Boom—!
The sixth, and final, strike.
Pitch-black as ink, as if it could swallow all light, the divine thunder finally fell with the overwhelming authority of the heavens, ready to end everything. This strike didn't make a sound—or rather, its sound had already transcended hearing, detonating directly in the depths of the Primordial Soul. Every inch it passed through, space collapsed into nothingness.
Xie Zhaolin tilted her head back, facing it with calm resolve.
Black thunder and body!
There was no imagined explosion, only the ultimate annihilation. She felt her body, her Primordial Soul, even her consciousness being shredded, consumed, dragged into eternal darkness.
Pain?
She couldn't feel it anymore. Even the part of her that could perceive pain seemed to vanish. Time, space, every concept blurred into nothing.
She only felt herself sinking, sinking… plummeting into a bottomless abyss. She had no idea how long it lasted, maybe a moment, maybe an eternity.
At last, the destructive black thunderlight slowly faded.
The valley… couldn't even be called a valley anymore. Only a bottomless, charred pit remained, its edges smooth like glass, as if some terrifying power had erased a massive chunk instantly.
The surrounding rock walls were gone, leaving an unusually open view, yet the air was heavy with death and destruction.
At the very bottom, Xie Zhaolin lay motionless. Her entire body was charred black, like a piece of fully burned charcoal, radiating no life whatsoever. Spiderweb-like cracks covered her body, fragile as if the slightest touch would crumble her to ash.
She didn't move, not even a faint breath or heartbeat remained.
Had she made it? Survived?
Inside the jade slip, You You, who had been hiding, barely daring to breathe, cautiously extended a sliver of divine sense.
When she "saw" Xie Zhaolin's lifeless, charred body, and sensed…
…nothing in her dantian, no trace of a golden core forming…
You You was completely dumbstruck.
"How… how is this possible…" her voice trembled, filled with disbelief and sheer panic, "The Heavenly Tribulation… it's supposed to be over! She survived all six purple heaven thunders! Why… why didn't the golden core form?!
Master… Master she…" You You's divine sense scanned Xie Zhaolin's dantian again and again. There was only deathly silence, and the remnants of the raging thunder energy still rampaging, yet the golden core—the symbol of life's leap—was nowhere to be found.
"No… impossible!" You You was on the verge of collapse, "She survived such a terrifying tribulation… how could she fail to form the core?! This makes no sense! No matter how overpowered the Xuanyin Foundation Technique is, surviving the tribulation should guarantee a core!"
Meanwhile, at the bottom of the pit, Xie Zhaolin's nearly dissipated consciousness struggled to condense into a thread of awareness.
She "looked" into her dantian.
Empty.
No golden core.
Only chaos and death.
Her heart sank violently, plunging into an endless ice-chamber of despair. A despair deeper, more suffocating than when facing the tribulation itself gripped her instantly.
"Why…" she silently screamed in her mind, filled with unwillingness and confusion.
She clearly felt the bottleneck shatter!
She clearly felt the birth of new energy!
She clearly saw the embryonic form of the golden core during the fifth thunder!
So why… after enduring the final, strongest strike of annihilation thunder… did the core… not fully form?
What went wrong?
Was her understanding still insufficient? Had she not yet fully grasped the essence of baleful qi?
Or… was the Xuanyin Foundation Technique itself a dead end, incapable of producing a golden core?
Countless doubts and icy despair surged like a tidal wave. Surviving a death-sealing tribulation… only to fall at the very last step?
This was even more cruel than dying under the thunder.
The bottom of the pit was deathly silent. Only occasional faint cracks in the charred earth could be heard. Yet, in this dead silence, the sky did not clear as expected.
Xie Zhaolin's consciousness floated between icy despair and lingering agony. She could feel her life force draining rapidly—this body was utterly spent.
Was it… over?
Just as her mind was about to sink into complete darkness, every last spark of defiance about to be erased—
"Wait!" You You's voice, trembling with tears, shot out from the jade slip, filled with astonishment and disbelief.
"Master! Look! Look at the sky!" her voice pierced the divine sense like a knife.
Xie Zhaolin's scattered consciousness snapped back, yanked by the sudden shout. She summoned the last ounce of strength to turn her gaze skyward. The thick thunderclouds that should have dissipated after the sixth strike hadn't. Not only hadn't they faded, they grew thicker and lower.
Rumble…
A heavy, unsettling rolling came from deep within the clouds. It wasn't thunder—it was something far more terrifying, brewing.
At the vortex's center, black as ink, an aura of destruction, more fearsome and soul-shattering than before, was raging.
This aura… had already surpassed the scope of a golden core tribulation!
It even carried a trace of heavenly punishment!
"What… what's going on?!" You You's voice trembled with fear and confusion, "All six thunders should be over! Why aren't the clouds dispersing? And… this pressure… it's worse than before!"
Xie Zhaolin fixed her gaze on the clouds. Her heart, long sunk to the valley floor, suddenly thumped violently. An absurd thought, yet possibly the only explanation, flashed through her mind like lightning.
"Could it be…" her consciousness trembled, a flicker of ember-like hope reigniting,
"…the golden core tribulation I triggered… isn't just six strikes?!"
The thought was shocking, even she couldn't believe it.
According to her cultivation notes, the Xuanyin Foundation Technique defies the heavens, and the golden core tribulation is capped at six strikes. That was the consensus. But now, the clouds hadn't dissipated, and the pressure had increased.
Clearly, the tribulation wasn't over.
So…
It wasn't that the golden core failed to form.
It was as if the heavens weren't going to give her a single chance to survive.
"Heh…"
A faint, cold laugh, laced with infinite ridicule and relief, echoed in Xie Zhaolin's heart.
"Fine. Since you're unfair, since you intend to cut off my path…"
"Then… come." Her last shard of consciousness gathered, forming a flicker of madness tempered with calm.
"Let's see if your divine thunder will break my will first…
Or if I… will carve my path to life from within your divine thunder!"