Lonemoon pursed his lips. Alright, the Heavenly Dao had been tolerating all these matters for way too long anyway.

　　“It looks like I won’t have to take action.” He undid his sword array and scanned the group below. “Alright, I’ll look at how the Heavenly Dao deals with you worms!” With that, he turned and flew toward Shen Ying retreating inside the boundaries that Chef had drawn out. He pulled out a chair and took a seat.

　　The moment Lonemoon sat down, the realm gate that just opened sealed shut again. The gray clouds in the air grew thicker.

　　“Is this… is this lightning tribulation?” They looked up in disbelief. Why was lightning tribulation appearing all of a sudden? Nobody was ascending to immortality. What’s more, this was the mortal realm. They were from the immortal realm. What was the immortals’ lightning tribulation doing in the mortal realm?

　　It was a pity that something like that was happening! The lightning clouds looked ten times more ominous than those belonging to any other lightning tribulation. Finally, they heard thunder. More than ten bolts of lightning shot down from the sky toward the group of people.

　　Yu Cang and the others fought hard to defend themselves but to no avail. Their best immortal weapons fell to pieces from the impact of the lightning, and even their cultivations were reduced from the blow. The next bolt of lightning struck, as if it could hold back no longer.

　　In that moment, they finally understood why Lonemoon took away all of their merits. But it was already too late.

　　The lightning tribulation went on and on, and it did not look like it was going to stop for ages…

　　——————

　　The thunder stretched on for ages. The red lightning turned to purple, then white. There were many different colors of lightning – even lightning that did not belong to the lightning tribulations appeared. The suppression from the tribulation caused the people below to be unable to catch their breaths. As time went by, the bolts of lightning became thinner and thinner. It was not that the Heavenly Dao was deciding to let this group of people go. It was more like the Heavenly Dao wanted to sharpen its bolts so that each bolt of lightning became more like a blade which cut through the group one by one.

　　Yu Cang and the others had already spent all their effort trying to fight off the first few bolts of lightning. They no longer could find it in them to fight any longer. All they could do was stand there as their immortal powers and strength drained out of their bodies bolt after bolt.

　　The corners of Lonemoon’s mouth twitched. He did hate these people but he did not expect that the Heavenly Dao would treat them so harshly – it was coming up with such wicked techniques to deal with them. What’s more, the lightning had been going on for a long time. Just like that, a couple of months passed. The audience’s excitement slowly dissipated until it turned to irritation.

　　A whole three months later, the dark clouds began to part. The once glorious Hao Ran Court was now nothing but a flat piece of land. The entire mountain peak became one flat layer atop the sea, even smaller than the island next to it. Apart from a few disciples who were only at the Qi Refinement stage to begin with, the disciples from Hao Ran Court had all turned to piles of ashes.

　　Yi Qing looked around at the devastation. He said, “The nomological force in this small realm is half-restored.”

　　“Why only half?” Lonemoon paused. Upon closer inspection, he realized that the nomological force that had disappeared earlier was now flowing toward the north. They were gathering to form more gray clouds. Lonemoon’s eyes brightened. “The lightning tribulation clouds are heading for the Divine Imperial Sect!” Indeed, the Heavenly Dao was keeping track of all its debts. Now, it was going to collect what was owed to it once and for all. “Let’s go and join in the fun at the Divine Imperial Sect!”

　　“But…” Fatty hesitated and pointed toward the sea in front of them. “What are we going to do with that ancient ferocious beast?” The Weeping Beast may be domesticated, but it was an ancient ferocious beast after all.

　　Lonemoon frowned. That indeed was a problem. They had to deal with that beast.

　　“I think we can leave it alone,” Chef suddenly said. “The Weeping Beast loves flesh and blood, but it has yin Qi as its soul, baleful Qi as its spirit, and grievous energy as its bones. Now that Hao Ran Court is gone, the corpses in the lotus river are gone as well. Before long, the yin winds above the Uncrooked Sea will dissipate as well. The Weeping Beast will naturally disappear.”

　　Lonemoon hesitated. “You mean to say… the yin Qi above the sea was coming from the lotus river?”

　　Yi Qing nodded.

　　“Shit!” Lonemoon could not help but curse at the bunch of bastards from Hao Ran Court. They had indeed swallowed so many people whole, and thrown their remains at the bottom of their lotus river. It was no wonder that there was so much grievous energy all around. What’s more, the bones had not been buried. As time went by, they would emanate more and more yin Qi. That was why the entire Uncrooked Sea was the way it was. The Weeping Beast did not appear out of nowhere – it was born out of this atmosphere.

　　The nomological force in this realm was in such a mess because of this reason. Yu Cang and the others used all of the flesh and blood from Fatty’s previous lives, so that the Heavenly Dao mistook them for Fatty, and allowed them to ascend to immortality. By the time the Heavenly Dao realized this, it was too late.

　　What’s more, the Heavenly Dao had no sentience. It ran on a system of professional records of rewards and punishments. This repeated practice of Hao Ran Court’s caused the calculation system to malfunction. Without any other method to settle this mess, it had no choice but to lock the realm gates so as to minimize such occurrences.

　　It was only when Lonemoon and the others got to the lower realm to remove the merits that did not belong to these people and resolve half of the mess did the Heavenly Dao slowly return to normal. Perhaps after dealing with the people of the Divine Imperial Sect, this little realm’s nomological force would be fully restored.

　　At that thought, Lonemoon could no longer wait to head to Divine Imperial Sect to watch how they would be made to suffer.

　　It was a pity that they did not manage to witness how they were dealt with in the end because Fatty was ascending to immortality. The moment the nomological force was restored, Fatty’s spirit Qi exploded and gray clouds began to gather in the sky once again. This time, it was a normal lightning tribulation.

　　Lonemoon glanced at the tribulation’s intensity. He was not in the least bit worried for Fatty this time. This lightning tribulation was incomparable to the kind of training Lonemoon put Fatty through.

　　“We’ll head back to the upper realm first,” he told Fatty, before pulling Shen Ying and Yi Qing through the realm gate, back to the upper realm.

　　Lonemoon had no issue with Fatty going through the lightning tribulation. HIs only worry was that there would be someone above who would mess with his lightning tribulation. More than half of the people in Yu Cang’s East Tsui used such strange methods to lure people who ascended to immortality. Although Yu Cang was dead now, Lonemoon could not be sure that nobody else in the upper realm had used similar techniques.

　　That was why they decided to head back first, to find where exactly Fatty would ascend to, so that they could protect his ascension.

　　When they got to the upper realm, however, they discovered that they had been overthinking. The moment they stepped through the realm gates, they heard familiar thunderous sounds. The immortal realm became pitch black, and the gray clouds covered East Tsui completely, causing the entire immortal city to fall into darkness. As the thunder roared, the bolts of lightning struck.

　　The three people who just made it to the immortal realm almost got dragged into the mess. Lonemoon pursed his lips. This time, the Heavenly Dao was obviously having fun dishing out punishments. It was present even in the immortal realm. It looked like it had no intention at all to let off the people who had cheated their way to immortality.

　　Lonemoon sighed. He was not too bothered by the fact that the Heavenly Dao was dishing out such harsh punishments. Lonemoon guessed where Fatty was going to ascend to and brought Shen Ying and Yi Qing to fly toward that direction. Indeed, they felt Fatty’s aura in a random plain along the way. All around, immortal Qi began to surge and gather to form the Immortal Ascension Stage. Before long, a white beam of welcoming light shone onto the stage.