When Yunxi appeared inside the cave residence, Hao Yi was channeling spiritual energy into Hao Ran Zhēnzūn, helping suppress the leaking evil qi. She had broken through to the Out-of-Body stage, yet the gap to Mahayana was vast, so what she poured in was a drop in the bucket.
"Ancestor Hao Yi, what happened?"
Sweat beaded at Hao Yi's temples, but she stayed composed. While forming hand seals to continue the energy infusion, she lifted a hand to open the cave's barrier and explained to Yunxi, "I came today to stand guard for Senior Brother Hao Ran. He said that after years of refinement, that wisp of evil qi could be driven out smoothly. But at the critical moment, the evil qi counterattacked and surged along the meridians toward his heart meridian.
He had not yet returned to peak. This made it worse. Fortunately he reacted quickly and used spiritual power to protect his heart meridian, but he lost control of the evil qi. It is roaming his extraordinary meridians. He is already showing signs of falling into evil. I had no choice but to call you."
Yunxi heard and knew the matter was urgent. Hao Yi would not sound this anxious otherwise.
She said at once, "Ancestor Hao Yi, wake Hao Ran Zhēnzūn's consciousness now. I will send Mystic Thunder Violet Flame into his body. Tell him not to resist."
"Good. Do it."
Hao Yi answered without hesitation.
Yunxi roused Zi Yan, who slumbered in her dantian, and sent it into Hao Ran Zhēnzūn with a flick of her hand.
At the same time, Hao Yi's lips moved. A soundless ripple surged into Hao Ran Zhēnzūn.
Though Yunxi heard nothing, she saw Hao Ran Zhēnzūn's body shudder, then his eyes slowly opened.
Yunxi watched tensely. If he had already fallen into evil, no one in Hao Ran Sect could keep him here.
Thankfully, Hao Ran Zhēnzūn remained lucid. In a hoarse voice he said, "Hao Yi, Ran Xi, do what you must. I can endure it."
He tapped several points over his own dantian. In the next instant his aura weakened drastically. Yunxi sensed the spiritual power that had been resisting the evil qi withdraw rapidly into the dantian, which then sealed completely.
Deprived of a spiritual blockade, the evil qi grew wildly unrestrained. Its good fortune did not last. The instant spiritual power receded, it was fully exposed to Mystic Thunder Violet Flame. Zi Yan's flames flared a deeper violet in excitement and twined around the strands of evil qi within a single breath.
Evil qi and Mystic Thunder Violet Flame used Hao Ran Zhēnzūn's flesh as a battlefield and began a desperate struggle. Through their contract mark, Yunxi's spiritual power flowed like water into Zi Yan.
Hao Ran Zhēnzūn's body suffered for it. Within a few breaths, blood seeped from his skin. His body quivered faintly, the corded tension of his muscles proof of the pain he was forcing himself to endure.
Hao Yi had already ceased channeling, hands folding into a guard seal as she watched him with taut concern. Relief flickered across her face for a heartbeat. At least no more evil qi was leaking out. She swallowed a replenishing pill and sat cross-legged beside Yunxi to protect the process, not daring to interrupt with questions.
Yunxi gripped a supreme-grade spirit stone for intake while continuously feeding spiritual power to Zi Yan. Linked in thought, she guided Zi Yan to drag the evil qi away from Hao Ran's heart meridian, and with the outer flames of Zi Yan scorched every inch of meridian the evil qi had tainted. Evil qi was like maggots on bone. Relax for a moment and it would counterattack at its fiercest.
It took a full eighty-one days for Zi Yan to refine that wisp of evil qi. Yunxi had supplied it with spiritual power day and night, or it would have taken even longer. That hidden hand had been left by a Mahayana evil cultivator. Without Mystic Thunder Violet Flame, the result would have been uncertain.
Refining the evil qi, and Yunxi's torrent of energy over that period, also widened her own meridians again. This time she could no longer suppress the breakthrough pressing at her limits.
She did not even have time to recall Zi Yan into her dantian. She turned to Hao Yi. "I am going to break through to Unity."
Hao Yi had sensed it too. She swept her sleeve to open the barrier. In the next heartbeat Yunxi's figure vanished from the cave.
Hao Yi worried about Ran Xi's tribulation, but Hao Ran Senior Brother's state remained uncertain. She dared not leave and instead sent a message talisman to the sect master, asking him to check on Ran Xi's tribulation.
Yunxi flashed to the summit of a barren peak within sect grounds. This mountain had been set aside specifically for tribulations. Over the past ten years it had seen heavy use. Many disciples had advanced.
Because this was a Unity tribulation, the moment she arrived Yunxi waved her sleeve to push unrelated disciples to a safe distance. The light of a Unity tribulation was not something lower-stage disciples could brush against.
By the time Yunxi sat cross-legged, Sect Master Yu Geng had reached the tribulation peak. Moments later, Yu Ling, Hao Hui, and Hao Qing appeared beside him.
The sect master bowed slightly. "I received Ancestor Hao Yi's message. Ran Xi Zūnzhǔ is crossing a Unity thunder tribulation."
He hardly needed to say it. The three could see. Their cultivation was at late Divine Transformation peak, a hair from Out-of-Body.
Hao Yan had surpassed them by a step and crossed an Out-of-Body thunder tribulation a year ago, a true release of accumulated strength. She still remained in seclusion to consolidate, so only these three had come.
Within the sect, nearly everyone permitted to watch a high-stage tribulation had gathered, with each peak's peak lord standing farther back. The pressure from the tribulation thunder was too strong for them to approach, but it did not stop them from catching a little of the post-tribulation spiritual rain.
Yu Ling looked at the heavy black clouds over her disciple and the flicker of violet thunder and still felt her palms damp. A Unity seven-by-nine thunder tribulation was nothing easy to withstand.
At the center of thunder, Yunxi remained calm. Before the first wave of nine bolts fell, she swallowed a grade-seven spirit-replenishing pill to top off the energy Zi Yan had consumed, tucked another in her mouth as backup, and waited for the tribulation to descend.
She would use the first three waves to temper her body as usual. Her Star Trek Body-Refining Art had reached the advanced chapter. Using tribulation lightning to refine the body was now routine.
"The tribulation thunder is coming!"