Chapter 926: Personalized Punishment Pack
In this body, I continued training on. Even after the Red Sun temporarily left for whatever meeting the upper ranks of the Confederation deemed important enough to drag a Yin Stage cultivator away from training, I had no intention of wasting the momentum I’d built. My body still carried the lingering aches of weeks spent getting battered into enlightenment, but beneath the pain, there was undeniable growth. Every movement felt tighter than before. More deliberate. The Golden Titan Art no longer resembled the crude brutality I first used when learning it. It still favored overwhelming force, but now there was rhythm beneath the violence, structure behind the destruction.
As the Red Sun had to excuse himself to go to some form of meeting with the higherups of the confederation. Though I was not asked to join, I wasn’t going to waste the precious insights I got from our fights and waste them here. There was no resentment in being excluded. Frankly, I doubted sitting through meetings with old monsters arguing over galactic politics would benefit me nearly as much as another few years of training.
I let Shen Mo’s body continue its internal cultivation while I turned my focus back on Shen Bao who was in a pinch right now.
*****
Around the ship that almost reached its destination, I could already feel the pressure of the world around us. It pressed against the hull long before the tribulation fully formed, a subtle but unmistakable heaviness spreading through space itself. The stars beyond the viewing panels appeared dimmer somehow, their light distorted faintly by gathering heavenly pressure. Even the ship’s formation arrays reacted, flickering softly along the walls as they adjusted against environmental instability.
The tribulation was preparing to e out.
Thanks to the Primordial Serpent God, and the absurd amounts of Origin Qi crystals, I made it to the peak of the Heaven Realm and was on the cusp of what felt like the Sun stage. Even now, thinking about the sheer quantity of Qi I’d consumed over the last month felt vaguely insane.
The reason I said it felt like a Sun Stage tribulation because the tribulation gathering was not as powerful as I thought it would be. It was there, but I could swear I fought worse. That discrepancy bothered me immediately. A breakthrough toward the Sun Stage should not feel mild. After everything I’d seen from the Suns themselves, after witnessing tribulations capable of threatening entire planets, the pressure outside the ship felt strangely restrained.
It was red clouds within space, as if you could even imagine something like that happening. With different colored clouds, a sight to behold and admire. The sight would have been beautiful if heavenly tribulations weren’t essentially cosmic murder attempts wrapped in dramatic visuals.
How cute.
The clouds churned unnaturally through the vacuum, twisting around each other in massive spirals of crimson, gold, and deep black. Lightning flickered silently within them, illuminating space in brief flashes that painted the ship’s metallic hull in violent colors.
Thirty days, times one thousand. Thirty thousand days, or close to eighty two years. An entire mortal lifespan spent sitting cross-legged while drowning myself in cultivation resources powerful enough to start wars. The Primordial Serpent God devoured alongside me like a bottomless abyss, and together we burned through mountains of Origin Qi crystals at a horrifying pace.
Cultivation sounded mystical and profound until you actually experienced decades of repetitive meditation pressed into a single month outside. By the end of it, even with Shen Mo’s constant battles keeping part of my mind occupied, I had bee painfully aware of every flaw in the human body’s ability to remain seated for eternity.
Truly one of cultivation’s greatest hidden lies. Ancient manuals always described enlightenment and transcendence, but never the horrifying stiffness that came from eighty years of cross-legged meditation.
And not to mention, you get hella sore sitting in one position for that long.
I don’t remend.
I stood up, and walked out of the Pagoda. My joints cracked immediately from the motion despite the absurd level of cultivation I now possessed. The Primordial Serpent God remained behind, still greedily wrapped around reactors draining every remaining trace of Qi from them like an addict refusing to stop at merely “enough.”
The Dusking Sun was sitting in front of the large monitor, watching ahead as the ship cruised toward the dead planet.
“You’re out in time,” he said, “But I suppose this is your doing?” he asked.
His gaze shifted briefly toward the massive clouds forming outside before returning to me. There was no concern in his tone yet, only observation.
“Yeah, Y, how about we stop for a bit,” I said.
The ship immediately slowed under Y’s control, its formations humming softly while momentum bled away into the emptiness of space.
“Doesn’t look like a threatening tribulation.”
“That’s what’s worrying me,” I replied.
The Dusking Sun frowned slightly at that. Most cultivators would celebrate an easier tribulation. I distrusted it immediately. The heavens had never once treated me kindly enough to make this feel natural.
“I’d rather congratulate you first, then, since it looks simple enough for even a void stage to clear.”
“As I said, that’s what is worrying me,” I said as Y stopped the ship.
The clouds kept condensing and soon stopped, forming a ring around us. The movement was strangely precise. Not chaotic like ordinary tribulations. Deliberate. Controlled. Vast crimson rings spread outward through space, circling the ship while flashes of pale lightning crawled silently along their edges.
“I’ll go out, can’t have the ship be struck by lightning,” I said.
The Dusking sun nodded and waited for me inside.
I moved toward the outer hatch, the ship opening smoothly before me. The moment I stepped into open space, the pressure intensified sharply. Heavenly Qi vibrated around me violently, reacting to my cultivation as if recognizing it.
Just as I got out of the ship and flew into outer space, a lightning bolt shot down, too fast to react to, too fast to even intercept. It had no killing intent in it, even, but it was just absurdly… lightning fast… no pun intended.
One instant, I floated in open space beneath the tribulation clouds. The next, reality itself flashed white.
The lightning struck so quickly that my mind barely registered impact before my entire existence felt displaced. Not injured. Moved. As if space folded around me and dragged my body somewhere else entirely before thought could catch up.
And my vision darkened.
The transition carried no pain.
Only disorientation.
Soon, my sight returned to me as I looked around, “Ah, figures…” I thought as I realized what had happened.
The familiar massive chamber stretched before me once again. Endless red carpet. Towering walls covered in ancient carvings. The same suffocating atmosphere of authority older than civilizations themselves.
At this point, I was honestly beginning to feel like a regular visitor.
The Enforcer remained seated upon the massive throne, unmoving, yet his presence filled the chamber more pletely than any visible motion could. Standing here again after everything that had happened carried a strange sense of inevitability now. Most cultivators faced lightning and heavenly fire. Apparently, my tribulations involved direct appointments with cosmic management.
“Sup, Enforcer. I guess it’s time for that tribulation then,” I rolled my shoulders as I walked the gigantic red carpet toward the Enforcer of the Heavens.
A heavenly tribulation, personalized specifically for me.
How nice.
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