Then, before the shocked gazes of everyone present, Long Di released his slash upwards towards the heavens to rid himself of the pressure it plagued him with.

[No!]

Boom!

****

The clouds that were churning above suddenly stopped and began to rotate, turning into a vortex of sorts that looked like the eye of the heavens.

“This fool!”

The Grand Preceptor’s heart shook when he saw this. Yaomu Shou and the others were the same as well.

The Imperial Protectors stood back with the rest of the peanut gallery as well and the scene before them stopped their breaths.

Though they were far away, they felt their heart stop when they gazed upon this eye.

Long Zhe, on the other hand, was ecstatic when he saw this. “Hahahaaha! I approve! I approve! As expected of the one the young Lord favours!”

The Grand Preceptor shook his head at Long Zhe’s behaviour. “This race only has one thing on their minds.”

He then looked at Yaomu Shou. “The chances of your friend making it out of this have just fallen by a great deal.”

Not Yaomu Shou, but Shen Ling, Mina and the others' hearts fell when they heard this. However, they didn’t say anything at the moment and instead watched everything that took place with rapt attention.

As a dragon, he was more than happy to see someone stick it to the so-called high heavens!

Long Di felt a great deal of pressure lift up from him.

“Thank goodness…” Long Di released a breath of relief similar to someone who had overcome the great hurdle of constipation.

[I hope this temporary relief was worth it! Now you’ve jump-started the true denial of the heavens!]

“So that means this will be over earlier, correct?” asked Long Di.

The Destiny Scale responded [Yes! But not only that, you will be forced to handle even greater challenges due to the heavens being provoked! Why do you think that no one except those mad dragons dares to go against the heavens!?]

“Doesn’t matter,” Long Di responded. “At the end of the day, this thing wants to wipe me out. In addition, if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that greater challenges yield greater power. I don’t think I speak alone when I say… I need that.”

[…] The Destiny Scale became silent for a while before it responded with, [Don’t die.]

“I won’t,” was all that Long Di responded with.

The Bloodletting Regiment naturally saw what was happening, but their leaders held the reins tight so that discord and chaos were held at an absolute minimum!

They still thundered towards Long Di with the intent to kill!

Krrrsh!

Several tens of heavenly levyance tribulation lightning spears formed and rocketed off towards the Bloodletting Regiment.

B-B-B-Boom!

Several explosions rang out as the heavenly levyance tribulation lightning spears crashed into the blood qi tortoise that their collective blood qi created.

“Ugh!”

Numerous soldiers were shaken up by the collisions caused by the spears.

The Commanders and the General were surprised to see this, as this was the collective power of thousands of soldiers.

However, after thinking about it, it did make sense in some way. After all, Xue Zhuang was their leader and the strongest among them and he was only a peak of the nine-star martial master.

As for the general, he was a four-star-core martial master and even less needed to be said for the commanders who were all one-star-core martial masters.

The soldiers were mostly one core martial adepts with hundreds of ninth duan martial disciples within.

Long Di who was an impressive four-star-core martial master, would be able to beat them. In addition, the purity of the energy of his star cores couldn’t be questioned.

Whoosh!

The blood qi of the commanders and the General further bolstered the defences of the blood qi tortoise. This allowed the weaker soldiers who were feeling the pressure to recover themselves.

Long Di realised that breaking the collective power of several thousand soldiers and their General and commanders wasn’t something that could be done anytime soon.

He then turned his gaze skyward to see a ball of grey energy swirling in the vortex.

As the Bloodletting Regiment neared, he lowered his sabre, and the regiment saw this thought that Long Di was resigned to his fate and this caused them to quicken their steps to destroy him and do away with this omen from the heavens.

As soon as they were a few feet away from him, Long Di unleashed the heavenly levyance tribulation lightning that he charged up earlier and slashed it towards the heavens once more.

A mysterious force spewed from Long Di’s body and sent Xiannu Liang far from the range of the tribulation, startling not just her but the Grand Preceptor and Long Zhe as well.

Boom!

