Now, Ba Shifang never experienced heavenly tribulation like Tianyi, his main body, did. Still, he inherited Tianyi's memories from when he was at the Nascent Soul Realm, aside from the ones Tianyi personally deleted. Hence, he knew how annoying it was to be targeted by the Heavenly Dao.
For once, he got to see what it was like to be on the other side. If Tianyi were to know, Ba Shifang had no doubt that he would teleport over, bring out a second chair, and pop some popcorn.
Ba Shifang watched with an enraptured expression as tribulation lightning bolts fell one after the other onto Bai Weiwei.
When Tianyi upgraded the Thunder Throne Mk IV, he also added tribulation essence to it. For Ba Shifang, it was no issue since he could control lightning and the tribulation essence within without alerting the Heavenly Dao, but Bai Weiwei couldn't, hence her current predicament.
Ba Shifang continued to watch Bai Weiwei endure the heavenly tribulation. Compared to the ones Ba Shifang would have endured, hers were a level higher due to being in the Seamless Immortal Realm.
Bai Weiwei shrunk the white lotus around her until it was only three meters tall and ten meters wide. The white lotus immortal artifact purified the lightning energy and tribulation essence into pure qi for Bai Weiwei to absorb. This action only seemed to enrage the heavenly tribulation even more as its power infinitely neared the immortal emperor level.
Part of Ba Shifang's mind told him to take advantage of Bai Weiwei's plight and attack her, but the rational part of his mind told him not to. It was not that he was being chivalrous; he just didn't want to join the heavenly tribulation. Just attacking someone undergoing their heavenly tribulation would drag him into it.
Still, it didn't mean that he was idle. While Ba Weiwei was busy with the heavenly tribulation, Ba Shifang began to set up the Eight Symbol Astral Formation. He placed a pearl condensed from fire qi, lightning qi, sky qi, water qi, mountain qi, wind qi, earth qi, and lake qi.
After setting it up, Ba Shifang contacted the Buzhou Immortal Sect about the nature of the mysterious assassin using the Xiyi Talisman. While he did so, he suddenly jolted, and the corner of his lips twitched upward. "Figures."
From there, Ba Shifang completely relaxed and waited. It took three more hours before the heavenly tribulation disappeared, but as usual, it released one last unwilling roaring thunder.
"The Heavenly Dao is quite the sore loser, isn't it?" Ba Shifang jokingly asked as he walked closer.
Bai Weiwei groaned as she stumbled onto her feet. Her white lotus artifact had numerous cracks on it, and her hair was a mess, with soot covering her face and clothes. "You tricked me."
"Now, that's just slander," Ba Shifang continued to joke. "Did I force you to steal my artifact? That's called karma."
"If you hadn't forced me to this end, I wouldn’t have stolen it!" Bai Weiwei continued, unwilling to admit any mistake.
Ba Shifang stared for a moment, and then he unleashed a peal of roaring laughter. "This is the first time I have seen a thief blaming the person they stole from. Forget it, I already knew you had a hole in your brain, so I won't argue with you. I just want you to die."
He formed a hand seal, and the eight pearls of condensed qi floated into the air. The surrounding ten kilometers were instantly engulfed in a black fog. From the outside, any observer could see countless motes of light shining within.
From within, Bai Weiwei discovered she had been transported into what she could only describe as the night sky. If the night sky had eight different colored suns in the sky. "Where is this? Where did you take me!"
"Welcome to my Eight Trigram Astral Formation. Although it isn't as good as the Chaos Refining Formation, you'll find it quite difficult to survive here," Ba Shifang said as his body merged into the night sky and disappeared.
"Show yourself, coward!" Bai Weiwei said. She discovered to her horror that the white lotus couldn't purify the energy here. Rather, it was she that was losing energy within the Eight Trigram Astral Formation.
Silence answered her. Even with the protection of the white lotus, Bai Weiwei felt the chill of the strange environment. Even while freezing, she felt her blood boil within her body and threatened to escape. Just as she thought it couldn't become any worse, the eight stars started slamming into her.
Unlike the desolate environment she found herself in, the white lotus could absorb the qi from the eight stars, but the qi it purified did not make up for the damage she received. She discovered that she didn't have any method to counter Ba Shifang's tactics.
"System, help me!" Bai Weiwei shouted.
[Ding! Would you like to master the Law of Probability? 32,000,000 points are required.]
"No, just give me the rudimentary master of all five of the elements! Enough to become a peak seamless immortal!" Bai Weiwei said.
[Host, becoming a peak seamless immortal will not extract you from your current predicament.]
"Shut up and just do as I say," Bai Weiwei said.
[Host currently does not have enough points to reach the peak of the Seamless Immortal Realm. With Host's current points, you can only add two of the five elemental qis.]
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Bai Weiwei grunted as she was blasted back, and her white lotus cracked even more. "System, what can I do to raise myself to the peak Seamless Immortal Realm?]
The system didn't answer, and Bai Weiwei suffered another round of injuries. "System!"
[The Wealth System can lend Host 70,000,000 points. However, Host must allow the system to bind Host's soul further.]
Without even thinking, Bai Weiwei said, "Yes, just hurry!"
[Ding! The system will now install Host with twenty percent mastery of the Law of Fire, Water, Earth, Wood, and Metal into Host's soul and mind.]
Bai Weiwei released a scream as a massive amount of information was directly inputted into her brain. Her brain seemed to have swollen to ten times its original size and constantly pulsed as if it would spill out of her orifices at any moment.
However, when the pain ended, Bai Weiwei's eyes became fierce. When the next round of assault from the eight stars came, she didn't purify the elemental qi into pure qi but kept its elemental nature.
