One should return as good as one receives.

The five demon gods weren't faring much better either.

The burly green-skinned man was struck by a cyan thunder serpent. His massive frame was blasted across the ground, rolling three times before stopping, his exposed skin covered in cracked burn marks. The woman in white robes tried to flee by spreading her wings, but a white thunder serpent caught up to her, shattering half of one wing into fragments. Snow-white feathers drifted down like an eerie snowfall.

The withered old man summoned a black tortoiseshell shield, but it shattered into powder under the assault of a black thunder serpent. The shockwave sent him stumbling back hundreds of zhang, his hunched frame bending even lower. The crimson-robed youth's white bone fan was reduced to ashes in the lightning glow; he managed to dodge the direct hit, but a stray arc of lightning grazed his right arm, instantly charring it black.

Only Holy King Canglong managed to maintain some dignity. Dark green demonic aura surged around him, condensing into a shield of draconic scales in front of him, which held against the impact of three thunder serpents. The moment the shield shattered, a streak of dark green blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, but he did not take a single step back.

“This is impossible!” Holy King Canglong stared fiercely at Wang Hao at the center of the heavenly tribulation. “Why is his tribulation this powerful? This is not the tribulation a newly ascended war god should face!”

No one could answer him. Because everyone’s understanding of reality had been shattered by this tribulation.

And at the very heart of the tribulation, above Wang Hao’s head, the Abyss Thunder Demon-Suppressing Tower finally bared its true fangs.

The tower’s core ability was not to release thunder, but to absorb it. The stronger the heavenly lightning, the more it absorbed, and the faster it evolved. The moment Wang Hao broke through to the War God realm, the eighth level of the tower’s gate opened on its own, and a crack even appeared on the ninth level gate. This meant it had already begun absorbing the lightning of the ninth realm—the lightning meant for War God Realm peak experts.

Nine-colored heavenly lightning struck the tower, wildy absorbed by the thunder patterns etched into its surface. Any residual lightning force that couldn't be absorbed was diverted to the thunder beasts inside the tower. They let out deafening roars amidst the lightning, their bodies swelling and solidifying at a visible rate. To others, the nine-colored heavenly tribulation was a divine punishment; to the Abyss Thunder Demon-Suppressing Tower, it was a feast.

And Wang Hao himself stood directly beneath the tower, wrapped in a black-golden emperor's qi barrier. The barrier of a War God was a hundred times thicker than that of a Void Walker, and a hundred times denser. The tower absorbed seventy percent of the nine-colored heavenly lightning; the remaining thirty percent struck the qi barrier, only causing ripples across its surface, not even a single crack.

He stood amidst the lightning, his imperial robe rustling thunderously. The dragon patterns carved into his robe seemed to come alive under the lightning’s glow, nine golden dragons writhing, roaring, and raising their heads toward the sky.

He looked at the eight transcendent beings who had been scattered and wounded by the tribulation’s aftershocks, a gentle smile curling at the corners of his mouth.

“Eight seniors, didn’t I say it before? I love thunderstorm weather the most. What do you all think of this rain? Is it heavy enough?”

Jiang Canghai trembled with rage, “Wang Hao! You madman! You actually used the heavenly tribulation against us!”

“Deal with you?” Wang Hao shook his head, his expression as innocent as a little white rabbit. “Senior Jiang, you misunderstand. I was just undergoing my own Heavenly Tribulation. It was you who stood too close. The Heavenly Tribulation is an unruly thing—it doesn’t distinguish between the one undergoing the tribulation and bystanders. With eight Martial Gods and Demon Gods standing within ten thousand feet, who else was it supposed to strike if not you?”

He spread his hands, his face wearing a look of helplessness.

“But come to think of it, all eight of you came here today to kill me, right? Since you’re here to kill me, taking a few bolts of my Heavenly Tribulation doesn’t seem so unfair. As they say—courtesy demands reciprocity.”

Patriarch Chiyan let out a furious roar, forcefully suppressing the wound on his chest that was still smoking, and turned into a streak of red light charging straight at Wang Hao. As a mid-stage Martial God, even after being struck by the remnants of the Heavenly Tribulation, his combat power remained terrifying. A ball of crimson flame gathered around his right fist—not ordinary fire, but the Earth’s Core True Flame he had cultivated for a millennium, capable of melting through an entire mountain range.

