His Highness the Madman gave in again today.

An anxious call came from afar, growing closer, carrying a familiar voice and warmth.

Mo Sangyu's consciousness was abruptly pulled from those images, like a taut string suddenly snapping, everything before her eyes collapsed with a roar, and the darkness quickly receded.

She opened her eyes.

Feng Xingyu's face was inches away.

His eyes were filled with anxiety and worry. One hand was around her waist, and the other hand gently patted her cheek.

"Ayu, what's wrong? You've been shaking, I've been calling you for so long..."

Mo Sangyu looked at him.

Looking at this face that was exactly the same as that of the revered god, looking at those eerie crimson eyes, looking at the genuine and burning concern in his eyes.

She suddenly raised her hand and slapped him across the face.

Feng Xingyu: "..."

Before I could say anything, the sky suddenly stirred and was gradually swallowed up by thick black clouds.

The thick clouds hung extremely low, as if you could reach out and touch them.

Deep within the clouds, a dark red light flickered, like magma flowing inside the clouds.

An indescribable sense of oppression descended from the sky.

Feng Xingyu's expression changed drastically.

Ignoring the slap mark on his face, he abruptly stood up, shielding Mo Sangyu and Zhao Zhao in his arms behind him, and looked up at the dome.

The dark clouds began to swirl.

A huge vortex slowly formed directly above them.

Each ring of the vortex was a surge of lightning, a deep red that was almost black, like congealed blood being reignited.

The air became thick, and each breath felt like swallowing lava.

"Ninefold World-Destroying Heavenly Thunder!" Feng Xingyu's voice sank to the bottom of the valley.

Mo Sangyu also stood up and looked around, only to realize that they were standing on a desolate mountain.

The mountain was bare, devoid of any vegetation, with black rocks exposed, gleaming dark red in the lightning.

Has it already broken out of the spacetime turbulence?

She was so overcome by her emotions that she actually slapped Feng Xingyu.

As reason returned, she glanced at Feng Xingyu with a guilty look.

"Ayu."

Mo Sangyu was about to say something when Feng Xingyu interrupted her and then, without saying a word, shoved Zhaozhao into her arms.

The little one, unaware of what had happened, was woken up and pouted, about to cry. But upon hearing the terrifying aura emanating from all around, he immediately stopped crying, clutching Mo Sangyu's clothes tightly, his big eyes still brimming with tears.

"I will do everything in my power to draw away the heavenly lightning."

He raised his right hand, and a nearly transparent ball of light condensed in his palm. The light spread from his five fingers, rapidly constructing a hemispherical barrier around them.

The surface of the barrier is covered with complex runes, layer upon layer, each layer being an independent spatial barrier, maximizing the defensive power.

This is the strongest barrier he can set up.

"You are here to protect our daughter."

Feng Xingyu turned to look at Mo Sangyu, his eerie crimson eyes filled not with fear, but with an almost obsessive determination: "If we survive this tribulation, we'll go and settle accounts with that old man, the Heavenly Dao!"

The Heavenly Tribulation can only be triggered once. Just like back then, after Mo Sangyu's parents were struck down and killed, the tribulation on Mo Sangyu's body automatically dissipated.

Now that she is with Feng Xingyu, the divine and demonic bloodline she gave birth to has triggered the heavenly tribulation once again. Only by overcoming it can she gain a glimmer of hope.

Otherwise, their fate would be the same as it was back then...

"phoenix……"

Mo Sangyu opened her mouth, but Feng Xingyu didn't give her a chance to speak. He turned around, touched the ground with his toes, and shot into the air like an arrow, heading towards the first heavenly thunder that was brewing.

The Ninefold Heavenly Tribulation of Annihilation is several times more powerful than the heavenly lightning of yesteryear; they are about to face a life-or-death situation.

boom!

Soon, the first bolt of lightning struck.

Like a blood-red pillar reaching to the heavens and crashing down from the dome.

The lightning bolt was several meters in diameter, tearing black cracks in the space it passed through.

Before the lightning even arrived, the destructive pressure had already crushed the rocks on the mountain's surface into pieces.

Feng Xingyu spread his arms in mid-air, and his body burst out with dazzling white light.

He forcibly altered the trajectory of the lightning bolt, causing the pillar of lightning, which was originally heading straight for Mo Sangyu and Zhaozhao, to deflect and slam into the side of the mountain.

In that instant, the whole world turned white.

Mo Sangyu's pupils stung from the bright light, but she dared not close her eyes.

The moment the lightning struck, the entire mountain trembled.

Tens of thousands of tons of rocks were blasted into the sky, only to be evaporated into nothingness by lightning in mid-air.

