The void above the desert trembled; the atmosphere became heavy as if the surrounding air was compressed.
As the pressure increased, a low hum crawled through the scorched sands… an echo of power too vast for any Dou Venerate to bear.
Shen Yi's earlier breakthroughs had already turned the dunes into molten glass, but now the heavens themselves stirred as if roused by an ancient challenge.
Inside the capsule dome, Zi Yan was sprawled lazily on the bed, chewing a spirit pill when the floor trembled beneath her. The walls rippled with distortion, a pulse that made her scales itch.
She froze, her pupils shrinking as she looked in the direction of Shen Yi.
Rumbling!!!
Outside, the once-clear sky was gone, replaced by a swirling ocean of bruised purples and bleeding blacks. Lightning veins tore across the heavens, each arc whispering untamed fury.
Zi Yan's lips parted, and she whispered, "This… this isn't normal lightning."
The words barely left her mouth before she felt it, that oppressive, soul-crushing presence descending.
The Dou Saint's tribulation began.
The temperature plummeted as spatial layers twisted, and he knew: the heavens had recognized his existence. What came next would determine whether he would stand as a Dou Saint or vanish as ash scattered by divine judgment.
Without hesitation, Shen Yi raised his hand. A flicker of light flashed from his palm, covering the slender hourglass, its frame etched in celestial runes, with white-blue thunder sand flickering inside…
The Temporal Thunder Hourglass.
Golden-white sand churned within, each grain pulsing like a heartbeat, each one a condensed moment of existence... birth and death compressed into dust.
Shen Yi felt it immediately: the power of time, bound by lightning.
"Temporal attribute… and tribulation lightning together," he murmured, his eyes narrowing toward the first lightning tribulation condensing in the cloud above. "Let's see which one wins."
The next moment, before he finished his sentence, a thunderclap ripped across the sky.
A bolt of darkness, thick as a dragon's spine, crashed downward, black lightning infused with decay, its energy twisting even time around it.
Shen Yi didn't flinch; he started running his Primordial Art, purplish-blue arcs roaring to life across his skin. The lightning shroud pulsed like living armor, its light burning against the night sky.
BOOM!
The collision shattered the silence. The impact cratered the desert, shattering the glass dunes into splinters of light. The void itself rippled like torn clothes.
The black lightning clawed at him, seeking to erode flesh, blood, and time alike. Yet his own lightning rose to meet it, interlocking in a violent spiral.
The hourglass in his hand vibrated violently, then burst open.
A torrent of golden-white lightning sand erupted, swirling upward in a storm of temporal fury. Time force, and then the void fractured around him, scattering for thousands of miles.
For an instant, Shen Yi saw himself in infinite reflections, past, present, and future overlapping. Each breath he took seemed to echo through eternity. The tribulation lightning, instead of striking him, was swallowed whole; it was devoured by the Primordial Art along with the hourglass's temporal thunder and refined into the storm coiling around his physique.
The sky split again.
Rumbling!!!
This time, unleashing crimson bolts thick with destructive heat. They felt like judgment spears.
But Shen Yi's power had already transformed as the Primordial Art started swallowing the temporal thunder.
His will merged with the temporal current. With a thought, time itself warped. Some lightning bolts slowed midair, crawling forward like dying embers; others accelerated, overshooting his form in blinding flashes.
"Time bends to my will now…"
His voice was steady but low, vibrating with thunder.
Three soul clones emerged beside him, each wreathed in purple arcs, each mirroring his movements with flawless precision. Together, they channeled and refined the energy from every strike.
His lightning dragon physique shone beneath the storm, each silver-blue scale on his physique glimmering with runes that shifted like living circuits. His veins pulsed molten gold; his marrow hummed with power. Every heartbeat sounded like a thunderclap.
Within him, Dou Qi and temporal lightning intertwined, space, time, and soul fusing into one cohesive force.
From afar, Zi Yan watched, her pupils widened, reflecting the blinding radiance above. She was truly surprised by his tribulation process. He was no longer just battling the heavens; he was devouring them.
The storm was a living entity now, a grand symphony with Shen Yi as its composer.
Each wave of lightning he met not with resistance but dominion.
Each blast that should've annihilated him instead spiraled into his core, feeding the vortex of temporal lightning surrounding him.
The desert became a celestial sea. The scent of ozone mixed with something older, like the aroma of creation itself, where destruction and genesis were indistinguishable.
Time bent, reversed, then snapped forward again. To Zi Yan, it looked as though multiple Shen Yis stood overlapping in time... each in different motions of battle, burning brighter than the last.
Then came the final tribulation; the sky dimmed into a pure gold color.
From the heart of the storm descended the final bolt, a colossal pillar of golden lightning that split the heavens and earth.
Shen Yi stood up as his scales gleamed like forged crystal, his wings spread wide, veins surging with power that no longer belonged to mortals.
He raised his hands slowly toward the falling bolt.
The last sand particles shaping temporal thunder dissolved into light, merging into his veins, its grains of sand becoming countless motes that danced within his Dou Qi.
"Then let's end it." He muttered thoughtfully, raising his hand toward the golden lightning beam and activating the temporal lightning and Primordial Art.
The golden lightning slowed down and then squirmed toward his palm in the shape of a spiral, as if golden liquid rolling inside a draining pipe with no sound; only golden light remained.
Slowly, the golden light disappeared, and the world dimmed and then lit up with the golden sun rays that rose from the corner. As the sunlight scattered, only silence remained.
...
Patreon.com/chaosgray
Join for advanced dimensions and support me on my full time writing path.