“Die!”

Patriarch Chiyan punched out, and the fiery fist aura transformed into a crimson fire dragon, opening its massive maw to bite down on Wang Hao.

Wang Hao did not dodge.

He did not even draw his sword. He simply raised his right hand, spread five fingers, and gently pressed down toward the crimson fire dragon.

Prison Heaven Earth-Crushing Palm, Seventh Strike.

Before reaching the Martial God realm, he had only been able to use up to the sixth strike. Now that he had stepped into the Martial God realm, the seventh strike could be unleashed with ease. A golden palm print spanning a hundred zhang materialized in the air, its fingerprints so distinct that it looked like a real giant hand reaching down from the clouds. The moment the palm print collided with the crimson fire dragon, the dragon let out a shrill, mournful cry before being crushed into pieces by the palm. Fragments of flame scattered in all directions, melting countless pits into the cliffs surrounding Heavenly Void Peak.

Patriarch Chiyan’s pupils contracted, but before he could change his technique, Wang Hao’s eighth strike was already upon him.

Prison Heaven Earth-Crushing Palm, Eighth Strike.

Faster, larger, and more ferocious than the seventh strike. The palm print expanded from a hundred zhang to three hundred zhang, its golden radiance blinding like a falling sun. It slammed into Patriarch Chiyan’s chest. The Martial God’s Protective Aura around him let out a strained groan, and his entire body was sent flying backward, crashing heavily into the eastern cliff of Heavenly Void Peak, creating a bottomless, man-shaped hole.

Rubble cascaded down, leaving only a dark, smoking cavity in the cliff face.

Silence fell over the entire scene.

The seven remaining supreme beings stared at that dark hole, then shifted their gaze to Wang Hao, who stood amidst the lightning with a smile still bright on his face. A single thought surged through their minds simultaneously—this newcomer, who had just broken through to Martial God, already possessed combat power surpassing the early-stage Martial God level.

Holy King Canglong’s vertical pupils narrowed. He finally understood where Wang Hao’s confidence came from. Not the Heavenly Tribulation, not the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda—but the sheer power embodied in those palm strikes. Even without the tribulation, with palm techniques of this caliber, the young man was qualified to go toe-to-toe with veteran Martial Gods.

“Unite,” Holy King Canglong said in a low voice, his tone stripped of any contempt. “With full force.”

The auras of all seven supreme beings erupted to their limits simultaneously.

Wang Hao, however, looked up at the tribulation vortex still churning in the sky, his smile spreading wider.

“It’s not over yet. My Heavenly Tribulation has nine bolts in total—only one has struck so far. The remaining eight ought to give all you seniors quite a headache.”

As his voice faded, light began to shine once more from the center of the vortex.

Not just one beam, but three.

Three nine-colored heavenly thunders struck simultaneously, their power three times greater than the first.

When those three bolts descended together, the scene above Tianxu Peak defied description.

This was not mere lightning—this was divine punishment. Three pillars of light pierced straight down from the vortex’s center, each three times thicker than the first. They intertwined in midair, forming a triangular cage that shrouded the entire peak.

Before the thunderbolts even reached the ground, the summits of the seventy-two surrounding auxiliary peaks began to collapse—not struck by lightning, but shattered by the thunder’s roar. Rocks fractured, tumbled, and crumbled amid the booming sound, and the entire Kunlun Mountain range trembled.

The White Jade Plaza had vanished entirely. In its place lay a lake of molten rock, and blistering magma churned with bubbling gasps of heat. The Kunlun Stele still struggled to endure amid the lightning, but its engraved words—”Kunlun Discourse on the Dao”—had been seared into near-illegibility, and only the faintest golden formation patterns remained, desperately holding on.

That ten-thousand-year-old grotesque artifact was exhausting its very last reserves, simply to keep itself from being melted in this heavenly tribulation.

None of the eight Martial Gods or Demon Gods had the strength left to care about appearances.

