Legend of the Great Sage

The world rocked; lightning flashed brightly, illuminating the sky.
It formed a sea of lightning.

Among the eight trigrams, zhen was thunder and xun was wind.

The thirty-second hexagram, thunder and wind, persevering.

The wind and thunder surged!

In order to prevent the heavenly tribulation from charging up any further, Li Qingshan proactively received the challenge.
The lightning poured down towards him like a flood.

The marsh beneath him was immediately vapourised, exposing the dry, cracked ground.
His iron hooves sank deeply into the earth, giving him a firm footing.
Drawing strength from below, he threw a punch at the sky.

“Obliterate!”

His fist burst through the lightning, slamming the space there heavily.
Shockwaves spread out as ripples, shattering the eight trigrams formation constructed by the eight armaments of tribulation lightning.
The pressure of imminent doom lightened as a result.

Even though his imposing figure was still swallowed by the lightning, shaking and numbing his body all over, he had directed most of the lightning into the ground beneath him, so it did not lead to any actual damage.

Regular tribulation lightning was not enough to kill him.
The threat that was truly lethal was still the eight armaments of tribulation lightning!

Before he could even bring himself to fend them off, the numb sensation abruptly turned into heart-wrenching pain.

Every inch of his skin, blood vessels, and bones groaned, filling his entire soul.
Even the tortures of hell were nothing more than this.

He gritted his teeth firmly and knelt down on one knee.
He felt the impression that he had already been reduced to dust by the tribulation lightning.

But in the next moment, the pain turned to joy, like he had risen up through the clouds, making his way to paradise.
Even if he died now, it was fine.

Yet in the next moment, he plunged back into the abyssal hell.

Suffering and pleasure, sorrow and joy constantly replaced one another.
He could not help but recall all the matters of pain and the matters of joy he had experienced in his life.

Whether it was scaling the Ice Sword cliff arduously in the violent wind and snow or the delight and elation from destroying the Ice Sword cliff, all of these emotions flooded through his head.
He wanted to laugh aloud and sob away at the same time.
It was not an illusion.
It was more than an illusion.

Xiao An said, “If you cannot see through the illusion of form, then you must ‘perceive’ the various pains and joys.”

“Alright! What’s the point of living if there aren’t tests like this?”

The various sensations could not be suppressed by the spirit turtle, nor did he want to suppress them.

Li Qingshan cleared all of his thoughts and recalled his experience when he underwent the Phoenix’s Nirvāṇa recently.

If his body was not destroyed, if his heart did not die, then he had to endure all of these sorrows and joys, pains, and pleasures.
He went up in flames just because times were tough and the odds were against him, that was viewing escape and evasion as a wise choice.
He would be no different from a coward, blaming everyone but himself, placing his faith in others but not himself.

The surroundings dimmed, and the eight armaments of tribulation lightning all plunged deeply into his body.

If he had not used the Ox Demon Forges its Hide in the final moments, he would have been carved to pieces with that.

No matter how he redirected the lightning into the ground, his body continued to crack, but not a single droplet of blood was split.
It was all vapourised by the lightning.
Among the violent flashes, his tiger bones became visible, shattering bit by bit.

He did not budge, silently enduring all of this as he drew out the armaments of tribulation lightning one by one, snapping and crushing them.
Afterwards, he rose up to fight again.

Xiao An said, “Qingshan!”

His wounds did not close up, leaving behind a series of horrific holes.
There was no flesh, blood, or bones in them.
He was already heavily injured.
However, for some reason, his standing figure became even loftier, like he had merged with the earth.
Peering through the depths of the swirl, he gazed at the distant heavens.

The heavens seemed to be angered by this gaze.
It rumbled, letting out a deep and furious roar.
The shattered lightning condensed again in the blink of an eye, such that only a giant sword of lightning remained.

Li Qingshan was unfazed.
The small world in his body circulated slowly, using the divine transformations to restrain the demonic thoughts inside and using the demonic transformations to fend off the wrath of the heavens outside.
He used the various transformations freely, like it was all within his grasp.
He was indestructible and unswayable.

He had the Nine Transformations of the Demonic and Divine, just so he would not change.

Xiao An shut her eyes calmly.
“He’s won.”