As the lightning descended, Long Chen continued to block with his fists. There were so many lightning swords that he had to be cautious to avoid being struck in his vitals, or he might be killed.

If he couldn’t avoid the lightning sword, he would have to block it head-on, resulting in him being surrounded by broken lightning. He absorbed that lightning, and as he did, his 108,000 stars began to grow stronger.

Originally, these 108,000 stars were the acupuncture points in his meridians. Each of those acupuncture points had become their own Dantian, helping him store his spiritual yuan. In the Jade Core realm, they had condensed into their star-like form. Now, they were once more starting to transform.

As for the primal chaos space in his Dantian, it didn’t budge at all, as if the tribulation had nothing to do with it. The space behind it didn’t change.

The 108,000 stars had originally looked to only be fist-sized in his mind’s eye. Now they were rapidly growing. As they grew, they seemed to possess their own life, forming a resonance with his soul. The energy of his Yuan Spirit was being sucked away by them as they grew.

The Life Star was a star of life. It required his qi, his soul, and his essence to create a world all his own.

However, Long Chen wasn’t condensing two Life Star Beads like others.

His body was transforming without him controlling anything as he absorbed the tribulation lightning. All he needed to do was make sure he wasn’t killed by the lightning.

He looked to be in desperate straits with his flesh constantly being torn asunder, but his physical body was rapidly growing stronger.

His astral spaces grew larger and larger. However, when they reached a size of twenty-five thousand miles, their growth slowed down.

“What’s going on?” Long Chen was startled. Even the weakest Dragonblood warrior had condensed an astral space of over a hundred thousand miles. As for Gu Yang and the other captains, their astral spaces were over three hundred thousand miles wide.

For the growth of his astral spaces to slow down so much meant that he was quickly reaching their limit. But he hadn’t even reached thirty thousand miles.

His astral spaces slowly grew, until finally, they reached an absolute limit just before thirty thousand miles. Divine light flowed across them, making them seem to possess their own life.

“I’ve reached the limit already.” Long Chen couldn’t help being disappointed by his astral spaces. This was a far cry from what he had expected.

However, when he thought about it, others only had one astral space, while he had 108,000 of them.

Once his astral spaces had fully formed, he was no longer able to absorb as much lightning. There was a great surplus, so he told Lei Long to absorb it all.

At the same time, his lightning spear reappeared. This time, it shattered a dozen lightning swords before crumbling.

He resummoned his spear again. As Lei Long absorbed more lightning, it grew stronger, and the Wild Lightning Soul Battle Spear that he condensed also grew stronger.

His wings also appeared behind him. He no longer fought with his hands. With each attack, he blew apart the lightning swords, which transformed into lightning runes that he absorbed.

“Long Chen’s managed to survive!”

Ye Zhiqiu and the others were delighted as Long Chen no longer looked to be in desperate straits. He seemed to once more be in control. They relaxed slightly.

As for those who wished for him to die, their expressions grew ugly. However, no one dared to try to disturb Long Chen, because anyone who tried to do that would be killed by the tribulation. After all, that was not a tribulation of the human race. It didn’t care about whether someone was an Empyrean or not.

Suddenly, Long Chen’s astral spaces shook once more. A strange fluctuation came from them.

“My astral spaces have formed. Next is to connect to them with my soul. Only once the connection is perfected can I control their energy. But the tribulation isn’t letting up.” Long Chen had a thought.

Forming hand seals, he condensed a giant spatial channel behind him.

“Come, the feast is ready. Whether or not you can eat it all depends on your appetite!” called out Long Chen.

The world rumbled as a giant silver drake flew out of the channel.

“Hahaha, Long Chen, you didn’t forget me!”

The silver drake king laughed. The lightning swords exploded on contact with its scales and then were absorbed.

As it absorbed the lightning, its aura grew stronger and stronger. Clearly, this divine lightning was excellent nourishment for it.

“Help me hold it back for a while.” Long Chen sent a message to the drake king. He sat down in the sky, directly entering a meditative state.