Patriarch Chiyan had just crawled out of the cliff face, his chest still smoking, when a bolt of nine-colored heavenly thunder struck down squarely. He strained every ounce of his power to form a shield of flames, which held against the lightning for a mere three breaths before shattering like paper. The thunder struck him head-on, sending him crashing like a meteor into the magma lake, splashing molten rock a hundred zhang high.

Jiang Canghai and Jiang Cangyun stood back-to-back, layering their defenses to the absolute limit.

Jiang Canghai summoned a bronze ancient mirror; its surface manifested phantom images of mountains and rivers. That was a Martial-God-tier defensive artifact, even higher ranked than the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Pagoda, standing at number thirty-eight on the Artifact Ranking.

Jiang Cangyun pushed his Suppression Law to its utmost; within a hundred zhang around him, space compressed into solid iron, and anything entering that zone would be slowed and crushed.

But the nine-colored heavenly thunder completely ignored the Suppression Law—heavenly tribulation lightning obeyed no worldly law, for the Heavenly Dao itself was the supreme law. The bronze mirror endured for five breaths, then cracks began to appear on its surface. The phantoms of mountains and rivers shattered inch by inch, and Jiang Canghai’s mouth twitched in anguish. Each new crack on that mirror would drop its rank by ten places.

The five Demon Gods were in an even worse state.

The White Feathered Matriarch had half of one wing blown apart, leaving her unable to fly; she dodged the lightning bolts on the ground, each escape accompanied by a mournful cry.

Her true form was a snow-plumed crane that had cultivated for five thousand years—her wings were her most treasured part. Having half of one destroyed pained her more than losing a leg.

The Withered Old Man clasped his hands together, summoning countless black venomous insects from his body. Those insects formed a shield above his head, a dense swarm, but they turned to ash by the thousands in the lightning—tens of thousands per second. As the insects died, the old man’s wrinkles deepened: these bugs were fed on his own lifeblood, and their death meant a loss of his lifespan.

The burly green-skinned giant suffered the most. His true form was a single-horned cyan bison. Among the five demon gods, his defense was the strongest, but his speed was the slowest. Unable to evade the lightning, he could only endure it head-on. After being struck by the azure thunder serpent, not a single patch of his skin remained intact; muscle fibers flipped outward, revealing the dark red flesh beneath. Yet he still stood, like an old ox that had been struck by lightning countless times but refused to fall.

The young man in red saw his white bone fan reduced to ashes. Bereft of his weapon, he could only rely on his movement techniques to dodge. His speed was so great that he left a series of afterimages in the air. Each afterimage would dissipate upon being struck by a bolt of lightning, while his true body had already appeared a hundred zhang away. But speed did not come without a cost. His demonic aura was visibly being consumed, and his face grew paler by the moment.

Only Holy King Canglong could still barely remain standing. He shed his human disguise, and for the first time, his half-dragon true form appeared before the crowd. His body swelled to thirty feet in height, and a layer of dark green dragon scales emerged on the surface of his skin. Each scale was the size of a basin, its edges flickering with an eerie green demonic light.

The horns on his head straightened from their previous curve, with two balls of dark green energy gathering at their tips, which continuously counterattacked the lightning in the sky. His hands had transformed into dragon claws, the talons on each of his five fingers reaching three feet in length. Every swing of his claws left five dark green trails in the air.

The dragon race was the most noble bloodline among the demon tribes and the only ones whose physical resilience could match that of a human at the peak of the Marital God realm. Having lived for three thousand years, Holy King Canglong’s dragon scale defenses were enough to withstand the full-force strike of an ordinary Marital God. But in the face of the heavenly tribulation, even his dragon scales were visibly turning black, cracking, and peeling off.

“How many more are there?” Holy King Canglong gritted his teeth and asked.

No one answered him, because no one knew. The number of tribulations varied from person to person. The most ordinary heavenly tribulation had only three strikes; slightly stronger ones had six; legendary prodigies were said to face nine. But from the very first strike, Wang Hao’s heavenly tribulation had been more powerful than another person’s sixth. Such an anomalous tribulation—one that seemed to bear a grudge against the heavens themselves—could not be judged by conventional reasoning.