Chương 56: Chapter 55 — Heavenly Tribulation

The extraction team sprinted out of the area. Using the vans would have been too slow in this terrain, and each of them possessed a movement technique to enable quick escapes — this was part of the reason why they had been chosen for this mission. In case of danger, they had a high chance of escaping before getting into serious danger, or at least escaping whilst injured enough to pass on a message for backup.

Lin Che was still frozen in place, and soon only he, Shen Bowen, and Elder Mao remained in a small radius around the portal. Even Yang Zichen had fled with the rest of the team. The stormclouds darkened as they descended down a winding arc closer to Lin Che, but they were still firmly in the sky. There was a flash of blue before the first bolt came down and struck Lin Che directly in the crown of his head. He was sitting cross-legged in the middle of the wheat field, half-panicking.

Swallow Returns to the Nest instinctively activated in an attempt to dodge the lightning strike, but, since some mysterious force locked Lin Che in place, it instead disrupted his emotional regulation and filled his body with misplaced adrenaline that had no way out. The wheat around him was burning.

"—what." Shen Bowen's voice came out very quietly. Elder Mao stood next to him with his hands folded behind his back, watching Lin Che. His face wore an expression that would have been illegible to most people, save for those who had known him for decades. Shen Bowen read his face and simply nodded. The second bolt came. Lin Che's head dropped slightly at the impact, before he raised it again. The strike tempered his meridians as the bolt coursed through his entire body.

It wove its way directly through each pathway and left its mark in Lin Che's cultivation base. And then, it began attracting the grain once again, all into one dense amalgamation of goop.

"Is he going to survive this?" asked Shen Bowen.

"The strength of a Heavenly Tribulation is proportional to Qi volume," replied Elder Mao.

"I am aware."

"Concerningly, this seems to be his first ever one."

"This cannot be his first one. The sheer volume alone—""Look closely — the boy has no method of defending himself from the strikes. He's not even attempting to resist… I'm afraid this may be his death bed," sighed Elder Mao.

"At least we've got what we initially wanted out of him," said Shen Bowen.

"Though it's a real shame since he promised us much more than we expected." The crackles in the sky suddenly stopped. The clouds were gearing up for one final attack with whatever remaining strength they could muster. Lin Che popped back into awareness. He realised now that the Heavenly Tribulation he was experiencing was a genuine life-or-death moment for him. Each bolt that had struck him injured him both internally and externally. Externally was fine, after all, his physical wounds never looped back with him.

But internally… his cultivation and his memories were the only things that came back with him. If he were permanently crippled by the Heavens, he'd only have his memories to rely on and somehow have to go through everything he'd experienced at a hellish difficulty without any cultivation to defend himself. Or, it could be potentially worse. He wasn't sure if his looping ability was tied to his cultivation or not, but he sure as hell wasn't going to risk any chances.

Lin Che pushed the Hollow Bell Resonance to its absolute maximum diffusion. The principle was sound enough: flood the surrounding air with resonant Qi until it formed a medium dense enough to catch and scatter the discharge. If it then absorbed enough of the impact, his body should hopefully be able to handle the remaining energy. If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

The problem was that it cost an extraordinary amount of Qi to maintain, and his reserves were already considerably drained. His meridians, freshly expanding and half-consolidated from the lightning, were limiting his output capacity, as the familiar routes he had were now malformed from the previous two bolts. The final bolt was much thicker than the previous ones. It looked, instead, like a spear from the heavens or a homing missile aimed directly at Lin Che.

The umbrella of resonant Qi scattered part of the impact, but the remainder hit him in the chest and he toppled sideways into the burning wheat. His reserves ran dry, and the umbrella crumpled into nothingness, causing the lightning energy to move towards the next-closest thing: Lin Che himself. In a last ditch effort, he ran the Boundless Intake Sutra and absorbed the lightning energy from the tribulation itself into his internal ocean of Qi.

Lin Che coughed out blood, a violent chemical reaction occurring deep within. He looked internally, completely ignoring his external flesh burning in the flames — preserving his ability to cultivate was his priority. Deep within the ocean of his, right where all of the energy from the tribulation had concentrated, a mound of earth raised itself from the floor like a volcanic eruption.

Once fully surfaced, a volcano of lightning isolated itself in the centre of the sea, like a lighthouse on a remote island far, far away from the rest of the world. It calmed down, eventually, and the burning sensation deep within Lin Che's chest came to a stop. Occasionally, the volcano would flare up, and he would feel a slight warmth like a second heartbeat, but it was now a painless reminder of the tribulation Qi's existence within him.

Lin Che pushed himself upright with one arm and took a status report of himself. Only once he looked down did he notice that half of his shirt was on fire, and the flesh underneath had sustained serious burns. He rolled himself in the mud now that the Heavenly Tribulation was over, and Shen Bowen and Elder Mao watched his movements, completely stunned.

"He can figure out a method on the spot to protect himself during a Heavenly Tribulation, but he can't figure out a method to dispel a regular fire?" asked Elder Mao to no one in particular.

"Tell no one of this. No one can know that my nephew-in-law has been rolling around in mud like a pig," said Shen Bowen. Lin Che, no longer on fire, moved to stand up, but felt a pounding headache and a sense of nausea once both feet were on the floor. Before he fell, Elder Mao appeared in front of him and supported him upwards.

"Thank you," coughed Lin Che. His lungs were full of smoke from the wheat fire.

"Come, I'll walk you to your residence," he replied.

"Shen Bowen! Call the extraction team to reconvene within ten minutes. The extraction will go ahead as usual," he shouted behind him as he helped Lin Che limp over towards the farmhouse.

Shen Bowen reached into his pocket and pulled out a flare gun, which he proceeded to point towards the sky. It was a green signal, giving the all clear for everyone to get back to the portal to the holy land. Two minutes later, the entirety of group A stood in front of Shen Bowen and Jianfeng awaiting their orders.

"Alright, group A," began Jianfeng, reading off a checklist.

"Your equipment is located in the…" he slowed down and looked around to the surroundings.

"That van there… with the shattered windscreen" he sighed. Thankfully, the internal environment of the van hadn't entirely been compromised, so all of the equipment for the extraction remained undamaged. This included reinforced vials for herb collecting so that an analysis team could receive a sample of each and figure out the best way to pick each herb and or maintain the growth conditions for future harvests, as well as video and mapping equipment charged by spirit stones.

Using mortal technology was possible inside most, if not all, secret realms, but, for reasons still unknown to researchers, their battery life would considerably drop. Some experts theorised that it was something to do with the formations used to create a secret realm in the first place, but it was impossible to test such a theory as the specific formulae for their creation had been destroyed and lost to time. Shen Bowen's phone buzzed. I heard he chose Dalian for the honeymoon.

Increase their budget and arrange accommodation for me, too. Shen Bowen raised an eyebrow. It was from a number he didn't have saved, except they knew the details discussed during the elder-only meeting last night. There were only two people privy to this information who weren't present during the discussions. Both were senior enough to command him over text, too. The sect leader, however, didn't use a phone and preferred using the communication methods of his generation.

Shen Bowen chuckled to himself before sending a text. You really seem to favour that kid. I'll book another room one floor higher for you if that's fine. It seemed that Elder Wong had recently changed her number.