The minute the slash landed on the ball of energy it was like a flood was freed! A waterfall of heavenly levyance tribulation lightning poured down on both Long Di and the Bloodletting Regiment.

The Destiny Scale emerged from Long Di’s mind sea and went straight for Jia Yan suspending itself above him and forming a shield to protect him from the heavenly levyance tribulation lightning!

Since there was now a constant flow of tribulation lightning, the Destiny Scale didn’t have to worry about being seen by others.

Shu!

“Meow!”

Out of nowhere, Lord Whiskers Furryback the first came in clutch at the last minute and used its giant body to shield most of the lightning from bombarding Long Di.

Lord Whiskers had once survived a terrifying bombardment of heavenly levyance tribulation lightning, so it was much more adept at defending against it this time around.

Long Di sighed in relief when he saw this. With Lord Whiskers bearing part of the tribulation’s power, he had a much easier time dealing with it.

He was lucky this wasn’t a normal advancement tribulation. If it was, once the tribulation sensed someone or something else helping the advancer, it would increase its strength several times over to compensate which would normally end in death for all parties involved.

Once the sea of tribulation descended, the blood qi tortoise was like precious porcelain, cracks appeared all over it in an instant!

“Sect mast- Ack!!” The general called out for the sect master to help bolster their defences before blood leaked out all from his orifices. This was because he made sure to bear most of the pressure himself.

Xue Zhuang was frightened into acting and added his blood qi to the defences as well. Slowly, the cracks healed, allowing him to breathe a sigh of relief.

However, his expression turned grave when he looked at the front of the tortoise and saw Long Di and Lord Whiskers waving in his direction.

Shu!

Long Di and Lord Whiskers took off in a mad dash towards the giant tortoise!

Xue Zhuang’s eyes widened in fright, compelling him to order, “Retreat!”

The entire Bloodletting Regiment immediately tried to backtrack, but their speed was severely lacking. This was one of the weaknesses of the blood qi tortoise formation. Their defences were shocking, but their speed left much to be desired.

It didn’t take long for Long Di and Lord Whiskers to arrive in front of the formation.

Profound Myriad Heavenseize Physique on!

Hong!

A great deal of heavenly pressure immediately unfurled.

Krrrsh!

Long Di simultaneously absorbed true divine heavenly levyance tribulation lightning into his physique while the rest he redirected into his sabre.

Now Long Di knew what the Destiny Scale meant when it said he had quasi-divine tribulation lightning before.

The divinity within this tribulation lightning was leagues above what he cultivated for himself before.

It seems that because the cultivation technique wasn’t validated or approved by the heavens, its full capabilities couldn’t be realised.

Now, however, this was something that would be rectified, provided that he survived of course.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Long Di unleashed heavenly levyance tribulation lightning-charged slashes upon the blood qi tortoise with reckless abandon!

Lord Whiskers was all in on it with them and used its sharp claws to dig into the blood qi formation as well.

Soon cracks appeared at the spot they focused on despite all the soldiers doing their absolute best to maintain the blood qi tortoise formation!

“Stop! Stop!”

Xue Zhuang yelled for Long Di and Lord Whiskers, but the two heathens actually sped up their attacks instead!

It was as if his cries for mercy actually spiked their dopamine levels and gave them a rush of adrenaline!

Plus, he could swear he saw a VERY humanlike grin on the shidashi mao’s face!

The two of them were the true demons here!

Everyone else was just playing pretend!

Pling!

A sound that caused everyone’s hearts to leap to their throats could be heard as a hairline crack could be seen on the spot where Long Di and Lord Whiskers focused their attacks.

Lord Whiskers and Long Di actually paused in their attacks and stared at the crack they caused. Despite the thunderous sounds blaring about, the hurried breathing of the soldiers could clearly be heard.

Long Di and Lord Whiskers kept their gaze on the crack, then onto the soldiers, back on the crack then to the soldiers once more. They repeated the actions a few more times in perfect synchronicity until their gaze became fixed on the soldiers.

The hearts of these hardened men froze once this happened.