Lei Long immediately flew out of Long Chen’s body, wrapping around him, both protecting him and absorbing the lightning.

The drake king didn’t tarry. It also formed a giant coil around Long Chen and Lei Long to protect them.

The experts present were all stunned. One of the Xuan Beasts was cursing repeatedly at this move which was practically cheating.

However, even as he cursed, he didn’t dare to back his voice up with his spiritual yuan, afraid of being sensed by the tribulation.

Xie Wentian was startled in particular because he sensed that the silver drake king was much stronger than the one that had blocked him before. If it had possessed its current power, he wouldn’t have been able to block it so easily.

What he didn’t know was that at the time, Long Chen’s power had been limited, and the spatial channel he had condensed wasn’t stable enough, resulting in the drake king only being able to send over a split body.

It could be said that Long Chen had already advanced to the Life Star realm, and he was using the energy of the surrounding tribulation energy to condense the channel. This time, the drake king was able to come with its true body.

With the drake king protecting him, no one could do anything to Long Chen. They could only watch as he cheated.

Long Chen was currently using the energy of his Yuan Spirit to connect with his 108,000 stars. His Life Star realm was different from other people’s, so he had to figure out how to control his astral spaces himself.

His astral spaces were currently like babies, and he was nourishing them with the energy of his Yuan Spirit.

Now Long Chen understood why his Yuan Spirit had to be so powerful. This was one of the requirements of the Nine Star Hegemon Body Art. Without such a powerful Yuan Spirit, there was no way to nourish so many astral spaces.

He had condensed a supreme Yuan Spirit from one billion and eighty million primordial runes. Now its use was revealed. 108,000 threads grew out from his Yuan Spirit, connecting to his astral spaces.

The energy of his Yuan Spirit reached out into the core of his astral spaces, forming a star core. Once the star core was formed, he was delighted to find that he was filled with unprecedented energy. This was his world energy.

Just at this moment, Long Chen’s heart shook. He was called out by Lei Long, and he hastily opened his eyes.

He saw that up in the sky, the drake king was roaring, with endless lightning filling the sky.

“Long Chen, hurry and retreat into the dragon field! I can’t hold on any longer! This is no heavenly tribulation but heavenly punishment! It’s fundamentally not something you can endure!” roared the drake king.

Although Long Chen had felt that it had just taken a moment for him to connect to his astral spaces, it had actually been over two hours. The tribulation had grown stronger and stronger, and while the drake king had been crazily absorbing the lightning at the beginning, after an hour, it had started to find it taxing. It had been forced to shrink its protective area.

It felt bad that it had been called for such a feast and wasn’t able to help enough, so it worked hard to protect Long Chen. But a few minutes ago, the lightning had gone berserk. The nine lightning dragons in the sky had actually started to merge into one.

The drake king had immediately had a bad feeling and charged into the clouds, but it was unable to stop the merger. The lightning dragons were condensed from the laws of heaven and earth, and it was growing more and more difficult to stop them. It wouldn’t be long before the drake king was no longer able to stop it.

“That’s fine. Let it come. I’m prepared.”

Long Chen took a deep breath. He knew that this lightning tribulation was different from his past tribulations. He needed to fully activate the azure dragon essence blood and block the end himself. For the drake king to buy him this time, he was already very satisfied.

BOOM!

Finally, the drake king was unable to endure. The nine lightning dragons merged, and the drake king was knocked back.

Now there was one giant white dragon. Long Chen’s pupils shrank. That giant dragon was the same dragon he had seen in his mind when he had absorbed the azure dragon essence blood. Even its aura was identical.

The azure dragon roared, and a huge claw smashed down at Long Chen. Its speed was astonishing. By the time everyone realized it was attacking, the claw had already smashed into Long Chen’s body.

The earth exploded, and a powerful shockwave spread that caused everyone’s expressions to change. They were forced to hastily retreat.

With one claw, a giant hole had appeared in the ground. Long Chen’s figure had vanished.

“He died?!”