The clansmen of the Yan clan in the Abyss of Darkness mostly reside on Yun An Star.
This is an eighth-grade planet not far from the Abyss of Darkness, presenting a dark blue hue, similar in size to the Ice King Star, with a diameter exceeding ten million li, larger than many stars, capable of housing one hundred trillion cultivators. Surrounding it are numerous life-bearing planets, forming a small stellar domain.
However, influenced by dark forces, the cultivation resources in this stellar domain are exceedingly scarce.
The greatest cultivation resource is the uncanny beasts.
Yet hunting uncanny beasts is fraught with peril.
These years, the Yan clan of the Abyss of Darkness has fared poorly, locked in ceaseless struggle and strife each day.
One hundred thousand years ago, Yun An Star lay under the Dark Temple’s stellar domain territory, but it was seized by this branch of the Yanluo clan led by the Wu Qing Sect, sowing enmity between the two sides.
On this day, a distinguished guest arrived at Yun An Star!
“Greetings, divine venerable!”
Beneath the grand temple, Xue Tu and the gods of the Abyss of Darkness Yan clan bowed in unison.
Opposite them stood an elder with a childlike face and blood-red hair, clad in an opulent divine robe emblazoned with myriad divine beast motifs. Yet he bore no trace of divine might, exuding instead a comfortable sense of approachability.
Unlike other divine venerables, so enigmatic, majestic, and domineering, he resembled a kindly elder.
It was none other than the Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable of the Temple of Destiny.
The Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable was no stranger to public appearances, emerging once every millennium at the Grand Hunt of the Heavens Banquet. But what manifested then was merely a colossal divine statue.
For saint realm cultivators or ordinary gods, beholding a divine venerable’s true form was akin to ascending to the heavens.
Yet now, the Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable’s true body had descended upon Yun An Star, standing before Xue Tu, who was naturally awestruck. After all, even his master, the Death Divine Venerable’s true form, he had glimpsed but once.
Divine venerables surpass the nine heavenly dragons in might, inscrutable and unattainable.
No sooner had the Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable touched ground than Yun An Star’s myriad ridges and peaks emanated blessed divine light, sprouting countless sacred herbs. Vast lakes and deep seas turned golden, auspicious vapours soaring skyward, swathes of waters transforming into spiritual springs.
This was the divine venerable’s benediction!
One of the twelve powers of the way of destiny.
With a mere thought, heaven and earth remade.
Harnessing destiny’s force and supreme incantations, he altered untold millions of li of land, birthing spiritual veins and saint veins beneath the soil. The rules of heaven and earth shifted, rendering the realm more amenable to cultivation.
“Xue Tu, you have attained godhood, it seems. Coming to the Abyss of Darkness was wise indeed! The Temple of Destiny claims another divine seat.” The Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable smiled, appraising Xue Tu.
Before a divine venerable, Xue Tu’s arrogance evaporated. He hastened to demur, “All thanks to your divine sense’s blessing, venerable. Only thus could this youth successfully weather the tribulation and break through.”
Countless gazes turned in disdain. To think a god could prove so shameless.
The Wu Qing Sect emerged personally to receive him.
The Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable and the Abyss of Darkness Yan clan were evidently close, or a millennium prior, there would have been no betrothal of Yan Wushen to Prajna, shielding Yan Wushen through marriage.
Present, aside from the gods, were but a handful of paramount realm great saints.
In the divine venerable’s presence, the pressure upon them was immense.
As the Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable conversed with the Wu Qing Sect, Xue Tu’s gaze fell upon Xu Rulai and Gong Nanfeng. These two had arrived at Yun An Star alongside the venerable.
In the Abyss of Darkness, Xue Tu had sensed their auras before.
The Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable said, “Upon returning from the Abyss of Darkness, Zhang Ruochen and Yan Wushen are certain to break through to godhood. Both are prodigies unseen in ages, hopes of this era. Xue Jue remains afar on the stellar battlefield, holding the Three Lives Realm, unable to come in person, thus summoning this old one.”
“Once they reach godhood, their advance shall be swift and fierce. In no long time, they will attain the immeasurable, sealing kings and claiming venerables.” The Wu Qing Sect said.
Trailing behind them, Xue Tu eavesdropped covertly, his mind alight. So the venerable’s true descent was for Zhang Ruochen and Yan Wushen.
Enviable beyond measure!
A mere divine tribulation, yet a venerable arrives in person to safeguard the crossing.
Even the venerable’s own disciples lack such honour.
Wen Chu, burdened with cares, his countenance sombre, said, “Venerable, much transpired in the dark resources. Zhang Ruochen may well…”
The Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable knew his implication, yet betrayed no anxiety, chuckling. “This venerable has already visited the Abyss of Darkness’s entrance, probing with the Tian Shu Needle. Zhang Ruochen should emerge shortly!”
The Tian Shu Needle was a divine artefact.
Wielded by a venerable’s power, even one deep in the Abyss of Darkness could be divined in part.
At these words, the Yanluo clan’s gods shed their gloom, spirits lifting sharply.
After all, in the Abyss of Darkness, Zhang Ruochen had ventured into peril with the Absolute Marvel Zen Maiden for their sake, vanishing into the unknown.
Guilt weighed heavy upon them.
“I knew it. A young hero graced with such vast fortune could never perish in the Abyss of Darkness.” A boisterous Yanluo clan god laughed heartily.
“Zhang Ruochen is a true friend to our Abyss of Darkness Yan clan.”
“Truly, I anticipate the day he ascends to godhood. How mighty shall he grow upon entering the divine realm?”
