Chapter 473: Tribulation
A terrible power brewed in the sky over Jack. A large black cloud, extending for tens of thousands of miles, making the cultivators present look like ants. Every storm cloud on Earth was tiny compared to this.
Jack looked up. He knew what he was facing—this wasn’t his first rodeo. Invigorated and recharged by his breakthrough, he felt invincible. He clenched a fist; his inner world supplied endless power, power he was eager to vent. “Come,” he whispered.
“Heavenly tribulation…” Elder Heavenstar muttered in the distance. His eyes widened. “This is bad. Everyone, retreat!”
The spectating cultivators didn’t need to be told twice. They flew away, and even the massive Death Boat was driven away a great distance.
Everyone had heard stories about heavenly tribulation. The Dao of the universe followed its own rules, almost as if it was alive—these rules had shaped the path of cultivation long before the System did. However, rules meant limitations. Sometimes, a cultivator would dare to break those limitations, dare to defy the heavens, which would result in the universe itself blasting them to oblivion.
Heavenly tribulations were no joke. They weren’t opportunities or trials; they were assassinations. Everyone who managed to provoke a tribulation was an extreme genius of their generation, and even then, they almost always perished.
There was even a theory that, if not for tribulations, there would be double the number of Archons in the universe.
Of course, tribulations were beyond rare. Even for Jack, whose path so far converged to perfection, this was only his second. The first had come when he broke through to the D-Grade, a combination of using treasures to greatly accelerate his breakthrough and having absorbed the Life Drop. Back then, however, it hadn’t been a real tribulation, just a minor one activated from afar by Axelor, the Old God of Entropy. Jack had received assistance from the spirit of Enas and managed to overcome it.
This tribulation was something much more serious. He had openly and brazenly defied the rules of cultivation—twice. He had received the gifts of the Heavenly Dao, then challenged its authority. He had enraged it. This was a strike sent to kill him.