Volume One: The Cloud-Bound Immortal Palace Arc, Chapter Eighty-Seven: The Eye of Divine Judgment

The blazing sun of the Great Day!

The colossal golden sun rose like a mountain, radiating a blinding brilliance and spewing visible waves of gold. The instant it appeared, it illuminated the entire Dragon King vault, flooding every corner with golden light and a searing, trembling heat.

Before that great sun, a figure slowly emerged. He stepped out from the sun’s center, growing from a tiny black point into a towering silhouette, lengthened by the unbearable glare.

“Zhou Hao, thank goodness, you’re not dead!” the tear-streaked little girl cried out again in astonishment, her wide, watery eyes opening even further.

The giant figure was naturally Zhou Hao. He looked up toward Huahuo and smiled. “I’ve made you worry. Once I finish enduring this tribulation, I’ll apologize properly.”

“Mm-hm!” Huahuo nodded happily, then sensibly withdrew to a distance.

Boom!

Above the void, the surging sea of thunder seemed to possess a will of its own, pouring down lightning like a catastrophic tide, bent on annihilating Zhou Hao and refusing to rest. It was as if Heaven itself had grown enraged, using thunder to punish him.

“Senior, Huahuo, leave the Crystal Palace and go outside Heart-shaped Island. This immortal tribulation has fully erupted. If you stay here, you’ll be dragged into it too!” Zhou Hao’s eyes flashed with cold lightning as he stared into the boundless thunder overhead and suddenly said.

Two streaks of immortal light tore through the space drowned in gold. The yellow gourd and Huahuo both saw the severity of the situation; staying in the Crystal Palace vault was clearly unwise.

A vast ocean of lightning descended, multicolored and terrifyingly powerful, crashing down upon Zhou Hao’s head. He snorted coldly, and the Great Day Sun behind him spun at extreme speed, like a wheel, actually swallowing every bolt of lightning whole.

Dong!

In the next instant, Zhou Hao moved. With a single leap, he charged upward into the void. The Great Day Sun followed like a shadow. Faced with endless lightning, Zhou Hao met it only with the golden sun.

He could be seen racing through the air as tens of thousands of bolts struck toward him, yet the Great Day Sun behind him was like a golden black hole, absorbing the thunder; not a trace of electric light could touch his body.

“This is the source of the Golden Immortal tribulation, isn’t it!” Zhou Hao stood atop the void’s thunder sea, within the eye of a whirlpool. Even with tribulation lightning circling him on all sides, he walked as though in a garden.

“Show your true form!” Zhou Hao roared at the kaleidoscopic whirlpool of lightning before him. The golden sun behind him cast out beams of light into it, and the thunder immediately surged in response. A destructive force rushed toward the golden glow, and the two collided, only to vanish in the instant, as though their energies had canceled one another out.

This persisted for quite some time before the sea of thunder began to part like flowing water. At the same time, the Great Day Sun gradually shrank, from mountain-sized down to just enough to support Zhou Hao.

From afar, a golden sun rose behind him, equal in height to his own frame, making him look like a minor god of the sun.

The Golden Immortal tribulation was incomparably profound; layer upon layer of thunder sealed off the source. Zhou Hao used the power of the Great Day Sun to peel back those layers of “seal,” and though he spent much of its strength, he finally saw what he had been seeking.

The sea of tribulation split in two, and a golden road extended straight ahead, like a divine sword cleaving open the waters. At its end lay only darkness; even the light of the Great Day Sun could not penetrate it.

“Still refusing to appear? Then never appear again!” Zhou Hao frowned. Although he had broken open the thunder sea, the true mastermind had evidently not yet been fully revealed.

He extended one palm, and endless golden light converged upon it. Power swelled violently, forming a massive golden handprint that even silenced the roaring thunder sea.

Ssshh!

In that very instant, the inexplicable darkness changed. It writhed like a worm, folding and rippling continuously, until at last a blood-red eye appeared. Its gaze swept out, and a crimson beam shot forth, streaking straight toward Zhou Hao.

“Come!” Zhou Hao moved his palm in silence, as though he had anticipated this long ago, his right hand aimed directly at the blood-red eye buried deep within the dark.

The Great Radiant Sun Palm struck! A colossal five-fingered palm shadow swept through the air along the golden road, crashing into the crimson beam with a thunderous detonation. The void shook violently. Yet neither side prevailed; both were annihilated within the whirlpool of thunder. Seeing this, Zhou Hao immediately charged toward the blood-red eye, evidently determined to destroy that mysterious gaze. The eye, meanwhile, continued firing crimson beams to kill him. The danger of the scene was enough to make one’s scalp tingle!

“According to the inner demon’s memories, only by shattering the Eye of Heavenly Punishment at the source of the Golden Immortal tribulation can one achieve the most perfect Golden Immortal status. But it seems that’s not going to be easy. Even the Great Radiant Sun Palm can’t completely suppress it.” As Zhou Hao dodged the crimson beams, he looked at that blood-red eye and secretly marveled.

One must know that his Great Radiant Sun Palm had always been unstoppable, and now that he had even condensed the legendary Great Day Sun, its power should have been nearly invincible. Yet against the Eye of Heavenly Punishment, it could actually be broken through?

