Second Time

Chapter 41 - Heavenly Realm Tribulation

Shao Yue emerged from her seclusion, stretched, and walked over to the desk.

"Ah, welcome back, Fairy Shao," the woman behind the desk said with a bow. "You still have a week of time left. Would you like to extend your stay?"

"No," Shao Yue replied, shaking her head. "I'm ready to break into the Heavenly Realm. Where can I hire protection?"

The woman's eyes lit up. "Oh, congratulations!" She took a jade slip from under the desk and inscribed a map. "If you go here, you can make use of the sect to protect you during your tribulation. The price will be ten high-grade spirit stones."

"Got it, thanks."

Shao Yue took the jade slip, examined the contents, then headed off to the marked location. Along the way, she stopped at an intermediary she had left some trade orders with and received her items.

The next day, a group of ships departed from the pavilion and reached an isolated island several hundred kilometers away. Shao Yue sat down in the center of it while the ships formed a perimeter around it.

The familiar sight of dark clouds gathering in the sky presented itself for the fourth time in a year.

Like all Heavenly Realm tribulations, Shao Yue suffered through nine waves of increasingly powerful lightning.

Then, as she began to relax, a tenth wave came.

"Hey, I already reached the Heavenly Realm, why are you still attacking?!" Shao Yue shouted at the clouds, as if they could hear her, before gritting her teeth and bearing the lightning strikes.

Pillars of water shot up from the sea around her, lowering the water level by several meters in the nearby area as a dozen massive flood dragons formed from water flew through the sky. The ships rocked back and forth, battered by a series of spontaneous waves.

The people on the boats were just as alarmed and confused as Shao Yue. "What kind of tribulation is this?!"

Shao Yue couldn't keep passively taking the tribulation. She stood up and cut her hand through the air in front of her. "Sword Domain!"

The air hummed as a barely-visible silver sphere expanded to cover the surrounding half kilometer. Even though she'd only just advanced to the Heavenly Realm, she still had all of her understanding of the Sword Dao from her previous life and could instantly call upon such a powerful Domain.

The dragons slowed upon entering the sphere, the sword laws oppressing them. Shao Yue drew her sword and slashed. A flash of light covered the distance between them, slicing through the flood dragon. She could cut anything in the Domain, no matter how far.

Hu'er came out and joined her. After a flurry of rapid slashes from the duo, the dozen dragons had been reduced to raindrops drizzling down on the island. All the while, Shao Yue suffered through more and more lightning strikes.

Countless monster beasts swam towards the island, attracted by the tribulation. The cultivators on the boats did their jobs and began slaughtering them, allowing Shao Yue to focus only on surviving the strange tribulation.

It ended up involving eighteen total waves of lightning, twice as much as the usual Heavenly Realm tribulation. However, since each wave was stronger than the last, the difficulty was far greater than double.

Shao Yue knelt on one knee with her sword stabbed into the ground. Her clothes were ragged and torn, her hair in disarray. She panted heavily.

"What the hell was that?"

She changed her clothes and tossed a few recovery pills into her mouth to regain her strength.

A boat approached the island to pick her up and everyone crowded around her.