Chapter 0701: Life and Death Realm
As this cultivator kept looking at Ning Cheng surmounting the tribulation, he simply couldn’t believe it at all. Even the Eternal Realm’s thunder tribulation wouldn’t contain such terrifying thunder force, would it? The more formidable one’s cultivation, the more powerful the thunder tribulation. This was something that everyone agreed. But who, when trying to surpass the ordeal, would not use weapons to resist it? Who would willingly rush into the core of the thunder tribulation to punch the tribulation arcs with his or her bare fists?
Was this a Dao Confirming Cultivator? But even Dao Confirming Powerhouses would not dare to do such a thing. At this moment, the cultivator mumbled to himself as if he had gone crazy. He simply couldn’t figure out whether that thunder tribulation or that cultivator surmounting the ordeal was unreal.
……
Ning Cheng didn’t know whether thunder tribulations existed because of the laws of heaven and earth, or whether someone or something controlled it. But he could sense that after he grew angry, the thunder tribulation seemed to have also turned angry as well.
Ning Cheng didn’t know whether the laws of the thunder tribulation were the same as the laws of heaven and earth, but it could not deter him. Even so, he still used his fists to resist the tribulation thunder arcs.
However, this time, Ning Cheng fists couldn’t scatter the lightning arcs like the last time. This time, empowered by the laws, the lightning arcs managed to crack the bones in Ning Cheng’s arms. Not only that, the next wave of thunder tribulation descended without any warning. These thunder tribulation arcs even locked down the area around him, making even the simplest movements difficult for Ning Cheng.
Even the laws of space accompanied this thunder tribulation. Ning Cheng felt even more anger at this. However, his mind turned rational. He understood that if he continued to fight like this, he would not be able to match up. He would eventually suffer even more losses, and there was even a high possibility of falling under this continuous thunder tribulation.
The reason why this thunder tribulation continues was that he was yet to advance to the Life and Death Realm. As long as he achieved the Life and Death Realm and broke through the cultivation barrier, the laws within the Life and Death Thunder Tribulation would start to dissipate. Even if it continued, once he advanced to the Life and Death Realm, this thunder tribulation would not pose any danger to him.
“Kaka” sounds of thunder continuously rang out. The accompanying laws of space contained within it tried to seal Ning Cheng within its range and turn everything within it to powder.
Ning Cheng took in a deep breath. Falling back on the last remaining piece of the broken starland, he let the thunder tribulation strike him. However, it couldn’t move him at all; instead, it helped Ning Cheng crazily coalesce his celestial essence.
The moment another wave of dense tribulation lightning arcs struck him, he suddenly punched out. This was the first time that he used his own spirit technique during a thunder tribulation. This thunder tribulation had its own worldly laws to empower it, but he also has the support of a law-related spirit technique.
Sunset’s Twilight!
The setting sun looked infinitely beautiful, almost nearing dusk! Even thunder tribulation has its sunset. In any case, thunder tribulation would not exist without life; this thought gradually allowed Ning Cheng to dissipate his fear against it. Since this tribulation came into existence due to the laws of heaven and earth, then it was equivalent of it having life. Since thunder tribulation existed because of life, it also meant that it had to adhere to constraints of the laws.
Therefore, every thunder tribulation also experienced dusk. Even if its sunset was very short, it still had an end.
As the scene of dusk appeared, the lightning arcs paused in just a blink of an eye. This momentary pause felt like a few breaths long, or maybe only one breath, or perhaps even a tenth of a breath.
But just for this moment, the tribulation thunder did stagnate under Sunset’s Twilight.
The celestial essence that Ning Cheng had crazily coalesced within his meridians suddenly burst out, just like water flowing out of a broken dam. As if flowed out, it directly struck the barrier to the Life and Death Realm.
