[Kunwu laughs at Yuan Hua’s pettiness and her selfishness.]

[Kunwu has invited a friend to watch the show.]

[OG-Buddha has joined the channel.]

[OG-Buddha has noticed that you’ve been trying to convert to the righteous side.]

[OG-Buddha is delighted. He has used his annual interference quota to bless you.]

[OG-Buddha’s blessing will take effect immediately.]

[The Sun Crow is happy that Yuan Hua is gone.]

[The Sun Crow has sent you a gift. It will be delivered directly to your space inventory after it has been authorized by your Sponsor.]

[Your Sponsor is greatly disappointed by your life choice, but he enjoys the drama.]

[Your Sponsor has gifted you a heavenly porn magazine. You can access it from your system inventory.]

“…”

Cao Mao ignored the commotion among the dao gods and whatever live stream his sponsor had been running. He stared at the Eyes of Heaven while he circulated his life essence throughout his body, using the characteristic of “Life” and “Wood” to heal his injuries.

The eyes in the sky kept staring back at Cao Mao for some reason. After a while, several of them retreated along with the tribulation cloud.

But one of them stayed behind. It kept looking at Cao Mao without doing anything but using its glowing eye as a spotlight, shining upon Cao Mao’s body as if it was a beacon.

Cao Mao could also hear the voice-transmission from the eye.

[We’ve witnessed your battle against an evil apostle of Yuan Hua and the Vampire God. Lord Buddha has also asked us not to harm you since you’ve been working for the people and got injured after the fight. THAT DEVIL has also threatened us not to attack you while you’re down.]

The Heaven Eye was somewhat different from the last time. It seemed friendlier. But when it mentioned “THAT DEVIL”, the eye seemed angry and frustrated.

[You have already plundered two pieces of Heavenly Fate Fragments. However, considering that you’ve helped our chosen children eradicate the vile apostle of Yuan Hua, we’ll overlook it just this once.]

[However, the rules are the rules. We need to give you a proper tribulation after you’ve broken through. It will be milder than usual because of Lord Buddha’s request, but it can potentially be dangerous if you don’t pay attention.]

The Heaven Eye gathered its lightning Qi and sent it toward Cao Mao.

A lightning bolt landed on KQ and spread the electricity toward Cao Mao’s dantian.

Killer Queen laughed as she enjoyed the feeling of being electrocuted. She also absorbed some of the tribulation force to her blade.

Still, 20% of the lightning energy leaked toward Cao Mao’s dantian.

At first, Cao Mao was confused about why the Eye of Heaven had used lightning-based tribulation since his physique was immune to lightning Qi.

After a couple of seconds, Cao Mao realized why it had chosen to use the lightning element.

Currently, Cao Mao’s blood had become gold liquid, which was highly conductive. The lightning’s electricity flowed through his veins and body in an instant, and it cooked everything as if it was a reverse microwave.

It was painful at first since Cao Mao had felt like everything inside him had been fried. Still, the pain slowly turned into pleasure as his natural fire resistance and lightning resistance slowly adapted to the changes.

The lightning energy was also automatically converted into a supplement after a brief period of torturing. The rampaging electricity energized his golden blood cells. After that, the excess Qi gathered in his dantian, restoring his lightning Qi from the previous battle.

The lightning Qi, which should have been depleted because of Killer Queen’s deed earlier, reformed a lightning core. Also, it contained a portion of the gold element as it was made from his new blood.

Just like that, the “Mild” tribulation had ended.

The Eye of Heaven gave Cao Mao a meaningful look. Then, it faded to nothingness along with the tribulation cloud without saying anything.

Cao Mao blankly looked at the sky. Although the ordeal had been over, he felt like something wasn’t right. It was odd for the Eye of Heaven to retreat that easily.

Still, Cao Mao took his time to recover. His burnt skin and damaged organs were healed by the combined power of life essence and gold element in Cao Mao’s blood.

Killer Queen also pulled her blade from Cao Mao’s stomach. Yet, he didn’t bleed since the wounds instantly closed themselves.

After a bit of recovering, Cao Mao consulted his sword and familiar with what had been on his mind.

“KQ, White Album.”

[Yeah?]

‘What?’

“I don’t feel so good.”

[I love you 3,000.]

‘It was nice knowing you.’

“I’M NOT DEAD YET, YOU FREAKS! AND HOW THE FUCK DO YOU KNOW THAT LINE!?”

The gang laughed and teased each other, relieving their stress after the impossible fight. It was a miracle that Cao Mao was still alive after facing a nascent soul expert in a life-and-death battle.

However, Cao Mao wasn’t proud of himself. He was fully aware that Zhang Junyi didn’t use his full potential in that fight since he had wasted a lot of energy fighting Fu De.

Had Fu De hadn’t been around and Zhang Junyi had been a bit more serious, the battle could have been different.

While the group had been cheering and bickering at each other, Cao Mao sensed something from the direction of Siren City.

The two strands of fire element Qi within Mao Xueyan and Dandan had activated. Someone had touched them and had been blown up.

