The moment Silan's Saint aura erupts, Dina's expression finally breaks.
Her pupils contract.
Her voice pierces the battlefield like a command from an ancient law:
"Get out of the world! The Saint Tribulation will damage the realm—GO!"
Silan reacts instantly.
She doesn't argue.
She doesn't hesitate.
Her body flickers, and the air collapses behind her as she shoots upward.
She pierces the clouds.
She rises beyond the sky.
And then—
She breaches the outer shell of the demi-world.
Not truly leaving it—
—but stepping into the boundary layer where sky meets void.
Where only Saints are permitted to face the heavens.
Below her, the world continues spinning—untouched, shielded.
Above her, the sky turns black.
Lightning gathers—not in streaks, but in coils, like celestial serpents awakening.
A tribulation cloud forms—vast, heavy, suffocating—stretching across the void like a storm that wants to erase existence.
Silan exhales once.
Then she raises her hand.
Her Dao manifests fully—
A lotus of frost and flame, petals shimmering like crystal blades, each one breathing ice and fire in perfect, devouring contradiction.
The lotus spins above her head.
The first bolt of lightning falls—
A blade of celestial wrath.
It crashes into the lotus.
The world shudders.
Ice cracks.
Fire roars.
The lotus trembles—
—but does not break.
Silan stands beneath it, back straight, gaze cold, aura sharp enough to cut reality.
She does not shout.
She does not resist with desperation.
Lightning falls—relentless, merciless.
The second strike tears through the void, slamming into the lotus.
The petals flare—white flame and frozen mist exploding outward—yet the lotus endures.
The third bolt descends, heavier than the first two combined.
The lotus buckles, its petals bending like warped blades.
The fourth comes with a thunderous roar, the sound echoing like war drums of heaven.
The lotus fractures.
Cracks web across its surface.
Silan's jaw tightens—but she doesn't flinch.
Then comes the fifth.
A pillar of lightning, thick as a mountain root.
It shatters half the lotus on impact.
The remaining petals rotate desperately, absorbing and diffusing what they can—but lightning punches through the Dao and slams directly into Silan.
Her body jerks violently—electric arcs crawling across her skin.
Her cells burn.
Her veins feel like molten metal.
Blood trickles from her lips, crackling with sparks.
Yet in the same moment—
Her cultivation technique surges.
She absorbs the lightning, forcing the chaotic Saint power into her meridians, grinding it down, converting destruction into strength.
The sixth strike falls.
Then the seventh.
Each one heavier, crueller—each one tearing away fragments of her Dao lotus and slicing lightning into her flesh.
Her bones glow faintly, resisting the force.
Her qi replenishes and burns away in the same breath—rebirth and destruction cycling without pause.
By the tenth strike, her skin splits, blood sizzling in the charged air.
By the eleventh, the lotus hangs by only two petals—flickering, trembling, barely holding shape.
Silan looks up.
Her expression is calm.
Determined.
Unshakable.
The twelfth bolt descends—
—like a verdict.
It obliterates the remaining lotus petals.
Dao fragments scatter like shattered glass across the void.
The lightning slams into her unprotected form.
Her back arches.
Her muscles tear.
Her spirit trembles.
But she does not fall.
She forces the rampaging thunder into her core—into the newborn Saint foundation forming beneath her bloodline and resentment Dao.
Her eyes glow with icefire light.
She breathes—
And the heavens tremble back.
The lotus may be gone.
But Silan still stands.
Her breath steadies—slow, deliberate—then her eyes turn pitch black.
Resentment erupts.
A suffocating pressure floods the air as her Resentment Dao manifests—
not as a lotus…
…but as a churning storm of black mist.
Faces swirl within it—blurred silhouettes twisted in agony.
Some scream silently.
Some sob.
Some simply stare with hollow, dead eyes.
All of them reflect despair.
The tribulation cloud responds at once.
A crack splits the sky—
—then the thirteenth lightning falls.
It slams into the Resentment Dao.
The black mist absorbs part of it, the faces writhing as if experiencing the lightning themselves, but much of the force tears through the mist and strikes Silan directly.
Her body convulses.
Skin evaporates in patches—
Muscle scorches and splits—
Blood flashes into steam.
She grits her teeth—no sound escapes her.
She forces herself upright—
But her healing lags behind the destruction.
The fourteenth lightning drops immediately.
Her legs buckle.
More flesh burns away—her shoulder exposed to bone.
She breathes through the pain, stealing fragments of energy from the lightning to continue fueling her cultivation—but the injury outpaces recovery.
---
The fifteenth comes like a guillotine.
The black mist flickers.
Faces twist—crying, laughing, cursing—before collapsing inward under the overwhelming power.
Lightning strikes her chest.
Ribs shatter, and her internal organs rupture.
She coughs—blood pours from her lips, thick and dark as ink.
---
The sixteenth descends before her body can regenerate.
Her Resentment Dao twists wildly—struggling to maintain form.
Lightning hits.
The mist screams.
Half of it evaporates instantly, the faces dissolving into pale ash before fading completely.
Silan drops to one knee—breathing ragged—half her torso flayed open.