“Boom…..” The shackles binding his cultivation exploded, and Ning Cheng’s body and mind felt completely empty at this moment. His meridians rapidly expanded then quickly started filling up with celestial essence. At this moment, he felt enamoured by the sense of powerful cultivation and the laws of heaven and earth filling him up. The celestial essence flowing through his body felt like water from a sweet spring. In just an instant, it completed one heavenly cycle within his body’s meridians. The power of laws also started to clear up within his mind at this moment. At the same time, his Starry Sky Sea of Consciousness rapidly expanded and spread out.
In just a single moment, Ning Cheng had utterly smashed apart the cultivation barrier and advanced to the Life and Death Realm.
“Bang-Bang-Bang…..”
The endless lightning arcs finally managed to break through the dusk and landed on Ning Cheng. Ning Cheng’s skin showed a few bloody marks at the points of contact, but those bloody marked disappeared in the blink of an eye. Even the arm that had cracked under the previous wave of thunder tribulation recovered in just an instant.
Ning Cheng rushed out again and punched. The thunder tribulation arcs of the next wave had not fallen when Ning Cheng’s fist directly blew them away, forcing them to scatter.
When Ning Cheng fell on the remnant fragment of the broken starland, there were no more lightning arcs in the endless starry sky above his head. The entire starry sky around him seemed to have gone quiet.
He had finally surmounted the thunder tribulation to the Life and Death Realm. In this thunder tribulation, Ning Cheng had not only managed to evolve his body into the Starry Sky Body, but even his cultivation had truly advanced to the Life and Death Realm.
After using the Dust Removal Technique on himself a few times, Ning Cheng then changed into a fresh and clean robe. Immediately, his gaze then moved towards a point in the distance, where a cultivator had watched him surmount the thunder tribulation. The moment his thunder tribulation disappeared, the cultivator fled. Seemingly afraid of reckoning.
Ning Cheng did not particularly want to catch the cultivator, but he brought out the Starry Sky Wheel and immediately went after the cultivator. He wanted to ask where he was right now.
However, before Ning Cheng could catch up to the cultivator, he stopped. He had already recognised where he was. When that pale-faced cultivator had chased after him, it forced him to come to this place unknowingly. In other words, this place was the periphery of the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land.
Thinking about the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land, Ning Cheng immediately thought of the Foreign Heaven’s Arrow. Back when he first saw the Foreign Heaven’s Arrow, he only had a Heaven’s Mandate Cultivation. Because of the lack of knowledge back then, when his spiritual consciousness swept out and reached the Foreign Heaven’s Arrow, the powerful and suppressive death aura from it had forced him to vomit out a mouthful of blood.
Back then, his cultivation was still too low. Therefore, he couldn’t take it away, even after knowing that this was the Foreign Heaven’s Arrow and that it had shot the Everlasting Blue Thunder City into the void.
Ning Cheng had been coveting this arrow for a long time. He didn’t know for how many years has that arrow remained untouched, but up until now, no one had managed to take it away. It showed that no cultivator could take it away.
Now that he had advanced to the Life and Death Realm, even if he had not come here, he would have made the trip to that place for the arrow in the future, let alone now when he accidentally come here.
Although his cultivation might not compare to the truly powerful Eternal Starry Sky Emperors, Ning Cheng believed that at least he could now contend against ordinary Eternal-level cultivators. Moreover, he still had the support of his biggest secret, his Starry Sky Sea of Consciousness. Potentially no one out there could compare to his Sea of Consciousness, even Eternal cultivators. Moreover, the cultivation method he used was the Mysterious Yellow Formless, which nothing else could compare.
Although Eternal experts cannot take away this Foreign Heaven’s Arrow, it did not mean that he couldn’t take it away. Even if he could not obtain, he had to try first before giving up.
……
As soon as Ning Cheng found his bearings and rushed into the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land, the bleak, vicissitude-filled, and desolate aura quickly washed over him. Moreover, because he had come to the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land previously, he felt some familiarity with it. Therefore, instead of looking for the merchant ships around the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land, Ning Cheng quickly made plans to directly head to the location of the Foreign Heaven’s Arrow.
However, when Ning Cheng’s spiritual consciousness swept around for a bit, he quickly found an old acquaintance, Warren.