All that could be said was that the source of the Golden Immortal tribulation was truly extraordinary. Even the Great Day Sun and the Great Radiant Sun Palm together could not win!

Rumble!

The blood-red eye seemed to grow impatient as well. Its pupil spun violently, and an intensely crimson beam shot toward Zhou Hao, who was nearly upon it. That beam was like the light of death itself; the space around it hummed as if it might explode at any moment.

Zhou Hao’s scalp went numb. Even he trembled endlessly before this strike. The extreme crimson beam seemed able to disturb the mind and spirit, and Zhou Hao felt as though he stood alone before hell itself. The boundless killing intent stunned him like a bucket of ice water poured from head to toe.

“Ah!” He could not help crying out. It was already too late to strike.

The beam before his eyes filled his entire vision. What he saw was a mountain of corpses and a sea of blood, the tragic scenes of those who had once perished under tribulation, a slaughterhouse of Asura.

“No, impossible. Impossible! I, Zhou Hao, will never die so easily. Absolutely not!” In that split second on the brink of death, Zhou Hao’s thoughts raced like lightning. His spirit and flesh fused to an extreme degree. This was not fear, but a resolve to live.

One thought makes a Buddha, one thought makes a demon. Truly, many things in life turn on a single thought.

Sizzle!

At this utterly critical moment, Zhou Hao’s two pupils turned golden. It was the strange Golden Dual-Pupiled Eye. Just as the crimson beam was about to destroy him, those twin pupils forcibly froze it in place.

“You can’t kill me. Then disappear!”

Golden light burst forth in all directions, the great sun rising and sinking in endless motion. Zhou Hao used every last shred of strength to push the Great Day Sun behind him toward that blood-red eye...

Above the Yin-Yang Twin Eyes, explosions rang out without cease. Thunder fell to the ground. Heaven and earth turned upside down. A figure plummeted from the void, his body riddled with wounds and blackened by scorch marks, lightning crackling wildly through his hair. At last, with a thud, he fell into the bone-chilling ice pool.

What happened next, by an uncanny coincidence, was that a graceful figure in the ice pool happened to catch Zhou Hao as he collapsed unconscious into it. Her expression changed at once, and with a faint crease between her brows she hurried to pull him from danger.

“Ah, ah, ah, help! Save me, save me!” Suddenly, just as Su Qing was carrying Zhou Hao up and out of the ice pool, a familiar voice reached her.

“Cai Lingzi?”

Su Qing glanced sideways with her phoenix eyes and saw, standing in the distance, a figure who had been hiding there to watch the spectacle. It was none other than Cai Lingzi.

“Su Qing, save me quickly, save me! If you don’t, I’ll die! Please, forget our past grievances and help me!” At this moment, Cai Lingzi no longer had even a trace of the lofty elegance of a noble young lord. He was actually kneeling and begging, both hands clutching his throat, his face twisted with agony.

Seeing Cai Lingzi in such misery, kneeling and pleading, Su Qing felt no pity whatsoever. If anything, her disgust only deepened. How could she possibly help him? But she did want to know what had happened to make him this way.

“What happened to you?”

Cai Lingzi hurriedly said, “Just now Zhou Hao was undergoing his tribulation, and the thunder ravaged this entire space. The box in my hand was accidentally struck open by lightning. I meant to take out what was inside, but who knew it would fly into my mouth instead. It hurts, it hurts so much! Please, think of a way to save me!”

His hair was disheveled, and his handsome face was full of pain. Gripping his throat, he dry-heaved and tried to vomit out whatever had entered the box, doing everything he could to force it back out, but nothing worked. It seemed as though he was being torn apart, not only in body but in spirit as well.

It felt as if his soul were being ripped like paper, and the agony was beyond imagination. That was why Cai Lingzi had been willing to cast aside all dignity and beg others for help.

“I’m sorry. Zhou Hao needs me too right now. You’ve done nothing but evil, and this is the punishment you deserve!” Su Qing gave Cai Lingzi one last cold glance, then, without another word, flew away without turning back.

Heart-shaped Island, above the central volcano.

“It’s already been so long. Why hasn’t Zhou Hao come out yet?” The little girl Huahuo was impatient by nature. She paced through the air around the volcano’s crater, muttering nonstop.

Beside her, a yellow gourd floated motionless in the air. At the gourd’s mouth stood a human-shaped strand of mist with hands behind his back, none other than Deng Tulang.

Buzz!

At that moment, light flared from the crater, and two figures flew out from within—one man and one woman. They were precisely Su Qing, who had safely escaped from the ice pool, and Zhou Hao, who had successfully endured his tribulation.

However, when the latter delivered his final blow to the Eye of Heavenly Punishment, he had also exhausted all of his immortal power. Once the Eye of Heavenly Punishment was shattered, the thunder sea vortex collapsed into chaos. Zhou Hao, caught within the eye of the storm, was naturally struck so hard he ended up charred on the outside and tender on the inside. Fortunately, he had already stepped into the Golden Immortal realm. So long as his immortal power recovered, he would heal at once.