The Woman Statue was dressed in plain white.
At a glance, it was impossible to tell what material the Woman Statue was made of.
Overhead, the thunderous roar had not yet faded.
Evan Lin hovered in midair, gazing at the Woman Statue with a slight frown. The moment he saw it, a hollow feeling flashed deep inside him.
It felt as if everything he was experiencing now had been calculated long ago by someone else.
Wherever the Woman Statue appeared, it was always tied to events Evan had gone through.
Evan didn’t have time to think it over.
He glanced at it briefly, then forced himself to look away.
Above him, the massive and terrifying earth dragon was now covered in wounds.
Even though it was formed from all the stone of Coldspire Peak and the earth within a hundred li, the dragon kept drawing soil and rock from the ground to repair itself as it was damaged.
However, against the power of Heavenly Tribulation, the earth dragon’s recovery was always just a bit slower than the damage dealt by the tribulation.
Fortunately, after a series of dull crashes and hundreds of tons of stone being blasted off the dragon’s body by the tribulation, the purple lightning overhead finally began to fade.
The sky remained dim, as dark as ink, covering all of Hong Kong.
“The first Heavenly Tribulation is over.”
Evan took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and tried to restore the spiritual qi in his body.
There are nine bolts in the Ascension Heavenly Tribulation.
This was only the first, and Evan nearly got wiped out.
Holding out with late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivation up to now was already a miracle.
Evan worked to steady the chaotic qi inside his body.
The massive earth dragon was still struggling to rebuild an even larger and sturdier body.
It hovered above Evan’s head, the dragon’s body coiling layer upon layer, overlapping itself to increase its strength against the Heavenly Tribulation.
From the perspective of the onlookers—
The center of the storm clouds was so dark it resembled the depths of the cosmos; apart from flickering lightning, there was no other light at all.
And the massive dragon suspended in midair delivered an incredibly shocking visual impact.
Everyone fell silent, staring at the scene, feeling the terrifying pressure surging through heaven and earth. Most people could no longer stand.
Between flashes of lightning, people could sometimes glimpse the silhouette of a young man beneath the dragon’s body. In this moment, just one look filled their hearts with a sense of indescribable submission.
That youth—he’s basically defying the heavens.
The wind rose, and the clouds shifted.
Above the deep, pitch-black cloud curtain, at the very heart of the Heavenly Tribulation, an eye glowed with an icy gaze, coldly scrutinizing the earth dragon below.
The Heavenly Eye’s gaze seemed to pierce everything, locking straight onto Evan as he struggled to recover.
Unlike the blood-red eye that once hovered over Jingnan Mountain, the eye in the sky now represented the Immortal Realm.
Seeing its first bolt of Heavenly Tribulation blocked, the eye in the heavens radiated an even colder aura.
That was the fury born from its authority being challenged.
Above, the clouds kept gathering in huge masses.
More spiritual qi was being drawn from unknown places into this spot.
Bolts of lightning twined and converged within the clouds, growing more solid, and the pressure in the air multiplied by the second.
As Evan closed his eyes and tried to restore the spiritual qi in his body—
The dragon to his left watched Evan’s face with icy eyes, its gaze emotionless, occasionally tilting its head but never looking away.
As the aura of the second Heavenly Tribulation bolt in the sky grew stronger—
A black sheen slowly flowed from the center of the Lyria Blossom Lily Zhao had given Evan.
The black light flickered, appearing and disappearing.
The dragon to Evan’s left seemed to sense something and suddenly turned its head toward the blossom.
A few low, rumbling dragon cries came from its mouth, sounding more like warning and vigilance.
Inside the Soul‑Sacrifice Beauty Scroll—
Lily Zhao sat cross‑legged.
This was the interior of a magical artifact, a small enclosed space.
Three Maiden Spirits were peering out from within the Soul‑Sacrifice Beauty Scroll.
Even though the scroll had been stored inside the Spatial Ring, those within could still see what was happening outside the ring.
Lily Zhao stared blankly upward at the ever-thickening dragon body overhead.
She didn’t even need to think; it was obvious that Evan was doing his best to restore the spiritual qi in his body.
"Late-stage Foundation Establishment, and you actually survived a Heavenly Tribulation bolt... How did you pull that off?"
Lily Zhao murmured to herself.
She hadn’t had time to think about it while outside.
Now, with everything suddenly quiet, Lily Zhao’s shock only grew as she thought it over carefully.
Especially that dragon overhead.
There’s no way someone at Foundation Establishment could conjure something like that.
Even on the Immortal Martial Continent, no matter how deep your cultivation, if you wanted to use a spell to manifest another creature or beast, you had to have some connection to it.
Whether you’d seen it in person or studied it closely, you needed real understanding before the spell would work. If you just made something up, it wouldn’t appear.
Even at her peak, Lily Zhao could only conjure spirit beasts she’d encountered. But dragons—creatures that didn’t exist in the Immortal Martial Continent—were beyond her reach.
Watching the dragon still building up its body, Lily Zhao sighed.
A big reason she’d chosen to stay inside the Soul‑Sacrifice Beauty Scroll as a bystander was because of the blossom she’d given Evan.
"That Lyria Blossom was once something you gave me yourself. It holds a real trace of your essence."
"Its presence can at least save your life. When you’re truly about to die, the real you will appear."
"It’s been ages since I’ve seen him."
Lily Zhao muttered to herself.
Her gaze grew rare and uncertain, as if she wasn’t sure if what she’d done was right or wrong.
Above, the storm clouds rolled.
The wind kept coming in waves.
The lightning grew ever more wild and intense, still gathering.
Finally, time seemed to freeze for a moment.
The massive earth dragon raised its head slightly, gazing up at the horizon.
The Heavenly Eye was filled with icy coldness.
A huge bolt of lightning, even brighter and hotter, appeared in an instant, blasting down from the sky and piercing the horizon.
It was like a sword descending from the heavens, carrying terrifying pressure straight into the soul!