đź“– Chapter 1282 - Tribulation
Within the Earth World, a storm raged continuously.
There was no sky nor ground here, only endless yellow sand filling the whole world. The vortex summoned by the blood-colored centipede churned violently, emitting streaks of crimson lightning that danced in the surroundings. Rumbling sounded out as it rotated, intent on breaking through the yellow sand and shattering the world around it.
From a distance, the blood-red vortex seemed like a huge source of pollution, corrupting and corroding everything around it and causing distortions to appear in the surrounding void.
Terrifying fluctuations rolled off of the vortex incessantly. These fluctuations were strong enough to instantly obliterate the stele world’s Universe Realm cultivators; if the Xie Family ancestor were here, he would probably go insane just from a look.
A divine spirit could not be directly gazed upon. Right now, the vortex held the eyes of the Emperor, and so… it was a divine spirit.
But even so, the blood-colored centipede forming the vortex was unable to escape. The way the sand continued whirling around it made the centipede feel more and more anxious.
This was because… here in the Earth World, there wasn’t just one divine spirit. There was also Wang Baole!
Every single grain of sand in this Earth World contained Wang Baole’s will, and each and every grain of sand also bore his visage. At this moment, as the sand whirled madly, it seemed intent on engulfing everything and completely burying the blood-colored vortex.
Rumbling echoed in to the heavens as the whole world shook with the violent confrontation between the sand and the vortex.
As it shook, part of the sand gathered in midair and formed the figure of Wang Baole. Staring at the blood-colored vortex below him, a profound light flickered through his eyes.
If this vortex didn’t exist, if the Emperor couldn’t send the gaze of his true self from across the endless universe, then the mere clone that was the blood-colored centipede wouldn’t be difficult for Wang Baole to defeat. After all, thanks to his senior brother Chen Qingzi, the Emperor’s clone was already afflicted with irrecoverable injuries.
Thus, it was possible for Wang Baole to defeat or even kill it.
However, the true Emperor’s gaze made even Wang Baole feel fear. If he was even the slightest bit negligent, the entire stele world would fall apart. And even if he managed to kill the blood-colored centipede after that, it still wasn’t an ending Wang Baole wanted.
He had lost his past and future already. Now, he didn’t want to lose the stele world as well.
And… after reaching his current realm, Wang Baole could already vaguely sense a deep connection with the stele world. This connection was something that had been decided even as far back as the original war between the Never-Ending Dao Domain and the Vast Expanse Dao Domain, before this place was turned into the stele world. Back then, the Never-Ending Dao Domain had summoned his original form through a portal connecting them with the true Never-Ending Dao Domain housing the Emperor.
This was part of the Emperor’s plan to heal himself.
Thus, once the stele world collapsed, Wang Baole would inevitably be affected greatly.
And there was another reason Wang Baole couldn’t allow the stele world to collapse. That was because… the stele world was the sole thread connecting him to the Emperor!
Countless epochs ago, the Emperor had been injured and ended up with the black wooden nail between his brows, leaving him on the verge of death. However, he managed to think of a way to save himself, which involved scattering one hundred thousand divine wills all throughout the Great Universe.
These one hundred thousand divine wills formed one hundred thousand worlds, or in other words, one hundred thousand Never-Ending Dao Domains. After they were created, all of these Never-Ending Dao Domains performed a ritual summoning of black wood, causing the black wooden nail stuck between the Emperor’s brows to send one hundred thousand copies into the one hundred thousand Never-Ending Dao Domains.
The purpose of all of this was to disperse and eliminate the suppressive power of the black wooden nail.
And this method was indeed successful! Aside from the one that became the stele world, the other 99,999 Never-Ending Dao Domains developed without any problems. The Never-Ending Clan appeared with Master Never-Ending at the helm. In the end… all of these Dao Domains were successfully devoured, along with their tiny portion of the black wooden nail’s power.
After devouring their respective Never-Ending Dao Domains, these Master Never-Endings all returned to the real Never-Ending Dao Domain and fused into the Emperor’s body. In this way, the Emperor’s injuries healed, and the black wooden nail between his brows was also drastically weakened.
However, even if 99,999 Never-Ending Dao Domains had successfully returned, as long as there was still a single one out there… the black wooden nail between the Emperor’s brows couldn’t be removed.
If he forcibly severed the black wooden nail between his brows, although it wouldn’t have a fatal impact on him, it would be impossible for him to break through to the next realm. And in fact, his attempt to break through… was the whole reason he had been struck by the black wooden nail in the first place.
To a certain extent, the black wooden nail could be considered a kind of tribulation, an inevitable tribulation befalling anyone attempting to reach the truly supreme realm!
A Black Wood Tribulation!
If the Emperor successfully overcame this tribulation, he would be able to break through.
But unfortunately, the appearance of the stele world had cut off his chances of doing so.
Because of Ancient and All, changes had appeared in the Never-Ending Dao Domain that eventually became the stele world, and because of Wang Yiyi’s father, these changes became irrecoverable. Of course, there were also some other beings looking at the stele world with unknown intentions. In the end… the development of the stele world strayed from the fate decided by the Emperor’s split divine will.
Thus, Wang Baole appeared.
Therefore, after the Emperor’s clone in the stele world, Master Never-Ending, became aware of this, the Emperor had sent another, stronger clone – the red-robed young man who was also the blood-colored centipede. His mission was to either adjust the trajectory of the stele world back to its original fate, or… destroy the stele world completely, cutting off its karmic connection with the true Emperor.
Although doing the latter would cause the Emperor to fail his tribulation… as long as the stele world existed and hadn’t returned to the true Never-Ending Dao Domain, due to the karmic connection with the Emperor’s true self, it would become his fatal flaw.
Thus, it could be said that Wang Baole’s very existence was a massive loss for the Emperor. If the red-robed young man failed, this loss could never be recouped.
It was as if Wang Baole was… a weapon, a weapon that forcibly created a flaw in the nigh-invincible Emperor.
Although Wang Baole didn’t completely understand all of this, he could more or less guess most of it. But in any case, he absolutely wouldn’t allow the stele world to collapse.
Thus, what Wang Baole needed to do was to continuously weaken the power of the gaze from the Emperor’s true self, to use the five elements worlds to diminish it to the point where it could no longer affect the stele world. Then… he could easily suppress and kill the red-robed young man without worry.
The red-robed young man obviously understood all of this even more clearly. That was why he tried his best to escape the Water World, and attempted to break free of the Fire World at all costs.
Doing so was his only possibility of success.
He would either be suppressed and killed by Wang Baole, or… escape the five elements worlds and destroy the stele world. Even if it meant that his true self would fail his breakthrough, at least he would remain without flaws!
Right now, his biggest regret was that he hadn’t been able to muster up the resolve to destroy the stele world before all this. But after all… doing so would have severed any hope for his true self’s breakthrough. He didn’t want to do this unless there was really no choice.
And it was this mentality of his that had allowed things to reach this point.
Meanwhile, Wang Baole narrowed his eyes and suddenly waved his right hand. The entire Earth World instantly rumbled, and all the countless grains of sand gathered to form a gigantic palm. Aiming directly at the blood-colored vortex below him, this palm descended at frightening speed!