Chapter Ninety-Three: Aftermath

Chapter Ninety-Three: Aftermath

The pressure in the sky was boundless, yet the divine thunder did not descend. Below, the forest had already been leveled into a vast, flat expanse.

Wu Hong fled at full speed, taking advantage of the moment to scoop up Wu Songran, who had been waiting atop a nearby mountain, and Li Ruolan, bringing them both with him.

Only when they escaped beyond the boundaries of the Great Western Lake did he finally breathe a sigh of relief. But in the distance, the tribulation clouds still churned. By now, the commotion in the heavens had already alarmed many masters within the imperial city of Bianjing.

Some of these experts had witnessed the Poison Elder transcend the lightning tribulation before. They knew how terrifyingly fierce it was—something no mere human strength could resist.

Yet there were always those who refused to believe in such dangers, insisting on moving closer to observe. They didn’t even reach the heart of the storm before being shredded to pieces by the violent winds.

Only then did all those watching grow wise.

But this tribulation seemed to be brewing for an unusually long time. Two whole hours passed, and the edges of the Great Western Lake swarmed with more and more curious masters, all eager to witness the lightning tribulation.

No one could make sense of it.

“Brother, do you know who is crossing the innate lightning tribulation this time?”

“How should I know? I just arrived myself.”

The crowd murmured among themselves, but, having learned from the previous example, none dared approach. They could only watch from afar.

The tribulation clouds above shifted constantly in color, cycling through every imaginable hue before finally reverting to a swirling black mass with a gray opening at its center.

A gentle breeze swept over the spectators in the distance, leaving everyone feeling inexplicably refreshed.

Some forgot themselves entirely and began to moan aloud.

Wu Songran, after the breeze passed, flushed bright red and let out a soft, alluring sigh. When she realized Wu Hong had glanced at her, her cheeks burned all the way to the roots of her hair.

Wu Hong glanced around, noticing that most people were similarly affected. He frowned deeply—he distinctly remembered that when the Poison Elder crossed his tribulation, nothing like this had occurred.

A sense of danger flickered through his heart.

“This isn’t good! Danger! Everyone, flee as far as you can!” Wu Hong suddenly shouted at the crowd, his voice carrying so that nearly everyone could hear.

Then, tucking both women under his arms, he began to flee with all his might.

Some of the crowd were also formidable martial artists, at the peak of the Postnatal Realm. Though the sense of danger was not as intense for them as it was for Wu Hong, they too felt uneasy.

Wu Hong’s sudden outcry left his face grim as he desperately tried to escape.

He summoned all his true energy, manifesting a pair of wings spanning over a hundred meters across his back, and shot away at top speed.

Suddenly, a thunderclap split the sky with a boom so loud it seemed to shatter the very heavens. Wu Hong nearly lost his balance mid-flight and nearly fell.

If even Wu Hong struggled, the fate of the less fortunate—wandering martial artists and ordinary townsfolk—was far worse.

By now, tens of thousands had gathered along the shores of the Great Western Lake. That single, earth-shattering peal of thunder instantly turned those standing too close into nothing but mist and blood.

The few experts who managed to escape looked back at the carnage, faces ashen, and fled all the more frantically.

Wu Hong also ran for his life, pushing himself to the limit. He never imagined that a single, careless thought would lead to such consequences.

The thunder that exploded within the tribulation clouds had claimed tens of thousands of lives in an instant. It was truly terrifying!

Before the might of heaven and earth, humans were less than ants.

Wu Songran and Li Ruolan both turned pale with terror.

The Great Western Lake lay five hundred li from the imperial city. Wu Hong fled at full speed all the way to the outskirts of Bianjing before the sense of danger finally dissipated.

“Whew… It should be safe now,” Wu Hong finally exhaled, and only then did the color begin to return to the faces of Li Ruolan and Wu Songran.

“Brother, that was the most thrilling trip to the Great Western Lake ever,” Wu Songran remarked, as if the world were not already in chaos.

“Thrilling, yes—but with a single thunderclap, tens of thousands of lives were snuffed out. Compared to the heavens, humanity is not even as significant as ants.”

Suddenly, the world blazed with light—brighter even than the sun.

“Wow! Brother, why did the sky suddenly get so bright?” Wu Hong’s face changed dramatically; ignoring Wu Songran’s question, he immediately unleashed his full true energy, pulling both women behind him and shielding them with all his might.

Everyone outside the city of Bianjing was stunned by the sudden brilliance, and while people were still exclaiming in wonder, a crisp, rending thunderclap tore through the sky, as if ripping a hole in the heavens.

Some ordinary folk fell dead on the spot from the shock.

Immediately after, a monstrous, all-encompassing hurricane swept toward the city’s outer walls.

The sky darkened; sand and stones flew in a storm. The city walls of Bianjing, hundreds of meters tall and weathered through three dynasties, standing for over a thousand years, toppled in an instant as if they were made of sand.

Apart from a few with decent internal skills, and those trapped under the rubble, all the commoners who had crowded the walls perished without exception.

As the hurricane struck, Wu Hong felt as if he were pitting his strength against a raging tiger. His feet were driven deep into the ground, and he channeled his energy with all his might just to withstand the force of the wind.

Meanwhile, Wu Songran and Li Ruolan remained unharmed, for all the pressure they should have borne was taken on by Wu Hong.

Still, it did not stop them from witnessing the devastation around them, leaving them pale with fear.

It was terrifying. What was that blinding light? What was this howling hurricane?

For a moment, they could not recall that these were the aftershocks of a thunder tribulation.

The hurricane raged for half an hour before finally subsiding. The sky was as blue as ever, the sunlight as bright, but the city walls of Bianjing, which had stood for a millennium, were nearly torn from their foundations by the storm.

Tens of thousands of ordinary soldiers guarding the city were dead in an instant, blood turning the ground into a river of crimson.

Wails of mourning, curses, and the howls of the deranged filled the air.

All manner of chaotic sounds reached Wu Hong and the two women’s ears, weighing heavily upon their hearts.

After a long silence, Wu Hong murmured to himself, “Perhaps I was wrong. Perhaps Master Xuanbei of Little Forest Temple was right—when will the cycle of vengeance ever end? I do not kill, yet so many innocent people have been dragged to their deaths because villains pursue me.

“Who should bear the burden of this karma? The wicked? Or me?

“Who will the families of the dead seek for revenge? The villains, or me?

“It was like this before with Wang Liang and the others. Because of a single kind thought, I left some of them with a humiliation worse than death.

“My friends only helped me for my sake. Can I truly blame them?

“I have always resented the imposter who stirs up trouble in my name across the martial world, believing him the greatest villain alive. Yet those who have died indirectly because of me may be several times more than those he has killed.

“Does that make me someone who, despite constantly performing good deeds, brings about even more deaths because of my ‘kindness’? And as my power grows, so too do the number of those who die because of me.

“Should such acts of kindness even exist?”

In that moment, Wu Hong’s heart wavered once more. The energy within him began to grow chaotic.

Even as the two women beside him tried to rouse him from his trance, Wu Hong seemed not to see or hear them.