Chapter 1410: Heaven’s Retribution

Yuan Gang had personally witnessed what happened to Master Dao here before. He knew exactly what this place could do.

Lü Wushuang knew nothing of it.

She spread both arms and slowly floated upward, drifting diagonally into the air.

Yuan Gang landed on the sand, rolled once, then ran up onto a dune. He raised his head and waited for the scene he expected to unfold.

Suspended in midair, Lü Wushuang glanced down at him. Seeing how quickly he had run, she was briefly wary that he might try to escape. But once he stopped, she dismissed the concern. Even if he did run, he could hardly escape her grasp.

Her attention returned to the pyramid.

Her body suddenly blurred.

Whoosh!

Like an immortal descending from beyond the heavens, she streaked forward trailing a chain of afterimages and crashed toward the pyramid.

She did not aim for the summit. Instead, she shot straight toward the middle of the structure. The instant she reached it, she drove out a palm with all her strength, like a meteor smashing into a mountain.

Boom!

A massive stone block exploded into fragments and blasted outward.

But the instant her palm landed, Lü Wushuang sensed something wrong.

The stone was far harder than she had imagined, only somewhat short of steel. With her cultivation and a full-strength strike, she had managed to shatter only a single block.

Even more striking was the way the entire pyramid seemed able to conduct and distribute force. The destructive power of her blow had been concentrated at one point, yet the immense pushing force behind it appeared to spread through the whole structure and pass down into the earth.

This time she could also sense much more clearly that the entire pyramid was linked to the energies of Heaven and Earth. The greater the force of the attack, the stronger the answering fluctuation. A vast surge of energy rebounded through her whole body.

Thunder rolled across the sky.

Even daylight seemed to dim.

After delivering the blow, Lü Wushuang twisted in the air and landed on the stone steps, then abruptly looked up.

Her violent palm strike seemed to have shaken even the heavens. Dark clouds billowed into existence across the sky, churning violently as dazzling light flashed through them.

Thunder boomed. Lightning tore through the gloom.

Yuan Gang stared upward as the sky suddenly darkened. The corner of his face twitched.

A Nascent Soul cultivator of the Nine Saints’ level truly was something else. The force of that attack was far beyond anything Master Dao had unleashed here. The thunderous impact alone had left Yuan Gang’s ears ringing.

What the hell?

Lü Wushuang had barely begun to wonder what was happening when a brilliant bolt of lightning tore across the heavens toward her.

Her reactions under danger were astonishingly fast. It was almost as though she sensed the threat in advance. Her body turned into a phantom and flashed aside, narrowly avoiding the thunderbolt.

The current brushing past her made every hair on her body stand on end. Her heart lurched in alarm.

She thought she had dodged it.

Then she discovered the bolt did not travel in a straight line.

The lightning she had avoided suddenly forked like a tree branch, bending through the air in an impossible turn as though determined to strike her no matter what.

With her back turned, Lü Wushuang sensed it and nearly had her soul scared out of her. She had never experienced anything like this.

Bang!

The branching lightning struck her squarely in the back.

“Ungh...” Lü Wushuang gave a muffled cry of pain. Her limbs went numb, yet she forcibly circulated her spiritual power, driving her body across the sky in an attempt to escape.

Another bolt flashed from the clouds.

Boom!

It struck her directly, seeming to freeze her in midair.

And it was not the last.

One lightning bolt followed another, hammering down in a continuous barrage.

The flashing bolts spread across the sky like the branches of an enormous tree before converging relentlessly on a single point: Lü Wushuang.

The unbroken current seemed to pin her in the air.

One bolt seized her before it had fully faded, and another lightning claw reached down and caught her again.

The sight of lightning hammering a lone figure in the sky like a continuous artillery barrage left Yuan Gang shaken.

Master Dao, who had suffered this formation’s lightning himself, had been right: the greater the force used to attack the pyramid, the greater the backlash from the formation.

What shocked Yuan Gang even more was Lü Wushuang’s terrifying cultivation. Her body still struggled in midair. She was actually alive and apparently still using spiritual power to resist the might of Heaven.

The scene reminded him of something he had heard about in his previous life: legends that when mountain spirits, strange beings, or people cultivating immortality reached a certain level, they had to face a heavenly tribulation.

Lü Wushuang now looked exactly as though she were fighting one.

After a sustained barrage, the lightning suddenly stopped.

Half-conscious from the repeated strikes, Lü Wushuang could dimly sense that the energy rebounding into her from the pyramid had finally dissipated. It seemed to have faded only when the spiritual power of her cultivation had been exhausted.

The moment that energy vanished, the relentless lightning ceased as well.

No longer held aloft by the thunderous force, she had no strength left to remain in the air.

She fell.

Thud!

Her body crashed directly into the sand.

The lightning had come quickly and vanished just as fast. Once the flashes died away, the churning black clouds rapidly dispersed into nothingness.

The sky brightened again.

A moment later, the blazing sun shone down as though nothing had ever happened.

Yuan Gang stared at the sky for a while before finally exhaling. He shook his head. The repeated thunderclaps had left his ears ringing even now, as though his hearing had been knocked away.

Recovering from the terrifying display of heavenly might, he turned and looked toward a figure still struggling in the sand some distance away.