A huge crater, tens of meters in diameter, was blasted into the ground, with molten lava billowing out from its edges.

Feng Xingyu was engulfed by lightning.

But only a moment later, he burst out of the lightning.

The black robe was mostly burned away, revealing the body underneath.

There was a shocking charred crack on his chest; the blood had been evaporated by the high temperature before it could flow out.

However, the crack is healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

Flesh and blood regenerated, and skin covered the wound. In just a few breaths, the potentially fatal injury disappeared, leaving only a patch of new, tender pink skin.

Resurrection technique.

Feng Xingyu did not turn around; all his attention was focused on the sky.

The second bolt of lightning was already brewing, thicker than the first, its dark red light almost turning black.

Mo Sangyu hugged Zhao Zhao tightly in her arms. Seeing that his wounds were still healing very quickly, her tense heart relaxed a little.

She looked down at her daughter, Xiao Zhaozhao, who was looking up at her. Tears finally fell, but she didn't make a sound, as if she was afraid that her crying would cause trouble.

What a sensible silly child.

She pressed Zhao Zhao's head into the crook of her shoulder, covered her ear with one hand, and raised the other hand to reinforce the barrier set up by Feng Xingyu.

With the two layers of defense overlapping, the barrier's light wall became even thicker.

boom!

The second bolt of lightning struck.

This time, Feng Xingyu did not take the lightning head-on. He tore open a spatial rift just before the lightning struck and disappeared from the spot.

The lightning bolt struck empty air, hitting a distant mountain ridge and blasting an entire mountain range in half.

The third way.

Feng Xingyu used spatial magic to dodge again, but the lightning was faster each time. His clothes were grazed by the lightning, and the skin on his entire left arm was instantly charred and bleeding profusely.

After a while, the charred skin gradually peeled off, revealing new flesh and blood.

The fourth attack came unexpectedly, and he couldn't completely avoid it.

A bolt of lightning grazed his back, slamming him from mid-air to the ground, creating a deep crater.

When he climbed out of the pit, the bones in his back were exposed, starkly white.

The healing process has slowed down, and the flesh and blood are no longer moving as quickly as before.

When the fifth lightning bolt struck, in order to prevent it from hitting Mo Sangyu, Feng Xingyu flew into the air and took the initiative to meet it.

He pushed his supernatural abilities to the limit, forcefully splitting the lightning bolt in two, one half falling to the east and the other half to the west.

His hands were charred by the lightning in an instant.

Before he could recover, the sixth bolt of heavenly lightning struck down.

This one is more than three times the diameter of the first one.

Feng Xingyu set up dozens of spatial barriers, layer upon layer, blocking his way.

The lightning bolts shattered the barriers one after another, slowing down with each barrier they were broken, until finally the lightning dissipated at the last barrier.

However, Feng Xingyu was also shaken by the backlash, causing him to bleed from all seven orifices and fall from mid-air, rolling several feet on the ground before coming to a stop.

His legs were trembling when he got up.

Mo Sangyu's fingernails dug into her palm.

She saw Feng Xingyu turn around and glance at her from hundreds of feet away.

There was no pain, not even weariness, in those red eyes, only an almost insane obsession.

He can still hold on.

There are three left.

The seventh strike did not target Feng Xingyu.

The Heavenly Dao seemed tired of his repeated evasive maneuvers, and the thick, despair-inducing pillar of lightning passed right over him, striking the barrier where Mo Sangyu and Zhao Zhao were located.

Boom! A loud explosion!

The barrier shook violently.

The first layer of the spatial barrier set up by Feng Xingyu began to shatter, and the layer reinforced by Mo Sangyu hummed, with countless runes exploding and reforming in the air.

The mountain collapsed.

Even during slow evaporation.

Centered on the barrier, all the rocks within a hundred feet radius were reduced to nothingness in the lightning.

The ground continued to sink, as if an invisible giant hand was pressing down from the sky, forcing the entire mountain into the ground.

A huge crater formed around the barrier, its walls as smooth as a mirror, formed from glassy material created by the cooling of rocks that had been instantly melted by high temperatures.

The pit continued to deepen, ten zhang, twenty zhang, fifty zhang...

Feng Xingyu rushed over like a madman and stood above the barrier before the eighth bolt of heavenly lightning struck.

The eighth bolt of lightning struck him, and he was smashed into the ground like a meteor, crashing through dozens of feet of rock.

The resurrection spell was still working, but it was moving at an alarmingly slow pace.

His chest wound had barely healed halfway before a new one appeared.

The crisscrossing, charred cracks resembled porcelain that had been torn apart and pieced back together.

