The Thirty-ninth Day Disaster

"He..." The fair-faced man was shocked by the blood-red thunder pillar pouring down from the sky, leaving his mouth agape. "He... There's something wrong with this tribulation! This is not the Golden Core Tribulation, this is an Exterminating Tribulation!"

"The heavenly tribulation seems to be targeting him..." The peerless beauty was horrified, and she realized, "It doesn't want him to pass the tribulation at all, it just wants to destroy him!"

Elder Ning looked at the blood-red thunder pillar without saying a word.

"It's over." The fair-faced man came back to his senses and sighed, "There's absolutely no way he can survive this. What a pity..."

The peerless beauty shook her head: "Just who is he that causes the heavenly tribulation to target him like this?"

The blood-red thunder pillar gradually diminished, dissipating. The tribulation clouds in the sky were swept away all at once. The pitch-black tornado looked as if it had been purified, becoming clean and empty. On the ground, there was only an inverted cauldron...

"Wait a minute!" The fair-faced man saw that cauldron and said in disbelief, "No way..."

And as he uttered "No way", the cauldron was lifted, revealing a sturdy, bronze-skinned bald man. In his arms was a little white tiger, also still alive.

"They actually survived such a tribulation thunder?" The fair-faced man and the peerless beauty looked at each other in disbelief.

Thunder Tribulation tempers the body, Thunder Tribulation tempers the golden core, so can the Thunder Tribulation temper artifacts too? Qin Ran did not know. Tempering artifacts was a completely unfamiliar realm to him, but when faced with life and death, he felt that he must do so.

The terrifying tribulation thunder was too much for his Natal Cauldon alone to withstand. He must take other useful measures in this critical moment.

In the final moments, he pulled Chasing the Wind to his side. He inverted the Nine Territories Cauldron to shield them as the tribulation thunder struck down.

In an instant, the moment the Nine Territories Cauldron came into contact with the tribulation thunder, cracks appeared on its surface!

Qin Ran's soul was one with the Nine Territories Cauldron, so he was injured at the same time.

Blood seeped from the corner of his mouth, but he endured the intense pain, channeling all the mana he had recovered in this period into the Nine Territories Cauldron. At the same time, his Cosmic Bag ruptured open. All materials related to artifact forging stored inside were driven by him to refine the traces of tribulation thunder leaking through the cracks, extracting traces of material essence. Using this essence, he etched runes to ward off the tribulation thunder onto the Nine Territories Cauldron.

Qin Ran no longer had any mana left in his body. He would produce a little mana, then etch another rune.

But... this speed was completely insufficient. The Nine Territories Cauldron simply could not withstand the damage, as the cracks continued to expand and more tribulation thunder leaked through...

"Tribulation Thunder!" Qin Ran gritted his teeth in desperation and led the tribulation thunder into his body. But this time, instead of tempering his fleshly body, the thunder went directly into his Qi Ocean Dantian. He wanted to refine the Tribulation Thunder!

The Tribulation Thunder was a form of extremely tremendous thunder-attribute energy.

But Qin Ran was of the water attribute. For the Tribulation Thunder to enter his Dantian would mean certain destruction to him... He wouldn't have done this if there was any other choice.

As the Tribulation Thunder refined within him and his mana surged, Qin Ran's speed soared. He rapidly formed seals to etch runes and prohibitions...

It was as if he had spent ten thousand years battling stormy tribulation oceans. The mountains and rivers changed as time flowed by before he finally returned to reality. Qin Ran found that the tribulation had ended.

The Nine Territories Cauldron was no longer under attack. He was dumbfounded for a moment, then tried lifting the cauldron. Outside, within the black tornado, the skies had cleared...

It seemed the tribulation was indeed over.

Qin Ran was thoroughly exhausted in body and spirit. He and Chasing the Wind muttered to each other: "Chasing the Wind, we survived."

Chasing the Wind poked his little cat head out from Qin Ran's embrace and sneakily took a peek outside. The cat's mouth cracked open in a grin. It seemed the danger had really passed.

Qin Ran stood up and instinctively attempted to retrieve the Nine Territories Cauldron with his Divine Sense, but was zapped by the residual tribulation thunder within it. He frowned, then circulated his mana to retrieve the cauldron instead.

The Nine Territories Cauldron returned to his Dantian and came to rest directly beneath his Golden Core, with its mouth facing upwards, ingesting and discharging the Golden Core. Above them were traces of blood-colored tribulation thunder...

Qin Ran looked all around him and discovered the river beside him was gone. The river bank and riverbed were now on the same level plane.