With his one remaining arm, Yuan Gang raised his saber slightly and tightened his five fingers around the hilt. Killing intent settled across his face as he ran toward the struggling figure, approaching cautiously.

When he drew close enough to see Lü Wushuang clearly, he stopped in astonishment.

She scarcely looked human anymore.

Blood kept choking from her mouth and nose. Not a shred of clothing remained recognizable, yet there was nothing remotely alluring about the exposure. The entire surface of her body was blackened like charcoal. It was equally possible that her clothes had been burned and fused into the charred surface until cloth and skin could no longer be distinguished.

Only one set of things remained bright and untouched: the silk ribbons she carried with her. They seemed completely unaffected by the lightning.

Her once beautiful cascade of glossy black hair was gone as well.

She no longer looked like a person at all. She looked like some grotesque creature.

Every time Lü Wushuang struggled, the blackened shell covering her body cracked open, and blood seeped from the fissures.

Calling her merely miserable would have been far too mild. Compared with this, the state Master Dao had been left in after being struck by lightning was tens of thousands of times better.

Remembering the overwhelming barrage of thunderbolts, Yuan Gang felt his scalp go numb. He could not help feeling fortunate on Niu Youdao’s behalf. It was a good thing Master Dao had not attacked this pyramid with his full strength back then. Otherwise, there was no telling what would have happened to him.

Lü Wushuang, writhing in agony and barely clinging to life, raised her eyes and saw him. Her voice was hoarse. “Save... save me!”

Perhaps she heard how rough and ugly her own voice had become. Perhaps she also saw the way Yuan Gang stood above her and looked at her as if she were a monster.

Two tears slipped from her eyes and fell into the sand.

Yuan Gang was certain now. Someone as proud as Lü Wushuang would never lie there begging unless she had truly lost the power to fight back.

He stared down at her and slowly said, “As expected of a top expert of the Nascent Soul Realm. It seems the body remade by the Wuliang Fruit truly is extraordinary. Even lightning like that couldn’t kill you. This is retribution. You Nine Saints have committed too much evil. Heaven’s retribution was bound to find you eventually.”

Lü Wushuang’s hoarse voice shook with tears. “It isn’t Heaven’s retribution, and it isn’t a Treasure Tomb. It’s a trap. The formation covering this entire tomb doesn’t just defend it. It contains a killing mechanism. Disturb it recklessly, and heavenly lightning is triggered.”

“It really isn’t a Treasure Tomb, and it really is a trap,” Yuan Gang said. “But it is still Heaven’s retribution. If you hadn’t committed so much evil and let greed drive you beyond all restraint, how would you have met this calamity? Because of you so-called Nine Saints, war has raged beneath Heaven and countless people have died. Letting you die like this is getting off cheaply.”

Lü Wushuang heard the hatred in his voice. “You want to kill me?”

“Even if I don’t, you won’t survive. This place isn’t much different from the Boundless Desert outside. There are plenty of sand scorpions here too. You know their nature. They’ll come when they smell blood. Once the deterrent force of the heavenly lightning fades, they’ll burrow out and eat you alive. Whoever laid down this formation probably placed it among the sand scorpions with exactly that in mind.”

“How do you know there are so many sand scorpions here...?”

As she spoke, Lü Wushuang’s trembling pupils suddenly contracted. She had remembered something.

“You... you knew already?”

Yuan Gang nodded. “Yes. I’ve been here before.”

Anger appeared in Lü Wushuang’s eyes. “The Scorpion Emperor losing control earlier... you deliberately lured it here?”

“Why do you think I brought you inside? Once you came in, I never intended to let you leave. I didn’t plan to leave alive either. I just never expected you to fall into the trap so easily. But it looks like evil really does bring its own retribution. Even Heaven refuses to let you off. I should still be able to leave here alive.”

He turned and looked back at the towering pyramid, filled with complicated emotion.

Master Dao was Master Dao after all.

His schemes always ran deep, and he killed without ever showing the blade. Long ago, he had worried that Yuan Gang might one day fall into Lü Wushuang’s hands and face danger. So he had deliberately left behind a contingency, something Yuan Gang might be able to use if such a day ever came.

Unexpectedly, it had truly worked and saved his life at the critical moment.

Yuan Gang clearly remembered what Niu Youdao had said when he slapped that stone pillar down into the sand. He had repeatedly told Yuan Gang to remember where it was buried, so that if danger ever came, he could use it and adapt to the situation.

Lü Wushuang stared at him in disbelief. “How could you possibly know this world existed?”

“Your grandmother was only Li Ge’s maidservant, after all. This place was arranged by Li Ge herself. That so-called family secret of yours was only a secret because you thought it was.”

Tears streamed from Lü Wushuang’s eyes. A harsh, broken laugh came from her ruined throat. “I thought you were an upright gentleman. I thought you were different from other men. I never imagined you were no different at all, just as despicable and shameless! I trusted you too easily. I deserve to die. I was the one who became careless. Men who look like upright gentlemen are the most dangerous of all!”

She was consumed by grief and fury.

“I’m not an upright gentleman,” Yuan Gang said, “but I’m not a fool either. Why would I show mercy to an enemy? Still, letting a living person be eaten alive by sand scorpions is going too far. Lü Wushuang, I’ll send you on your way.”

He raised the saber held across his body and brought it down.

[End of Chapter 1410]