Long Chen's Lightning Tribulation
The black cloud finished gathering its malevolent power and unleashed a devastating lightning strike toward Long Chen. Without hesitation, he drew a sword from his space ring, channeling star power into the blade. As the celestial energy flowed through the weapon, the sword trembled under the immense force—hairline cracks threatening to split it apart even as the power made it incredibly resilient.
"Come on then, you oversized storm cloud!" Long Chen snarled, his usual shameless grin replaced by deadly focus. "Let's see what you've got!"
The lightning bolt descended like the wrath of heaven itself. Long Chen leaped into the air and slashed his blade through the strike, shattering it into countless lightning runes that scattered like fallen stars. His Star God Ring secretly absorbed these fragments without the black cloud's knowledge.
The collision's recoil sent him stumbling backward several steps, his bones jarring from the impact. Rage and pain flared in his chest—he couldn't even destroy a single lightning strike without being thrown off balance like some novice cultivator. Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth as he clenched his teeth, stomped the ground in fury, and activated the Star God technique with desperate intensity.
The star veins throughout his body blazed with painful light, each pulse sending agony through his meridians. A hairline crack appeared in his sword from the previous impact. Seeing this, he wrapped the entire blade in dense star power just as the black cloud hurled three consecutive lightning strikes.
"Is that all?" he spat through gritted teeth, though sweat beaded on his forehead from the strain. He met each bolt with his sword, destroying them one after another. But with every clash, more cracks spider-webbed across his blade until it seemed ready to shatter at any moment. His arms burned with each impact, muscles screaming in protest.
Before he could catch his breath, a lightning strike many times larger than the previous ones crashed toward his head. Long Chen's eyes blazed with determination—this was life or death, and he refused to die here like a dog.
"You want to kill me? Then you better try harder!" he roared, planting his foot firmly and launching himself skyward. He compressed even more star power into his failing sword, ignoring the way his meridians felt like they were tearing apart. The weapon groaned under the impossible strain as he brought it down with everything he had.
The massive lightning bolt exploded into runes, and his star-infused sword finally gave way—fragments scattered everywhere, some no larger than grains of rice, others the size of stones, all still glowing with residual star power.
The impact hurled him backward like a broken doll. He thrust his hand into the ground to slow his momentum, his fingers digging bloody furrows in the earth, but the force was too great. After sliding back dozens of meters, he finally stopped, immediately vomiting a mouthful of blood that painted the ground crimson.
Pain wracked every fiber of his body, but Long Chen's eyes burned with defiant fury. "You think that's enough to kill me?" he roared at the black cloud, wiping blood from his lips with the back of his hand. "I've survived worse beatings from my mother!"
Summoning his remaining strength, he activated his Star God Battle Body Armor. The ethereal protection materialized around him as he drew both a saber and sword from his space ring, dual-wielding them with trembling hands. Every movement sent spikes of agony through his battered body, but his will to survive burned brighter than his pain.
"Come on!" he channeled star power into both weapons, his voice hoarse but unyielding. "I'll dance with you until one of us dies!"
The black cloud responded with eight consecutive lightning strikes, each more vicious than the last. Long Chen met them head-on, his movements becoming increasingly erratic as exhaustion and pain wore him down. But somehow, impossibly, he destroyed each strike, his weapons singing through the air in desperate arcs.
When the cloud paused, Long Chen was swaying on his feet, blood streaming from numerous wounds. His weapons were spider-webbed with cracks, on the verge of complete destruction. But his eyes still held that stubborn fire that had carried him through countless battles.
"What's wrong?" he gasped, forcing a mocking grin despite the blood trickling from his mouth. "Running out of juice already? And here I thought heavenly tribulations were supposed to be impressive!"
The black cloud's response was immediate and terrifying—two consecutive lightning strikes, each ten times thicker than the previous ones, descended like pillars of divine wrath.
Long Chen's grin faded, replaced by grim determination. This was it—survive this, or die trying. He poured everything he had into his weapons, star power flooding them to their absolute limits. The first strike met his crossed blades with a sound like the world cracking apart. His weapons held, but barely—cracks spread like spider webs across their surfaces.
The second strike came before he could recover. Long Chen's body screamed in protest as he raised his failing weapons one final time. When the lightning met his blades, they exploded into countless fragments that still glowed with residual star power, each piece carrying a fragment of his indomitable will.
The backlash sent him crashing to the earth, his body carving a deep trench in the ground. He lay there for a moment, coughing up blood, his vision blurring. But even as his body failed him, his mind remained sharp, calculating, planning his next move.
