16 Chapter 16: Devastating Tribulation

The tribulation rampaging in Hu Immortal blessed land had reached it's peak. All of the terrain within in the blessed land was ruined to an extreme. The entire western region that spanned over 1,000 square kilometers of forest was burned to the ground. All that was left of the area was a smoking pile of dead trees, animal carcasses, and a large looming cloud of ash that chased all remaining signs of life away from the region.

The rest of the blessed land wasn't much better. Although most of the rockmen living in the southern quarry were safe, many of the naturally formed caves and excavated mines had collapsed. This resulted in the destruction of many valuable metal path Gu worms and Gu materials.

The eastern lake of fire which was the home of the fire snakes also suffered major losses. Although the majority of fire snakes had burrowed in their dens, most of the coal that the lake of fire rested on had been destroyed. This caused the ground underneath the lake of fire to be heavily damaged beyond repair. After the tribulation ended the soil and coal supporting the lake of fire would need to be replaced.

The only saving grace had been the northern Dragonfish Formation. Unlike the other regions the large body of water was relatively unharmed by the repetitive blasts of lightning hailing from the sky. No dead dragonfish had floated up to surface of the water and no materials that supported the sea had been harmed.

All in all, despite the several thousand deaths caused by the tribulation, Fang Yuan wasn't too worried. Everything that had been destroyed could be replaced very easily. And the terrain that was damaged could be replaced with Tai Bai Yun Sheng's help. The only real problem was the tribulation itself.

The Seven Thunder Cloud Tribulation hadn't stopped, instead it reached an entire new level of power. Judging by sheer number of lightning path dao marks in the sky, the earthly tribulation has evolved into a heavenly tribulation. Heavenly tribulations were much stronger than earthly tribulations. While a rank 6 Gu immortal would face an earthly tribulation every 10 years, they would face a heavenly tribulation every 100 years. The difference in the number of dao marks from an earthly tribulation to a heavenly tribulation was about 5 times.

Earthly tribulations typically had around 100~ dao marks whereas heavenly tribulations has around 500~ This difference seemed small but it most certainly wasn't. To most rank 6 Gu immortals, passing earthly tribulations was feasible, but passing heavenly tribulations was impossible. Many rank 6 Gu immortals used all sorts of methods to slow the speed of their immortal aperture to avoid the danger of heavenly tribulations.

Only truly powerful Gu Immortals like Feng Jiu Ge and Shi Li could completely ignore the dangers of heavenly tribulations. Fang Yuan thought that Vicious Lightning Fiend was also on that level, but it seemed he was having difficulties with this tribulation. After a few hours of combat Vicious Lightning Fiend was still surrounded by all seven of the original cloud monsters created by the tribulation. In all this time, he hadn't even managed to kill one.

Vicious Lightning Fiend floated in the sky, weaving and dodging every attack that tried to hit him. Sound blast after lightning shock, after cloud wave. Every single one of the thunder cloud creatures had their own special way of attacking, almost as if they were genuine desolate beasts and not the byproducts of a tribulation.

After a long while of hopelessly dodging Vicious Lightning Fiend managed to get them all close enough together where he could hit them all at once with a killer move. Once he was in position he spread all ten of his fingers out towards the figures attacking him and shouted, "Thunder Wave Web!"

The resulting attack was a massive web of electricity that sprung out from his hands. These strings of electricity casted a huge net over the seven cloud monsters, trapping them in a tight cocoon that kept them together. Vicious Lightning Fiend followed up by opening his mouth and gathering a bright ball of tightly packed qi in his throat. The ball of energy charged up, changing from the normal blue color of electricity to a dark red color that radiated incredible heat.

Vicious Lightning Fiend sucked the firey ball of lightning qi back into his throat and aimed his head directly at the trapped pack of cloud monsters. "Lightning Qi Blast!"

A massive blast of lightning shot out from Vicious Lightning Fiend's mouth and burned massive holes right through the cloud monsters upper bodies. The cloud monsters quickly turned limp, becoming dead pieces of what used to be sentient clouds. Vicious Lightning Fiend looked back down at Fang Yuan and smiled.

Fang Yuan's eyes narrowed when he saw the remaining pieces of cloud start to move. "I don't think it's over yet. You should make sure to destroy the creatures completely."

"What?" Vicious Lightning Fiend turned around just in time to be hit in the face by a bright red beam of lightning, the same color as the killer move he used to destroy the thunder cloud beasts before.

"Hmm, looks like the mutated thunder cloud monsters have very high regenerative properties. Not only that, they seem to be almost completely adaptable to any lightning path killer moves."

The cloud monsters had reformed, but they were even stronger this time around. All seven of them had become darker in color, closer to pitch black than the dark grey they were previously. But what was more shocking was that they emitted red lighting qi from their bodies, something they didn't show the ability to produce before. It was clear that they only gained this power after having been hit with it by Vicious Lightning Fiend.

"These creatures have enough intelligence to work together as a team. They have almost complete immunity to lightning path attacks and they can reform from hits that would kill normal desolate beasts..."

Fang Yuan quickly felt his greed crawling up his throat. These monsters were far too valuable to let die in this meaningless fight against Vicious Lightning Fiend. Sure, they would cause some damage against him, but Fang Yuan knew that Vicious Lightning Fiend hadn't pulled out his trump card yet. Once the Lightning Diety killer move was used Vicious Lightning Fiend would very quickly become the winner. Wouldn't it be much better if he could somehow capture these animals and force them to be his personal attack squad?

"Fairy?"

At Fang Yuan's voice little Hu quickly appeared next to him with a teary face. "Yes master?"

"Send a letter to that old man Lang Ya. Tell him I want to borrow his rank 7 Beast Enslavement Gu. Tell him to reply quickly and I'll pay him 500 immortal essence stones."

"Master? What will we do about Hu Immortal blessed land? All of the foxes and wolves have died."

Fang Yuan rubbed the little fairy's white fox ears. "Don't worry. I've already called Tai Bai Yun Sheng back to the blessed land. With his help we'll restore the blessed land back to it's proper state. Just pass along the message and I promise I'll buy twice as many animals as we had before."