Cultivation begins in Qingfeng Market.

The Divine Soul Sword Tower trembled slightly deep within the sea of ​​consciousness.

A sword's cry rang out from the tower, clear and melodious, yet carrying a terrifying power capable of annihilating souls.

The movements of hundreds of thousands of low-level monsters in the vicinity all froze.

The fierce red light in their eyes faded the moment the sword swept across, turning into a deathly gray-white.

His soul was instantly annihilated by a sword's cry, leaving him no room to struggle.

Hundreds of thousands of monster corpses floated to the surface of the sea, densely packed together, rising and falling gently with the waves.

Lin Zhao used the Divine Soul Sword Sound nineteen times in a row along the way.

Each time the sword's cry reverberated, a clear expanse of empty sea appeared ahead, leaving behind a bloody path paved with the corpses of demonic beasts.

The two peak Core Formation stage cultivators traveling with him watched with twitching eyelids.

They were all seasoned veterans, but the method of attacking the soul still terrified them to the core.

This is the horror of soul attacks.

Unafraid of being attacked by multiple groups.

No matter how many low-level demonic beasts there are, they cannot stop the annihilation at the level of the soul.

High-level demonic beasts have thick hides and strong vitality. Their souls and bodies are bound together, allowing them to withstand several attacks from the soul.

However, cultivators are not as good at it. Cultivators rely more on magic treasures, spells, and magic domains, and their defense is far less powerful than that of demonic beasts.

Unless there are special defensive measures, attacks on the soul are actually more lethal to cultivators than to demonic beasts.

Half an hour later, the group finally broke through the encirclement of monsters that stretched for thousands of miles.

As they broke through the last barrier of monsters, the sea suddenly opened up before them, free of the dense swarms of monsters and the endless blood mist.

The thunderstorm clouds overhead had thinned considerably, and a hazy layer of light could be faintly seen.

Looking back, the area in front of Camp 3 had been completely swallowed up by the thunderstorm clouds.

The group exchanged glances, each seeing a hint of relief at surviving a disaster in the other's eyes.

A trip to Camp 3 was indeed thrilling.

-----

Outside the beast tide, a considerable number of Core Formation cultivators from other camps had already gathered.

It was clear that the news of Master Kou's preparation to break through to the Nascent Soul stage had spread, and cultivators from several nearby camps had come.

The Nascent Soul stage is the biggest watershed for Core Formation cultivators. Successfully breaking through it means soaring to the heavens, while failure means death and the annihilation of one's cultivation.

Regardless of the outcome, simply witnessing the process firsthand was a rare experience for the Core Formation cultivators present.

The group gathered on a dark red reef. The reef was small, only a few miles in circumference, and the surface of the rocks had been stained dark brown by the sea wind and the blood of the monsters.

Hundreds of Core Formation cultivators were scattered across the reefs, some sitting cross-legged, some standing, all with their eyes fixed in the same direction.

Gu Hongling was also there.

She stood atop the highest point of the reef, her expression as indifferent as ever, but her brow furrowed slightly as her gaze fell into the depths of the beast tide.

Wei Chong stood beside her, unusually quiet, simply gazing silently into the distance.

The guardian of Camp Ten, Master Mu, has also arrived.

He was a gaunt-faced middle-aged man, thin and dressed in an old, faded Taoist robe.

He sat cross-legged on a protruding rock at the edge of the reef, his eyes closed, as if meditating or sensing something.

Ranked fifth on the popularity list, he is one of the most promising individuals to reach the Nascent Soul stage in the Black Sea camp.

But he never took that step, and nobody knew what he was waiting for.

Scattered monsters occasionally rushed out from the beast tide.

However, there were too many Core Formation cultivators here, including some whose strength was comparable to that of Master Kou. The charging demonic beasts were killed before they could even touch the edge of the reef.

Three more days passed.

For three days, the spiritual light deep within the beast tide flickered intermittently.

Sometimes I can sense a sharp axe light cleaving the sea, and sometimes there is nothing at all.

By the evening of the third day, there had been no new activity coming from the depths of the beast tide for a long time.

Everyone present remained silent, and some had already secretly shaken their heads.

With so much silence, Master Kou must have been exhausted in the beast tide and devoured by the monsters.

Just then, a beam of light shot into the sky from the depths of the beast tide.

The light shot upwards from the direction of the high cliff, piercing through layers of thunderclouds and exploding a huge hole in the clouds.

Sunlight poured down through the hole, shining on the sea and forming a huge pillar of light.

All the Core Formation cultivators present looked up, and many of them stood up directly from the reef.

But that ray of light began to dissipate, like the last flicker of a candle before it went out, shining brightly for a moment before quickly dimming.

Immediately afterwards, the thunderclouds in the sky began to shrink.

The thunderstorm cloud, covering thousands of miles, seemed to be gripped by an invisible hand, gathering from all directions toward the center, eventually shrinking to only five hundred miles in size.

The color of the thunderclouds changed, fading from silvery-white to crimson-gold.

What was churning in the clouds was no longer ordinary lightning, but a strange phenomenon of heavenly thunder interwoven with crimson gold.

Lightning collided in the clouds, each collision exploding into a ring of lightning.

The might of Heaven is terrifying.

Even from a distance of over a thousand miles, all the Core Formation cultivators present could feel the oppressive aura surging up from the depths of their souls.

The Nascent Soul Tribulation has arrived.

Countless monsters began to flee, and monsters within a radius of thousands of miles were desperately running away.

This is no ordinary thunderstorm cloud; it is a heavenly tribulation equivalent to advancing to the fourth tier of an ancient demon.

The gap in social rank is an insurmountable chasm.

Even the most ferocious third-tier demonic beasts have an instinctive fear when facing the Nascent Soul Tribulation.

Before long, the first heavenly tribulation descended.

A crimson-gold lightning bolt cleaved vertically from the tribulation clouds, crashing down like a small mountain.

The lightning bolt slammed into the core of the beast tide, blasting a huge crater in the seawater. The seawater at the edge of the crater was vaporized into white mist by the intense heat before it could flow back. The direction of the high cliff was swallowed up by the lightning and white mist, and nothing could be seen.

I wonder how Master Kou is doing.

Immediately following, the second heavenly tribulation descended.

This time, everyone saw clearly that a dark shadow was rising against the tide of lightning—it was Master Kou's giant axe.

He used his natal magic weapon to fight against the heavenly lightning.

The giant axe cleaved into the lightning pillar, and the axe light and the crimson-gold lightning collided violently, the blinding white light instantly engulfing the view for hundreds of miles.

The outlines of everything were submerged in the light, even the boundaries of the sea disappeared.

The shockwave of the thunderstorm that followed exploded outwards, and the destructive power of the crimson-gold lightning swept in all directions.

The sea surface was flattened by the shock wave, and the seawater was displaced to form a vacuum zone with a diameter of hundreds of miles, the bottom of which was the bare seabed.

The mud and rocks on the seabed were riddled with holes by the residual lightning strikes.

After the white light dissipated, the giant axe shattered.

The moment his natal magic weapon shattered, Master Kou's aura suddenly weakened considerably.

But he managed to withstand the second tribulation.

Master Mu opened his eyes at some point, looked at the tribulation clouds in the distance, and frowned.

He was silent for a moment, then sighed, "Master Kou is in danger."

No one questioned his words.

Of everyone present, Master Mu was closest to the Nascent Soul stage.

His judgment is unlikely to be wrong.