Lin Mu could not understand why the Fire Fang Snake was already having its breakthrough to the Nascent Soul realm even though there were still more tribulation bolts about to come.
From what he knew the tribulation bolts were just enough for a person or creature to break through to the Nascent Soul realm. Which meant that they needed all of those bolts to break through to the Nascent Soul realm.
If they did not endure all bolts, their core would not be fully cracked and then shatter to give birth to their Nascent Soul. If something like this happens then their situation would be the same as that of Alchemist Bilao.
Lin Mu had taken his last tribulation bolt and he was now unable to break through to the Nascent Soul realm. Of course, this was not permanent, there were ways by which one could trigger the heavenly tribulation again.
The most common way was to just cultivate more so that the infusion of spirit Qi generates a heavenly tribulation. But doing so would take quite a long time and resources as the cultivator would have to heal all their cracks of the core.
Usually, cultivators who failed their heavenly tribulation but still survived would end up regressing to the Qi refining realm as their spirit core would be destroyed. They would need to cultivate again and reached the peak of the core condensation realm in order to break through.
But not many people had this opportunity and the reason for this was their lifespan. Qi refining realm cultivators could live till 150 years at most. While those at the Core condensation realm could live till 300 years.
For a cultivator to reach the peak of the core condensation realm, they would take multiple decades if they were talented. This would mean that they would usually be older than 150 years.
This basically meant that they would die automatically from old age. Only very talented people who reached peak of the core condensation realm before the age of 100 truly had any chance to survive the restart of their cultivation.
"Oh no, this is due to the imbalance." Xukong suddenly said.
"What do you mean senior?" Lin Mu questioned.
"It's due to you influencing the Fire Fang Snake with the Beast Qi. The heavens think that the fire fang snake's talent is enough for threes bolts of tribulation lightning. But her body itself and the core only needed two bolts to breakthrough.
You increased her potential, but her cultivation could not keep up with it. Perhaps if you had started a bit earlier, she would have needed three bolts to complete her breakthrough." Xukong explained.
"That means…" Lin Mu muttered.
"The fire fang snake will die if she takes this tribulation lightning bolt." Xukong stated.
Lin Mu felt bad about this and did not want the beast to die. While it was true he had given her and the Black Water snake the Beast Qi to take advantage of the Heavenly Tribulation, his heart would not feel good if they died in the process.
"Then I'll just have to take the tribulation bolt myself. I'm here for that so this will work anyway!" Lin Mu declared.
He suddenly felt a newfound strength fueling him. He didn't know where it came from but Lin Mu found that all the pain and numbness he felt was wiped away. He jumped near the Fire Fang Snake the very moment the next tribulation bolt was about to descend.
~KABOOM~
The final bolt of tribulation lightning was the strongest. Two such bolts were shot by the tribulation clouds. One struck the Black Water Snake and was rightfully his, while the second one struck Lin Mu when it was supposed to hit the Fire Fang Snake.
"ARGH!!!!" Lin Mu shouted in pain upon bearing tribulation lightning.
~WENG~
The sound of metal bending could be heard as the armor made from Mortal Strengthening scripture appeared on Lin Mu's body again. The brown glow managed to block the impact of the lightning but some parts of it seemed to be out of shape.
The armor itself was the same shape as Lin Mu's body but was perhaps a couple of millimeters bigger. It did not crack under the tribulation lightning but instead bent to take the impact. Lin Mu ended up kneeling on the ground as he felt like a mountain had just been thrown on his back.
Lin Mu's inner robes were fully scorched now and the top half of it had already been reduced to ashes. Still, he managed to take the second bolt of tribulation lightning successfully.
"I… Did… IT!" Lin Mu said between breaths.
The Fire Fang snake was also looking at Lin Mu with a strange glow in her eyes. Her core was still shattering bit by bit as spirit Qi started to pour into her body. The Black Water snake was in a similar position.
~SHUA~
Lin Mu's Dantian was currently trembling. Arcs of tribulation lightning danced within it as they jumped from one part to the other. It looked like the lightning was protesting and saying this was not where it belonged. It tried to escape but Lin Mu's Dantian was like a steel vault.
No matter how much the lightning tried to hit the walls, nothing happened. The strange thing was even Lin Mu didn't feel any pain coming from his Dantian when the tribulation lightning was hitting its walls.
Lin Mu wanted it to go towards his Dantian but unfortunately, he had no control over the tribulation lightning. From what Lin Mu had learned the tribulation lightning should have a trace of the heaven's will in it and was thus sentient to a certain extent.
The previous bolt did not act like this as it was much weaker than this, but since this was the most powerful of the past two, it had a greater sense of self.
"What do I do now?" Lin Mu couldn't help but wonder.
~humm~
Lin Mu's attention was suddenly pulled towards the Black Water Snake as a spirit Qi vortex surrounded it.