With his Spectral Eye, Lu Yun could clearly discern wisps of black smoke coalescing over the three Tribulation Surrogate Pills. Despite their transient nature, the smoke didn’t dissipate after forming.

It seemed to contain the energy of death, but there was also something else in it he couldn’t put his finger on, as if… one would be plagued by misfortune if the smoke clung to them.

Like raindrops, endless lightning bolts mercilessly struck the pills. A tiny part of the black smoke scattered with each rumble of thunder.

“A Tribulation Surrogate Pill is both a pill to weather tribulations and to summon them!” Lu Yun’s brows furrowed tightly. He now understood why Qi Hai had refused to refine the pills a second time.

Even though one could weather an immediate tribulation with the pill, one couldn’t avoid the tribulation that came with the pills themselves.

The pills were simply unable to endure such dreadful lightning strikes via their own virtues. Before the lightning could disperse the smoke that represented tribulations, the pills themselves would be destroyed.

In the distant past, Qi Hai had likely used a special method to block the thunder and lightning, keeping the pills intact. Even so, the three celestial emperors who’d taken the pills probably hadn’t escaped their preordained fate in the end.

“Unless…” realization struck Lu Yun, “unless someone can take the pills’ place and bear the brunt of the tribulation for them!”

In a daze, he suddenly recalled that there’d been someone else after Qi Hai who’d managed to refine a Tribulation Surrogate Pill. But that pill had ultimately bitten the refiner in the rear… as well as caused carnage throughout the immortal world.

“If someone uses a life to block the pill tribulation, then the pill will no longer be a Tribulation Surrogate Pill, but a ‘Tribulation Traversing Pill’.” Lost in thought, Lu Yun considered the increasingly intense tribulation in the sky.

……

“A pill tribulation! Someone’s refining a heaven-defying pill!” Xue Daozi’s jaw dropped almost clear to the ground.

As a peak powerhouse who’d plucked nine aether dao fruits, he was extremely perceptive and had immediately realized what the tribulation clouds racing past represented.

A pill tribulation!

In the world of immortals, pills that could cause such a phenomenon were as rare as hen’s teeth. The more intense the tribulation, the more earth-shattering the pill.

Lu Yun had once shocked the world by refining the Heaven Descent Pill in Xiankan and summoning a lightning tribulation, so much so that he was honored as the greatest pill master below the dao immortal realm.

But he’d then disappeared for fifteen months afterward. Adding the machinations of some folks to that, it meant the furor had gradually died down and Lu Yun’s influence was thereupon forgotten.

By the time he’d reappeared, it’d been in the capacity as guardian of the path of cultivation. In comparison, being the foremost pill master below the dao immortal realm seemed insignificant. After all, the true pill refining powerhouses of the world were all mighty dao immortals.

Upon realizing the nature of the tribulation that’d disrupted his enlightenment, Xue Daozi’s previous resentment vanished into thin air, replaced by irrepressible greed.

“Four hundred eighty million bolts of lightning have converged above the tribulation clouds…. It’s at the level of a Heaven Descent Pill, at least!” Agog, his figure turned incorporeal as he traveled through the void and slowly approached a fortress ship, one flamboyant to the point of cockiness.

Divine Glory might be fast for a ship, but it was nothing to speak of for a peak aether dao immortal.

“That’s… Lu Yun and Qing Han!!” Xue Daozi immediately recognized the two of them on the deck. Their figures had appeared on the Dao Flower. Probably every living creature in the world of immortals, nay, the entire universe, knew what they looked like.

“Lu Yun is the enemy of our North Sea. The King of Southern Subjugation and the Kunpeng King both died because of him, and he’s also insulted His Majesty the Monster Emperor….” Xue Daozi’s eyes narrowed faintly, killing intent welling up in his heart in spite of himself.

The North Sea was vast, and rich in natural resources, but it abounded with unusual dangers. Native cultivators tended to band together in large groups and rely on each other for survival.

Xue Daozi’s true form was a giant silverbrow whale who’d inherited the bloodline of divine beasts from times immemorial. It was all thanks to the North Sea court that he’d managed to transform into human form, as well as set foot into the dao immortal realm.

Hence, an intense desire to kill instantly flared up when he saw a great enemy of the monster spirit court.

Since the pill refiner is Lu Yun, and there’s four hundred and eighty million bolts to the lightning tribulation… It must be the Heaven Descent Pill! Xue Daozi secretly pondered. Three Heaven Descent Pills must have emerged and are now going through their pill tribulation. I have no use for the pills, but I can make use of them as a favor to someone else. Three of them are enough to create three celestial emperors in the North Sea!

He wasn’t a pill expert, thus he couldn’t recognize the nature of the three sparkling pills. But because of the lightning tribulation and Lu Yun’s presence, he made a connection with the Heaven Descent Pills that the young man had refined not too long ago.

……

“Someone’s coming,” Lu Yun suddenly realized. He looked around, fully on the alert. “A monster spirit immortal, a peak aether dao immortal!”

His heart lurched. “It’s the North Sea court’s… hrm?” He blinked, perplexed at what he’d just done. Had he just seen through Xue Daozi’s cultivation and origins with a single glance?

“Spectral Eye… a single glance to see through life and death!” He suddenly understood the full capabilities of this death art. With the rise in his cultivation level, his death arts had also begun to evolve.

The Spectral Eye could see through the heart of life and death with one glance, but thus far he’d been limited to the death portion and obtaining information about the deceased. Now that he’d reached peak transformed spirit realm, the nine death arts he’d learned along the way seemed to form a complete system among themselves, and the Spectral Eye had reached the realm of observing life as well.

No living being within a radius of five hundred kilometers could escape his notice now. Moreover, preliminary information about them would surface in his mind.

That sly old fox hidden over there definitely doesn’t have good intentions, but he does have perfect timing. I can use him to defuse the tribulation! He took in a deep breath and turned his palm toward the sky.

The lightning bolts above converged on his hand and slowly blended into his body. Meanwhile, the people on the ship, though outwardly at ease, were secretly poised to spring into action.

“Hm? The tribulation is weakening…. It looks like Lu Yun’s using a special method to neutralize it!” His gaze sharpening, Xue Daozi made himself even stealthier as he crept toward the ship.

“The tribulation is over, the Heaven Descent Pills are born!” A smile flashed across his lips.

Whoosh.

In the next moment, his figure erupted in a silver blur and landed on the ship a split second later.