Because Long Chen had learned long ago that the only way to truly lose was to stop fighting—and he was far from finished.
The black cloud above began gathering power from the surrounding area, drawing lightning from miles around. Long Chen felt the oppressive energy building and knew this next attack would be beyond anything he'd faced. His body was broken, his weapons destroyed, but his eyes still blazed with that familiar stubborn fire.
"So you need to power up like some second-rate villain?" he wheezed, struggling to his feet. Blood dripped steadily from his wounds, but he managed his trademark smirk. "How embarrassing for a heavenly tribulation."
Desperation bred innovation. Long Chen's gaze fell on two massive trees that had been uprooted during their battle. A crazy plan formed in his mind—so insane it just might work.
Channeling his remaining star power into both trees, he quickly stored them in his space ring. Then, despite his battered condition, he began running through the forest, weaving between the towering trunks with practiced agility.
"Time for something you've never seen before!" he shouted at the cloud.
Long Chen leaped onto a tree trunk, using it as a stepping stone to reach higher and higher. At the forest canopy, he spotted his target—a particularly flexible tree that bent under his weight like a loaded catapult. He positioned himself carefully, coiling his legs like springs.
The tree bent nearly to the ground under his weight and technique. When he released, it launched him skyward like a human projectile, straight toward the black cloud.
Mid-flight, he withdrew one of the star-power-infused trees from his space ring. Running the Star God technique at maximum output—consequences be damned—he gripped the tree like a massive club and struck the cloud directly.
The impact was catastrophic. Lightning runes exploded from the black cloud like a shattered dam, scattering in all directions as the celestial formation took massive damage. The tree in his hands disintegrated into millions of glowing fragments and leaves that fell like golden snow.
But the black cloud's rage was beyond measure now. No cultivator had ever dared strike a Heavenly Tribulation directly—this was beyond audacity, it was blasphemy. What Long Chen faced was no longer a mere tribulation, but something far more dangerous: a Heavenly Punishment, a legendary phenomenon that few had ever witnessed and lived to tell about.
"You insignificant ant!" the cloud seemed to rumble. "You dare strike heaven itself?"
Multiple lightning bolts, each more powerful than mountains falling, crashed toward the descending Long Chen. But he wasn't done with his insane tactics.
His body twisted in mid-air, aiming for another flexible tree that glowed with residual star qi from their battle. He positioned his legs in a devastating kick, his body like a spear cutting through the air.
When he struck the star-qi-infused tree, something miraculous happened—instead of breaking, the tree bent like a divine spring, its enhanced nature allowing it to compress to within an inch of the ground before launching him back toward the cloud at incredible speed.
But this time was different. As Long Chen flew toward his target, the entire forest began to respond. Every tree, every branch, every leaf that he had touched with his star qi during the battle suddenly tore free from the earth, drawn to him like iron to a lodestone.
"What the—" Long Chen's eyes widened as he realized what was happening. His star qi had marked everything in the area, and now it was all converging on him.
The second tree from his space ring materialized in his hands, but now it wasn't just a club—it was the handle of an impossible hammer, with dozens of trees, boulders, and debris forming the massive head. The weight was astronomical, but somehow his star power held it all together.
"If you want to see crazy," Long Chen roared, his voice carrying across the heavens as he deactivated his Battle Body Armor and poured every last drop of star power into his improvised weapon, "then feast your eyes on this!"
His star veins went dark as all his power concentrated into the tree-hammer. Even the Star God Ring began pulling lightning runes toward the weapon, no longer bothering to hide its actions. This had become a direct contest between the artifact and the heavenly cloud.
The collision was apocalyptic. When Long Chen's impossible hammer struck the black cloud, trillions of leaves followed in its wake like a celestial storm. Lightning runes poured out of the wounded cloud like blood from a mortal wound, scattering across the sky in a spectacular light show.
The black cloud writhed and pulsed, severely damaged but not destroyed. Meanwhile, Long Chen's Star God Ring worked frantically, absorbing every lightning rune it could reach. It was no longer a battle between Long Chen and heaven—it was a race between his ring and the cloud to see who could claim more of the scattered power.
As Long Chen fell toward the earth, his body finally giving out, he managed one last defiant laugh. "Not bad for an ant, eh?" he whispered to the damaged cloud above.
Whether he would survive the fall was another question entirely, but one thing was certain—this battle would become legend, the day a shameless young cultivator dared to punch heaven in the face and lived to mock it afterward.