When he was forming his core, Qin Ran had chosen a location by the riverside, just in case something wrong happened and he could escape quickly over the water with the Mystic Water divine ability from the Water Nation heritage. Yet once the heavenly tribulation descended, it had enveloped a perimeter spanning tens of meters, trapping half the river and half the river bank within it.

"I wonder how the relative elevation here compares with the outside now..."

Qin Ran suddenly froze in shock!

The outside?

No!

The heavenly tribulation wasn't over yet!

The black cloud barrier enveloping this space had not disappeared. There were still further tribulations to come!!!

"What else could there be?" Qin Ran whispered to himself, his words tinged with despair.

The tribulation wasn't over. And each tribulation would be more ferocious than the last. If there were still Tribulation Thunders, if there was an even more terrifying Tribulation Thunder than the one before, how could he possibly withstand it!?

Just then, he felt the ground beneath his bare feet start heating up. Looking down, he saw the originally flat and moist river bank rapidly drying up as cracks appeared on the earth. Slowly, flames started to emerge...

"Fire? Rather than thunder?" Qin Ran frowned. "There's also a Fire Tribulation from the heavenly tribulation? What is this operation?"

"The Sanjiu Disaster Tribulation, there's no mistake about it!" Elder Ning murmured as he looked at the flames rising from the ground.

"Sanjiu Disaster Tribulation?" The fair-faced man and peerless beauty looked towards Elder Ning and asked, "What is this Sanjiu Disaster Tribulation?"

"This is the heavens' punishment! An exterminating tribulation! It is divided into the Thunder Tribulation, Fire Tribulation, and Wind Tribulation. The Thunder Tribulation strikes him with tribulation thunderbolts. The Fire Tribulation burns him with ghostly fires. The Wind Tribulation blows him away with turbulent gales. The thunder has nine bouts, the fire has nine layers, the wind rages for nine rounds - this combined tribulation is known as the Sanjiu Disaster Tribulation, the Exterminating Tribulation!"

Elder Ning gazed at the black clouds encircling the space. "Whenever an extremely wicked being appears between heaven and earth, this kind of heavenly tribulation occurs. The last time this tribulation appeared in the Lingnan Region was over five thousand years ago, when the ancient monstrosity Taotie emerged into the world..."

"But..." The fair-faced man hesitated. "He's just a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment stage, right? Could he also be an incarnation of some monster?"

"There is another possibility..." Elder Ning muttered under his breath, eyes narrowed. "That man does not belong to this world!"

The ground had started burning. Qin Ran quickly utilized a movement technique to fly off the ground, planning to observe first.

Yet he did not know the fire did not originate from below. It only appeared on the ground earlier because he had been standing there. The flames came from his body. Once he took off into the air, the fire soared along with him, clinging stubbornly to his feet no matter how much he tried to shake it off.

"How do I deal with this?" Qin Ran panicked completely.

Batman was said to have never won a fight yet never lost an appointment battle. This meant when Batman made a battle appointment, the old chap could make sufficient preparations and plans, leaving various fallback steps so he would not lose.

And Qin Ran was this sort of person. Before doing anything, he would make all kinds of plans and consider different scenarios to ensure things went according to his plans.

But when accidents beyond their plans occurred, it became very difficult for such people to respond effectively on the spot.

For example, the Fire Tribulation before him right now!

It was completely and utterly unexpected.

While the might of the previous Thunder Tribulation exceeded his expectations "exponentially", in the end it was still within the scope of thunder tribulations Qin Ran knew of. But the Fire Tribulation was entirely off the scales from his knowledge.

"Mrooww..."

Suddenly, Chasing the Wind let out a yowl. Qin Ran regained his focus and turned to the Chasing the Wind in his arms. Chasing the Wind bared his teeth in a wide grin, waving a paw at the fire clinging to Qin Ran's feet, indicating the flames were rather "meow weak".

Only then did Qin Ran examine the flames more closely, discovering that...

Indeed, the flames did not seem as powerful as imagined.

At the very least, even burning for so long, he did not feel any pain.

"It looks like this so-called Fire Tribulation isn't too ferocious after all!"

Qin Ran's mind cleared. He circulated the mana in his body towards his feet, easily extinguishing the flames.

He then realized his fleshly body had been tempered by three bouts of thunder tribulation. It was no exaggeration that most Body Cultivation fleshly bodies could not compare to his.

He suddenly gained confidence, bursting into great laughter as he hugged Chasing the Wind tightly and planted a deep kiss on him, inhaling his scent and fur as he said:

"Thank you, Chasing the Wind!"