The aftershocks of the eighth lightning bolt struck the barrier, and the enchantment set up by Feng Xingyu finally shattered completely.

Only the layer reinforced with black mulberry leaves remains.

The entire mountain has been completely transformed.

The mountain, which was originally thousands of meters high, has now been mostly cut away, leaving only a huge cone-shaped base.

Within a radius of dozens of miles, all living beings suffered annihilation from the lingering power of the heavenly thunder.

The distant forest was leveled by the shockwave, with trees uprooted and reduced to dust in mid-air.

The river evaporated, and the riverbed cracked.

The monsters that originally inhabited this mountain forest fled in a frenzy. Those who ran fast managed to escape with their lives, while those who ran slowly were reduced to ashes in the lightning before they could even scream.

There are many people at the foot of the mountain.

They were running desperately away, and the person at the front barely managed to escape the shockwave's range.

But those that lagged behind were swept away by a ripple, leaving no trace.

This damned calamity, who exactly is the demon responsible for this carnage?

Mo Sangyu closed her eyes.

She is not a savior.

At that moment, all she could protect was the child in her arms.

The sky was quiet for a moment.

That moment was eerily quiet.

The clouds stopped churning, the wind stopped howling, and even the air seemed to freeze.

This silence is not a sign of calm, but rather a gathering of strength...

The final stillness before the storm, the deepest crouch before a beast pounces.

coming!

The final bolt of lightning.

That wasn't just a chop down, it was a direct crash!

Its diameter exceeded the sum of the previous eight, and its color became a white that had never been seen before, almost ethereal.

The white light contained no impurities; it was pure destruction.

As it fell, the sky shattered like a mirror.

Countless spatial rifts spread across the sky, expanding in all directions like a spider web.

The earth began to sink before it even got close, and the irresistible pressure forced a basin into its shape.

Feng Xingyu burst out of the deep pit underground.

He could no longer recognize his original appearance; there wasn't a single patch of intact skin on his body.

His left arm hung at an odd angle, with several bones broken.

His face was covered in blood, but his red eyes were like two inextinguishable flames, and something seemed to be boiling inside him, gradually awakening...

There's still a little time left.

But it was too late.

He charged headlong into the lightning without hesitation, wanting to use his last bit of strength to draw it away from Ayu and Zhaozhao.

However, he had only flown less than ten zhang when the pressure generated by the heavenly lightning pressed him firmly to the spot.

His body was frozen for a moment.

Feng Xingyu gritted his teeth, his bones creaking and cracking.

He managed to move forward less than a foot with all his might, but was grazed by the edge of the lightning bolt. He was flung away like a kite with a broken string and crashed into a rock wall hundreds of feet away.

He struggled to get out, but his body wouldn't obey him.

The resurrection spell was still running, but so slowly it seemed to have stopped.

A wound takes several minutes to heal, while new wounds keep appearing.

Mo Sangyu watched as the bolt of lightning struck down towards her.

Holding Zhaozhao in her arms, she felt a peace she had never known before.

Mo Sangyu looked down at Zhao Zhao.

The little one had stopped crying at some point and was staring at her with his big eyes, reflecting the white light that was about to fall from above.

"Mother is here," Mo Sangyu said softly. "Don't be afraid."

She held Zhaozhao tightly beneath her, just as the couple had protected her years ago.

In the instant the final bolt of lightning struck, she broke the soul bond that connected their lives.

The soul contract was broken.

Any injuries she suffers will no longer be transferred to Feng Xingyu.

Given his current condition, he is no longer able to share her burden.

If 80% of the damage from that final lightning bolt were transferred to him, he might die, or even have his soul scattered...

With the soul contract successfully broken, Mo Sangyu pushed her spiritual power to its limit, reinforcing the final barrier layer by layer.

She poured all her life's cultivation into it.

The barrier of light grew thicker and brighter, shining like a lamp burning itself in the darkness.

A bolt of lightning struck.

There was no sound when the white light collided with the barrier.

All sounds were swallowed up by destruction itself.

Mo Sangyu saw the barrier shattering.

One floor, two floors, three floors...

The defense she had painstakingly built was as fragile as paper in the face of the absolute will of Heaven.

She hugged Zhaozhao tightly, lowered her head, and enveloped her daughter completely in her body.

The white light overhead grew brighter and closer.

That destructive force had penetrated the last barrier and was now licking her back.

She smelled the burning of her hair and felt the pain of her skin cracking under the high temperature.

"Ayu!"

She vaguely heard a roar coming from afar.

It was Feng Xingyu's voice.

There was a despair in that voice she had never heard before, as if something inside him had shattered.

She didn't have time to turn around; the white light engulfed everything.