Dyon groggily awoke to raging tribulation clouds above. He blinked in confusion, somehow feeling that something was different about himself, but he was far too weak to think about it. He felt like he would collapse if he took a single step. There was hardly an ounce of energy within him.
To make matters worse, he couldn't communicate with his soul. His mind's eye felt empty and he couldn't contact his manifestations. Even his wings wouldn't respond to his call and his inner world felt unresponsive. It was only after numerous tries that he finally managed to stir and cause a change within his inner world, but even then it was far slower than it usually was. What once happened in an instant took several seconds now.
Dyon suddenly felt that he couldn't sustain his body weight at 106 000 000 jin. Without much of a choice, he could only lower it back to 10 000 jin before he could just barely raise his head again.
"Whose… Whose tribulation is this?" Dyon's mind was still covered by a fog. He felt that his thinking speed had been inexplicably dulled as well. "What happened?"
Dyon's first thought was to move out of the range of these angered clouds. He couldn't help but wonder just whose tribulation could cover so many miles.
"Huh?.. Why are these clouds following me?" Dyon's expression suddenly changed. "Son of a…"
BOOM!
Before he could even complete the sentence, a flame pillar spanning several dozen miles descended from the skies, crashing into Dyon's body.
Madeleine covered her mouth in horror as she watched Dyon confusedly receive a strike that could instantly obliterate a higher celestial. Tears fell from her eyes, but she knew that rushing forward would only make matters worse.
Normally, individuals would only take their tribulation when they were in peak condition. However, not only was Dyon not in peak condition, he wasn't facing a normal lightning tribulation, but a Fire Tribulation!
"This is the Nine Purgatories of Hell Tribulation… Dyon really pissed the Heavens off…" Little Yang muttered.
The Nine Purgatories of Hell was the third ranked Fire Tribulation in terms of difficulty and power. Normally, such a tribulation would only appear during a dao tribulation of an exceptional genius or during the final levels of the Transcendent Staircase. For it to appear now, it could only mean that the Heavens still remembered that Dyon didn't truly complete his saint tribulation.
To make matters worse, because the Heavens were angered, Dyon once again didn't receive its help in cultivating. This meant that just like he had to take his saint tribulation as an essence gatherer, he now had to take his celestial tribulation as an injured saint!
Dyon crashed down from the skies, falling several hundred miles without even the ability to control his own descent. The pillar remained attached to his body, as though it wouldn't be satisfied until it could slam Dyon to the earth below itself.
BOOM!
A mixture of blood and organs flew from Dyon's lips. The crimson mixture was so solid that it could have depicted a massacre on its own.
Still, none of this described the sheer horror of the flames Dyon was enduring. The heat was like nothing he had felt before, even the star they faced to enter this mystical world paled. Although it was true that they never faced that star's true might, Dyon's feelings weren't unwarranted.
Dyon's skin charred black. He felt too weak to even lift his head, too weak to even circulate his energies to block. He withstood the full brunt of the first purgatory, not even receiving the grace of a moment to breathe before a second, larger pillar descended.
Vast expanses of land were laid to waste. Aside from Dyon's practically crippled body, nothing existed besides destroyed forest as far as the eye could see. Even if the foliage didn't directly suffer the impact of the flames, the residual heat was more than enough to incinerate everything to ash.
A third pillar descended. Then a fourth. And a fifth. By the sixth, they no longer came down in the form of a pillar, but rather took the form of ancient flood dragons, descending from the skies with scales of crimson rubies and roaring toward Dyon as though to remind him that this was the consequence of going against the Heavens.
How dare you f.o.r.c.i.b.l.y shatter Our tribulation? How dare you cross the sainthood boundary without Our consent? Weren't you very arrogant then? Why haven't you raised your head now?
The eighth purgatory didn't wait, the red-gold clouds trembled as a demonic Hand slowly tore the skies apart. If Dyon's eyes had been open, he would have been reminded of the first time he saw the entity's true body… It was just a hand, emitting a heat that he couldn't comprehend… One filling him with an unquenchable fear…
The massive Hand grasped at the air. The heat from the surroundings gathered even as the ground shattered below.
A halberd formed – The ninth purgatory.
The skies split apart, tearing into two halves as the Hand swung downward. A vacuum of hot wind shot upward.
Dyon's c.h.e.s.t heaved. He suddenly felt like he couldn't breathe, like all the matter in an around him was being pulled away. And then, his blackened, charred beyond recognition of a body suffered its last blow.
BOOM!