---
Then the seventeenth bolt falls.
The last remnants of the black mist crackle—
tear—
and explode outward in a rain of shadowed fragments.
Her Resentment Dao is destroyed.
Lightning rips through her now-unshielded form.
Her spirit trembles.
Her vision blurs.
Her bones glow faintly, trying—failing—to shield her organs.
For a heartbeat, it looks as though she may collapse…
…but Silan refuses to fall.
Even half-burned, half-broken—
She stands.
Shaking.
Bleeding.
Dying—
—but unwavering.
Her breath rattles, shallow and strained, yet her spirit refuses to bow.
Lightning still burns across her body, but somewhere inside the pain—
—something responds.
A pulse.
A spark.
A silent awakening.
Her Spirit Blood Saint Physique, pushed to its absolute limit, finally breaks through its dormant seal.
A rush of power erupts from deep within her marrow—pure, terrifying, ancient.
Golden-red saint energy surges outward, flooding her destroyed organs, shattered bones, and scorched meridians.
Flesh knits.
Bone reforges.
Blood liquefies from light.
Her wounds mend faster than lightning can claim them.
She looks almost reborn—yet the sky does not relent.
The eighteenth lightning falls.
This time, she does not defend.
She accepts it.
Her body convulses violently as the bolt tears into her, but instead of breaking—
—it becomes fuel.
Fragments of the lightning's essence merge with her blood.
Her veins glow crimson-gold.
A new law unfurls inside her mind:
The Law of Blood.
Not the gentle flow of life…
…but the ferocity of lineage, wrath, inheritance, and sacrifice.
---
The nineteenth lightning strikes.
Her bones—visible beneath burned flesh—gleam gold.
Her skin crackles.
Blood steams.
But she stands, trembling—yet whole.
Healing slows now, struggling to keep pace.
Lightning twenty, twenty-one, twenty-two—
Each strike tears away pieces of her body faster than she can repair them.
Arm gone.
Shoulder melted.
Ribs exposed.
Half a face scorched black.
She rebuilds—again
and again
and again—
But the sky accelerates.
*Twenty-five.
Twenty-six.
Twenty-seven.*
Her regeneration falters.
Twenty-eight—
Half her torso disintegrates into glittering ash.
Twenty-nine—
Her remaining arm and most of her lower body vanish under the celestial assault.
Still, her consciousness clings to the storm.
Not pleading.
Not afraid.
Defiant.
---
Then—
The thirtieth bolt.
A colossal pillar of pure heavenly judgment.
There is no sound.
There is only light.
And Silan's entire body shatters—
not into flesh or bone—
But into raw particles of existence, scattered into the sky like dying embers.
---
On the ground, Mengui's voice breaks the frozen silence.
"Mother!!"
She runs toward the tribulation—
—but a hand catches her waist.
Cold.
Unyielding.
Demon Merin.
His voice low, unreadable:
"Don't interfere."
Lightning still churns above them, waiting—
—not yet finished with her.
Mengui trembles, tears streaking down her face, eyes locked on the empty sky where her mother once stood.
"She'll die…"
Merin doesn't look at her—his gaze fixed on the storm.
"No," he says.
Not a hope.
Not a prayer.
A statement.
"She's not done yet."
The words leave Merin quietly—not comfort, not bravado—just truth.
When the first clash between Silan and Dina shook the world, Merin had already begun moving.
His dao, his instincts, and something he refused to name as emotion—
—all pointed him here.
He arrived the moment Mengui launched herself toward the tribulation clouds, reckless and terrified.
He had stayed hidden until the last second.
But a daughter rushing toward heavenly judgment?
Even a demon has limits.
He caught her—firm, unyielding—and held her back.
Now Mengui trembles in his grasp, eyes locked on the sky where Silan's body had been obliterated.
"You're lying," she whispers, voice breaking. "She's already—"
"Silan is fine," Merin cuts in, calm as winter iron. "If she had failed, the tribulation cloud would have vanished."
Mengui freezes.
Only now does she truly look—and realise the sky still churns with divine fury.
Bolts coil.
Space trembles.
Heaven waits.
But Silan does not stand in the sky.
There is only emptiness.
Mengui swallows hard. "But she already took thirty strikes… There are fifty-one left."
Her voice breaks. "Her body's gone—how can she—"
Merin's gaze never leaves the storm.
"She holds a Supreme Weapon," he says lightly, as if stating the colour of sand. "She will not fail."
Mengui stiffens.
Memory flashes—her mother holding the Icefire Sword, the spirit within it responding, protecting, reshaping fate.
Then why isn't she using it now?
Why face heaven bare-handed?
Before she can voice the thought—
—something forms.
Right where Silan had vanished into particles, a mass of seething resentment condenses.
It twists, dark and alive, screaming without sound.
A cloud— no disk.*
Half of it ignites into black flame.
The other half crystallises into black ice.
Heaven reacts.
A new thunderbolt births in the clouds above—thicker, heavier, vibrating with destructive law.
The thirty-first strike falls.
Straight toward the resentment disk.
Mengui's breath catches.