The first bolt of golden lightning was not a strike; it was an annunciation of oblivion. It swallowed Ye Xingliu whole, a tide of divine fire meant to scald his soul and shatter his meridians. The pain was absolute, a symphony of agony conducted by the heavens themselves.
Through the roaring, incinerating light, a sound fought its way out. A laugh. Strained, ragged, but unmistakably joyous.
"IS THAT ALL YOU'VE GOT?" Ye Xingliu roared, his voice echoing within the column of lightning.
His body, fortified by comet essence and stellar veins, refused to break. Instead, his Comet Fist instincts took over. He didn't try to block the energy. He redirected it. He became a living lightning rod, letting the power surge through him, and with a furious, laughing shout, he punched the ground.
A fork of golden lightning, now tinged with silver starlight, erupted from his fist and earthward, vaporizing a dune where the Fake Comet Altar's rubble lay. The explosion was a fitting funeral pyre for the void's corruption.
The sky, as if infuriated by his defiance, answered with a second bolt, then a third. Each was thicker, more violent than the last.
Ye Xingliu met them all. He became a dancer in the storm. He used the Drunken Meteor to weave through the smaller forks, his movements a chaotic, unpredictable blur that the righteous lightning could not easily target. When a main bolt descended, he met it with the Laughing Star, his fist a focal point that accepted the blow and sent a portion of its power screaming harmlessly into the desert.
Four. He bled from a dozen pores, his robes turning to ash.
Five.His hair stood on end, crackling with residual energy.
Six.The smell of his own burning flesh filled his nostrils, but his grin only widened. The pain was just the Dao saying hello, and he was a very chatty fellow.
He was not just enduring the tribulation; he was using it. The heavenly lightning was the finest, most brutal hammer, and his body was the cosmic steel being tempered. With each strike, impurities he never knew existed were burned away. His meridians, once rivers, became vast, shining channels. His dantian expanded, its walls reforged in star-fire.
Seven.
Eight.
He stood panting, a blackened, smoking figure in a crater of glassed sand. The ninth and final bolt gathered. It was not a serpent, but a dragon. A coiling, living beast of golden judgment that blotted out the sky.
"COME ON!" Ye Xingliu screamed, his voice raw, all laughter gone, replaced by a bottomless, defiant will. He put every ounce of his being, every step of his journey, into one final, upward punch.
The Drunken Meteor's unpredictability. The Laughing Star's focused release. The raw power of the comet. All of it, focused into one fist.
Fist and lightning met.
There was no sound. Only a light that whited out the world.
When it faded, the tribulation clouds were gone. The sky was clear, the stars shining brighter than ever, as if polished by the cataclysm.
In the center of the glassy crater, Ye Xingliu stood. His clothes were ashes, his skin was new and gleaming like polished alabaster, traced with faint, silvery lines that pulsed with gentle power. His eyes, when he opened them, held not just starlight, but the calm, deep certainty of a cosmos understood.
He was remade. Purified. Complete.
He pulled the compass from the ashes of his robe. The script glowed with a steady, triumphant light.
Mortal Awakening – 100%
Realm 1: Stellar Initiate – ACHIEVED.
The first great gate on the infinite road had been passed. The Wanderer was no longer merely a seeker. He was a force of the Dao itself.
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