…
In the Wu Qing Sect’s temple, a divine banquet was laid.
Divine lamps hung high, the gathering merry and harmonious.
The gods queued to seek the Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable’s counsel on cultivation quandaries. Patiently, he resolved each, granting every soul insight, their faces alight with elation.
Thereafter, the Fortune and Prosperity Divine Venerable conferred privately with the Wu Qing Sect, sequestered in a divine realm world, their discourse unknown to all.
Suddenly.
The gods in the temple stirred with prescience, gazes converging skyward toward the stellar void housing the Abyss of Darkness.
“It is my senior brother’s aura. Ha, he has truly surmounted the dire perils and escaped the Abyss of Darkness.”
Xue Tu rose, raising his cup in prolonged mirth.
Beside him, Yan Ting’s expression shifted subtly. She said, “Something is amiss! Why do the forces of heaven and earth converge toward the Abyss of Darkness? What has occurred?”
“You simply do not comprehend. This heralds my senior brother’s imminent mental power divine tribulation. Heaven’s might coalesces into calamity, slaying all who seek mental power godhood. Yet should one withstand it, self-refinement follows: the saint heart transmutes to divine heart, mental power thoughts to divine thoughts. Then, with mental power alone, senior brother could contend true gods.” Xue Tu said, envy lacing his words.
…
No sooner had Zhang Ruochen exited the Abyss of Darkness than a cryptic, unfathomable force of heaven and earth ensnared him, like intangible threads binding him fast.
He accelerated his flight, striving to distance himself further from the Abyss of Darkness’s entrance.
In martial path godhood, divine tribulations vary.
But for mental power godhood, there is but one ordeal: the “heavenly tribulation”.
Though the mental power divine tribulation seems easier to pass, it pales only against the martial divine tribulation. In truth, peril abounds; countless mental power cultivators perish beneath it.
Zhang Ruochen attained mental power godhood within the Abyss of Darkness, evading the heavenly tribulation’s notice.
Upon departure, it descended forthwith.
This cosmos roiled to life.
Heaven and earth’s forces surged toward Zhang Ruochen, setting stars quaking, stellar radiance dimming. From one hundred million li, ten billion li, the disturbance rippled to remoter stellar domains.
Unlike heart tribulation or affection tribulation, which arise from within, the heavenly tribulation stems from without, thus wielding such dread influence, quaking the starry expanse, engulfing vast cosmic swathes.
Yet in truth, the inward heart and affection tribulations oft prove more harrowing.
Heaven and earth’s might condensed into a hundred thousand li tribulation cloud, hovering above Zhang Ruochen’s crown.
Within the cloud, lightning writhed like celestial dragons, emitting deafening peals, manifesting grotesque visions: skulls, temples, demon mountains, and more, formless and innate.
Zhang Ruochen sped onward, veering from life-bearing planets near the Abyss of Darkness, lest his divine tribulation imperil other beings.
Boom.
Dazzling lightning rent ten thousand li of void, striking Zhang Ruochen’s form, piercing flesh to assail the saint heart.
Every pore erupted with electric blaze.
Within Zhang Ruochen’s saint heart lay an inner world, vast and tumultuous, steeped in primal chaos. Mental power thoughts, myriad in likeness to Zhang Ruochen, bathed in the lightning, tempering themselves.
“Well come.”
Zhang Ruochen loosed a long cry, unleashing his six great saint aspects, encircling his frame.
The saint soul fused with the saint aspects; thus, Zhang Ruochen intended to exploit the mental power divine tribulation to refine the aspects, transmuting saint soul to divine soul. This would ease his forthcoming martial divine tribulation.
Boom!
Boom!
…
A dense barrage of lightning lanced from the tribulation cloud, each bolt capable of shattering a planet.
All smote Zhang Ruochen, rendering his radiance ever brighter, akin to a star, its lustre bathing the entire stellar domain.
This brilliance propagated at light speed; prolonged, it would gleam as a speck even a light year distant, some twenty trillion li away.
Such was the dread energy of gods, a force inspiring awe in all beneath heaven.
A divine thought from a god could raze realms.
Wen Chu stood amid Yun An Star’s atmospheric fringes, gazing afar at the hundred thousand li tribulation cloud. He said, “How can the mental power divine tribulation prove so terrifying? Legend holds it far milder than the martial divine tribulation.”
He had passed the heavenly tribulation for martial godhood, yet his ordeal paled beside Zhang Ruochen’s present one.
“This is natural. Zhang Ruochen’s mental power stands not at sixty-ninth order half-step, but seventy-first order pinnacle, summoning a tribulation of commensurate ferocity, in no wise inferior to the martial divine tribulation.” The Wu Qing Sect said.
Gods from sundry powers emerged from concealment, peering toward the tribulation cloud.
They had come to this stellar domain to slay Zhang Ruochen and seize his truths and supreme saint artefacts, but dared not, like Gui Si or Wu Jiang, plunge into the Abyss of Darkness. Thus they lingered without.
“In the end, we cannot halt it. Zhang Ruochen ascends to the divine!”
“May the dao-severing curse fell him.”
“Should the dao-severing curse fail, and Zhang Ruochen attain dual godhood in mental power and martial path, who then claims his truths?”
…
The gods of the major powers, lurking in shadow, sighed in lament, knowing they had forfeited the final chance.
Now, who among them dared strike? Aloft in Yun An Star’s skies loomed the Gate of Destiny, three million li in stature, erupting with stellar-shaking divine might, plainly garrisoned by a venerable’s true form.
