenched tight enough to draw blood from his own palms. "If some ancient ancestor from the Xu Clan can survive it with a his own body cultivation technique, then Lin Yuan will shatter it! My brother-in-law’s physique is unmatched in the Nine Provinces! He will not bow to the sky!"
In the center of the massive, hundred-yard crater, Lin Yuan wanted to speak. He wanted to tell Bai Qingyue to stop hurting herself. He wanted to tell Bai Chen that his faith was not misplaced.
But the pressure was so unimaginably immense that he simply couldn’t make any actions of the sort.
The Heaven Might was a physical, conceptual vice closing around every single atom of his being. His jaw was locked shut, his teeth grinding together so hard they threatened to splinter. The pristine black and white fabric of his robes was pressed flat against his skin, the ambient air compressed into a state denser than solid steel.
You wish to erase me, Lin Yuan’s Primordial Spirit roared silently within the space of his mind, staring up at the invisible, descending force of the Heavenly Dao. Because I forged my own path. Because I cured the woman you cursed.
Lin Yuan’s Rank 10 Ancient Beast Body ignited. The golden-purple metallic sheen of his flesh flared with blinding intensity. The Nine Essence Genesis Pill had refined his cells, his bones, and his blood to an archaic standard of perfection. His bones groaned, a horrific, echoing sound like grinding tectonic plates, but they absolutely refused to snap. His knees, bent under the weight of millions of pounds of heavenly force, did not touch the pulverized star-iron floor.
He was holding the sky upon his shoulders.
The Heavens, seemingly enraged that he at the Early Stage of Soul Transformation possessed a physical vessel capable of resisting its absolute erasure, escalated the suppression.
The invisible pressure of Heaven Might violently doubled.
The star-iron bedrock of the Grand Court, already pulverized into a crater, was driven another fifty feet straight down into the earth.
But as Heaven Might failed to destroy Lin Yuan’s body due to him having the Ancient Beast Body, the sheer, contradictory clash of an immovable object against an unstoppable force began to tear the surrounding reality apart.
The collateral damage of the escalating Heaven Might was catastrophic.
High above the Central Continent, the very fabric of space began to violently groan and fracture.
CRACK-K-K-K-K!