“We should move. We need to check how the beast girls are doing.”

Cao Mao forced himself to stand up, but his legs were still wobbling.

Since standing was too hard for him at the moment, Cao Mao sorted his spatial rings and picked the one that contained the Hollowed Spring Water. He poured some water into his mouth.

The water was indeed magical. After a few seconds, the wounds had been healed, and Cao Mao could feel his strength coming back. Even his little brother got energetic.

Feeling kinky, Cao Mao turned to Killer Queen.

“Say, KQ.”

[What, hooman?]

“Can you transform into the humanoid form again? Can I use that body of yours?”

[Want me to cut it off?]

“… Just kidding.”

Cao Mao got back up again. He took off his ragged clothes and wore a new set of robes, which he had stocked in his inventory.

Instead of heading to rescue Mao Xueyan and Dandan, he flew toward the headless corpse of Zhang Junyi. Of course, it would have been a waste to leave spatial rings of a dead nascent soul cultivator around.

It wasn’t hard to locate the corpse. It was less than 500 meters away.

Cao Mao rumbled through the magical girl suit of Zhang Junyi. Although the latter’s hairy chest was disgusting, the former tore the clothes to pieces and stripped the dead body.

It was the correct choice. As soon as Cao Mao had torn the upper clothes of Zhang Junyi, he found an odd spatial ring, which had been tied with Zhang Junyi’s long and braided nipple hair.

Cao Mao burnt the hair and got his hands on the ring.

White Album and KQ also found several items in Zhang Junyi’s pockets. Moreover, even found a vibrating dildo inside his anus and several pictures of naked under-aged boys in his J-Phone.

In disgust, the gang chopped the tranny’s corpse to pieces and burnt them. Still, Cao Mao kept Zhang Junyi’s phone since it might hold some secrets of the Myriad Cauldron Sect.

As Cao Mao was about to fly home, the corner of his eyes spotted several small dots from the western horizon.

A group of people or something was heading toward their location!

Moreover, the number of small dots kept increasing. They soon covered the sky as if they were a massive group of migrating locusts. Several flying ships were also visible.

Cao Mao widened his eyes in shock. After all, there was nothing on the west but the Blood Sea!

‘Master, you’d better run.’

[GET US OUTTA HERE, NOW!]

Cao Mao didn’t even bother checking what they were and where they had come from. He kicked the ground and flew at a low altitude, flying southeast at his max speed.

…

Meanwhile

Fire engulfed Xuan City. Ten thousand commoners, several thousand weak cultivators, and hundreds of elites had been killed by the army of Liu Bian.

Fortunately, because of a handful of nascent soul cultivators in the city, Liu Bian Army was destroyed. His flagship had also been shot down by the warships of Sun Wentai.

But that wasn’t the only reason for his defeat. Because of Zhao Bao’s light element Qi and his purification spells, most of his undead soldiers, especially the skeleton knights, had been purified and disintegrated. Otherwise, the knights could have killed all of the nascent soul cultivators here since nothing seemed to be able to hurt them.

Liu Bian, his generals, and the ten eunuchs were forced to retreat with their backup battleship. Aside from the crafty Zhang Rang, all of them had been severely injured.

As for the rest of the warships, Liu Bian had ordered the ship captains to kamikaze them to Sun Wentai’s warships, so they could buy enough time for their escape.

Most of Sun Wentai’s warships were blown to pieces because of the kamikaze ships. Still, none of his officers were harmed.

The battle concluded with heavy casualties on both sides.

On Liu Bian’s warship, the prince looked back at the burning city.

He was neither angered nor frustrated. Instead, the prince was overjoyed.

‘Those men did better than I had expected. Well, they did too well! Had I never used my REAL soldiers, I might have died back then. It’s good that I get to know their strength now. After a few years, I should be able to start picking them off one clan at a time.’

The prince glanced at his subordinates, who had migrated to the current warship. Most of them had been looking at Liu Bian in wary because of his ability to control the undead soldiers. Moreover, a skeleton knight, who had survived the fight, was standing next to him, giving the soldiers a lot of pressure and stress.

None of them enjoyed working for an evil art practitioner. Everyone had planned to quit being soldiers and return to their families after this.

Unfortunately, Liu Bian had another idea.

‘It’s about time to clean up the mess. Zhang Rang and others should be exhausted by now…’

Liu Bian turned to Zhang Rang, who had spent most of his Qi in the previous battle. The prince grinned and pointed his finger at the eunuch.

He didn’t say anything, he just pointed his finger. Then, Liu Bian pulled his finger back and touched his lips as if he was gesturing Zhang Rang to be quiet.

Zhang Rang frowned. At first, he had thought that Liu Bian was calling him. But sensing Liu Bian’s malicious intent, the eunuch circulated his Qi and activated his domain in precaution.

Unfortunately, it was too late. A soldier in modern US marine gears, drenched in murky and sticky dark liquid, emerged from the eunuch’s shadow and stabbed him from the back. A dark blade punctured through his ribcage and cut his heart into two!