Molting the Mortal Coil

Chapter 1044: Lightning

The second violet bolt of lightning was bathed in silver lightning, but that didnt stop it from cracking down upon the body of blue electricity. In this changed form, the effects of the lightning tribulation were almost visible to the naked eye. The violet arcs coiled and twined around the crackling blue outline of the Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel body. Without a physical form, most of the methods he was using to resist the tribulation were rendered obsolete. Only the cursed embrace and the Infernal Qi formation were continuing to power him from within. The Jade Mantle, Collapsing Sun attack, Sacrificial Blade Poison, and the pure physical strength of his beast body were all useless now. As a being with a body made of energy, none of those things could help him now.

On the plus side, it was now like trying to burn fire with fire. The tribulation lightning struck him with barely any reduction in its power, but it also had a much more difficult time damaging him. It crawled around the parts of his body, slowly burning away the blue lightning that was his body. Sages body was now created entirely of energy, but it was also simpler in a way as it had far less complexity to it. Instead of billions of tiny cells of which there were many thousands of different types all working in unison, he was now made up of a network of energy of varying intensities. It was still extremely complex, but it was far more uniform and hence not as vulnerable. The tribulation lightning weakened all of those systems, but given that his body was also made of lightning, the extreme speed of the tribulation lightning was not as destructive.

Sage just had to focus on diverting the violet arcs to travel along inside his body in the same direction as his own internal energies were moving. As long as the foreign energies circulated in the same direction as his own energy the damage it could inflict was greatly reduced. When the arcs first entered his body, they collided against the flow of energy, clashing directly against the flow that made up his form and tearing it apart. He mobilized his Qi and Spirit Power to divert those violet arcs, slowly turning them around to travel along with the flow.

He didnt have much time till the next bolt so he quickly tested out another emergency measure. It was something hed tried before and found useful, if draining. The only question was whether or not the tribulation lightning coursing through him would stop it from working. At the tip of his tail, the blue arcs were entwined by the silver arcs, and when the nearest violet arc shot past, the blue and silver pressed together. There was a flash and the large blue arcing outline of his tail no longer had hair-like silver strands wrapped around it. Instead, the blue had started to shimmer, getting lighter and brighter. The change in color started to spread through the rest of his crackling outline until it reached the areas where the violet lightning was. At those places there was a fluctuation of power, the collision of the two energies sending a ripple through the air in the surroundings.

The whole of his body had lightened a few shades, but that was not the end of it. Just like before the tip of his tail brightened and then rippled through his body. This cycle of brightening color continued a few times until his whole body was now made of brilliant silver lightning rather than the blue it had been before. The small violet arcs had mostly expended their energy at this point and the small sparks were being consumed by the flow of silver.

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Up above, the black sky had only darkened again. The clouds appeared like a dust storm of coal dust, so dark and thick that they hid the day and made it seem like the deepest part of the night. Not only that, but they had also started to swirl. Like a giant vortex in the sky, the center of the black clouds was now spinning and rising in a conical shape that soon became an open cylinder. This cylinder didnt lead to the bright blue sky that had been there before the tribulation started. It seemed to lead straight up to a field of stars. A field of stars that were now marred by a viciously dark black crack. A tear in the sky that the deep violet lightning was spilling out of. An immense crackling core that showered smaller sparks down into the dark clouds.

As the swirling ball of lightning started to mobilize, Sage also took action. The immense Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel body swam upwards. Not springing off the ground like a coiled snake, but swishing his tail like an eel swimming through the sea. A silver lightning eel shot up towards the sky, rushing towards the tribulation cloud. As he moved, the last of the dark violet lightning had been absorbed into his body, but for some reason there was now a dimple purple haze surrounding him. The haze continued to thicken and the silver lightning of his body was more and more blurry as it traveled upwards.

There was a flash. Movement so fast no normal human eye could even see it. The violet core of energy spilling from the crack in space had changed. A twisting pillar of lightning connected the ground to the sky, like the finger of a terrifying god piercing the atmosphere to touch the planet. Midway up that river of violet lightning, a silvery form slithered upwards, swimming against the current to reach towards that crack in the sky. The silvery light flickered and started to fade, withering under the voltaic assault. Up and up it climbed, fighting against what seemed to be an inevitable fate. The silver faded away, shrinking in size until not a speck remained. The violet lightning bolt finally disappeared. Disconnecting that link from the ground to the sky and leaving nothing behind in its wake except for the thunderous noise that had been constantly booming through the whole area. Sound so loud it had forced those in the city miles away to erect a defensive formation to keep the mortals from going deaf.

With the fall of the ninth bolt and the disappearance of the silvery form of the Cloud Swallowing Thunder Eel, the lightning in the sky finally seemed to come to an end. The rumble of thunder that had been constant previously had now become intermittent. Only a few random booms were left, caused by the last few arcs of electricity rippling through the dark clouds. A few more minutes passed by, yet the black clouds remained in the sky. When the tribulation was over, such clouds were known to disperse immediately and this strangeness caught the attention of the powerful Cultivators in Stormport City. They looked upwards, trying to figure out what was causing this unusual phenomenon.

Only the Nascent Souls with the most powerful Spirit Sense were able to notice what was going on. A purple haze had spread through the black storm clouds. Like the haze of a mirage in the distance, they could see only that some of the clouds were bending in the light, the subtle shifting in front of their eyes was almost invisible from such great distance and with the black clouds as a backdrop. Only by relying on another sense did they realize the haze was not just a visual anomaly. The haze wasnt uniform either, it was moving around at a rapid speed, tracing a twisting and curving course through the black clouds. They could also pick out the last remaining bits of violet lightning were almost chasing after that haze, like a race conducted in three dimensions and moving at nearly the speed of light.

While the lightning seemed to always catch up, the strange haze always seemed to escape again. For nearly an hour this strange show in the sky continued before finally the last bolt of lightning faded away. The black clouds swirled and disappeared rapidly, sucked into that crack in the sky like they were being sucked down a drain. In the end only that soft purple haze was left in the sky.