In the past, Warren had worked with him and obtained many cultivation resources. But now that Ning Cheng saw him, Warren still hadn’t managed to break through from Heaven’s Mandate Realm to advance to the Heaven Seated Realm. Moreover, his aura also felt slightly unstable, even worse than when he had teamed up with them.
Ning Cheng shook his head. For the cultivators who stayed in the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land, they all had to carry their heads in their hands. It was quite reasonable to suffer some injuries due to the dangers in this place. Therefore, cultivators like Warren, who adventured through the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land perennially generally had a few lingering injuries. It would be strange if one did not sustain any injuries while roaming this place. What’s more, Heaven’s Mandate Realm was something of a bottleneck for a majority of the cultivators. Many cultivators could only linger and not break through Heaven’s Mandate Realm in their entire life.
Just when Ning Cheng wanted to recall his spiritual consciousness, a cultivator standing not far from Warren suddenly raised his hand and slapped Warren’s face. As the cultivator took back his hand from Warren’s face, it left behind five distinct bloodstained marks.
Yet, Warren did not move at all despite the grievance in his eyes.
Ning Cheng frowned. The cultivator who slapped Warren, at best, had a Heaven’s Mandate Cultivation. Why would Warren stand still and let others hit him? Why would he show such behaviour despite being a seasoned adventurer of the Ancient Desolace Abandoned Land?
At this point, the cultivator who slapped Warren raised his hand again and hit Warren’s face once again. Even then, Warren showed no sign of resistance.
Ning Cheng felt a little upset at this. He still had a good impression of Warren. The reason he obtained so many cultivation resources back then was mainly due to Warren inviting him to team up for exploring the Crow’s Nest. Seeing Warren purposefully holding himself back made Ning Cheng uncomfortable. Warren was one of his former teammates and in a sense was someone he considered as a friend. Thinking of this, Ning Cheng immediately turned a corner and landed on the merchant ship where Warren stood.
The cultivator standing opposite to Warren raised his palm again to slap Warren’s face, yet Warren still did not move. However, this time, that cultivator’s palm could not strike Warren’s face; instead, another palm seemed to have suddenly materialised out of thin air and grabbed on to the cultivator’s wrist.
The cultivator felt shocked to see a person grabbing his wrist. However, he did not dare to say a word. He was a cultivator in the Heaven’s Mandate Realm, yet this person grabbed his wrist and prevented him from any movement. How could he dare to say anything?
“Senior….” Warren immediately recognised Ning Cheng and exclaimed in surprise.
Ning Cheng slightly flicked his hand and threw away the cultivator who was about to hit Warren. Then he showed a smile to Warren and spoke, “It looks like you’ve had a rough time recently. Where are Yue Yuanxue and Dou Di, hope they are okay? My name is Ning Cheng; don’t call me ‘senior’ from now. Besides, we were teammates in the past.”
Ning Cheng had come from Earth, and as such, did not care about cultivation hierarchy.
“Who are you? Why did you hit me?” After Ning Cheng’s flicked away the cultivator, he finally managed to gain some courage and dared to question Ning Cheng.
“I’m Warren’s friend. Besides, I haven’t hit you yet. If I had actually hit you, did you think you could still stand here?” Ning Cheng calmly glanced at the cultivator and spoke up.
“Great timing, Ou Quan, go ahead and let him strike. I’d like to see how he tries to deal with people of my Ou Clan.” A white-robed cultivator stepped out at almost the same time his voice spread out.
Warren quickly bowed and spoke, “Warren greets Senior Ou.”
After that, Warren turned to Ning Cheng and said, “Brother Ning, this senior is Ou Zhentian of the Ou Clan, Ou Hongxin’s uncle.”
Ning Cheng suddenly understood a few things. Ou Hongxin had initially teamed up with them but later died in Crow Star. Ou Hongxin had perished under Ma Ximen’s hands, and this matter had nothing to do with Warren. But seeing Ou Clan’s people here, it looks like they want to hold Warren accountable for it. Something didn’t seem right.