Bai Weiwei absorbed the elemental qi and felt her Daotree start growing again. With each tackle from the star, her Daotree grew even further. This led to her feeding her improved immortal qi of pureness back into the white lotus, strengthening it and preventing any further degradation.
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Ba Shifang discovered that his attacks no longer affected Bai Weiwei as much. He wasn't Tianyi, so he had expended a massive amount of qi to set up this formation, and he sustained it by draining Bai Weiwei's qi. The subtle immortal qi of chaos guaranteed that. Not even Bai Weiwei could purify it.
At least, that used to be the case.
He discovered that Bai Weiwei had actually started to absorb his qi and grew stronger at a frightening rate. Since he wanted to step into the Seamless Immortal Realm with the Law of Five Elements as his base, he had studiously mastered four of the five elemental laws, only lacking the final one.
With his current mastery, Ba Shifang could see the fluctuations of the five elements increasing through Bai Weiwei's seamless immortal artifact. His first thoughts immediately turned to the system since he didn't believe that Bai Weiwei could have such a heaven-defying epiphany at such a moment.
It wasn't that he looked down on Bai Weiwei...
Okay, he looked down on Bai Weiwei, but he didn't look down on women. Before Bai Weiwei attained the system, she was just a talentless hack that only knew how to rely on others. If she didn't bind herself to the system, Ba Shifang doubted that she could even reach the Unity Realm by herself.
He could already imagine Main Body laughing at him for failing to kill Bai Weiwei, Seamless Immortal Realm or not. He sighed and stopped attacking Bai Weiwei with the Eight Trigram Stars. She couldn't absorb the sparse chaos qi in the formation, but he would run out of qi before he could outlast Bai Weiwei, which left him with one choice.
Bai Shifang formed several hand seals, and the eight stars formed an octagram with Bai Weiwei at the center. "Eight Trigram Chaos Refinement!"
Within the octagram, the immortal qi of chaos gathered until it was almost to the density of a solid, creating a sea of chaos that buried Bai Weiwei within. Under Ba Shifang's control, more and more cracks appeared on the white lotus, and its invulnerable defense could no longer be maintained. The liquid-like immortal qi of chaos leaked in and started to corrode and disintegrate Bai Weiwei's body.
Bai Shifang clasped his hands together and shrunk the octagram, increasing the density of the immortal qi of chaos—reaching a state just before the qi would become solid Yu. However, while everything seemed to have gone smoothly, his expression suddenly darkened.
Somewhere in the Eight Trigrams Astral Formation, an invader had entered. Because Ba Shifang concentrated almost all the chaos qi into the Eight Trigrams Chaos Refinement, the periphery had drastically weakened.
When Ba Shifang checked who had run in, he almost wanted to spit out a mouthful of blood. 'Should I just get rid of her here too? These two sisters should be happy together in death!'
He did just that. Although Bai Ningwei had somehow reached the Immortal Realm, she was too weak, and the chaos qi easily permeated through her body. Before Ba Shifang could be happy for too long though, a second intruder entered.
This one was harder to deal with. In fact, Ba Shifang would place his danger ranking at the same level as Bai Weiwei. Although he was not an immortal monarch, Ba Shifang sensed that he had also mastered the Law of Fire.
"These damn three are always causing trouble!" Ba Shifang said through gritted teeth. Through his senses, he glared at the nosy Bing Huoyuan, who rescued Bai Ningwei. Worse, Bing Huoyuan was heading towards himself.
Ba Shifang decided to finish this as soon as possible, regardless of the price. Without care for his expenditure, he raised the efficiency of the Eight Trigrams Chaos Refinement to the maximum.
The seamless immortal rank white lotus shattered under Ba Shifang's concentrated efforts, and the dense immortal qi of chaos swallowed her whole. But before he could celebrate, fishes formed of fire and ice energy assaulted him.
"Bing Huoyuan! Are you rebelling!" Ba Shifang roared. His lapse of concentration had allowed Bai Weiwei to find a ray of life and survive.
"Young Master Xi, please hold your hand and let me handle it!" Bing Huoyuan through gritted teeth.
Ba Shifang took out the Xiyi Talisman and held it in hand, but he did not stop attacking Bai Weiwei. "Hold my hand. Why would I do it against the enemy!?"
Seeing Ba Shifang disregard his pleas, Bing Huoyuan glanced at Bai Ningwei. After a moment of hesitation, he gritted his teeth and attacked Ba Shifang again.
"Twice! You have prevented me from executing the Buzhou Immortal Sect's criminal. After this is over, Boundless Mountain must give an explanation!" Ba Shifang roared, truly infuriated this time.
"I'm sorry. I will make it up to you, but for now, please forgive my offense," Bing Huoyuan said as he redoubled his attack on Ba Shifang.
After fending off Bing Huoyuan for a few moves, Ba Shifang suddenly froze and snapped his head where Bai Weiwei was. He ignored Bing Huoyuan's attack and allowed it to land on his body as he formed several one-handed seals.
"Nuclear Detonation!"
Before Bing Huoyuan and Bai Ningwei could even realize what had happened, white colored their vision. They could see nothing but that pure color, nor could they register any noise.
When Bing Huoyuan came to, he discovered himself lying on a barren wasteland full of rocks and a giant crater in the middle with the ground made of glass. Hearing a coughing sound, Bing Huoyuan quickly rushed and dug out Bai Ningwei.
"Young Master, where is Weiwei?"
Hearing Bai Ningwei's labored words, Bing Huoyuan's expression darkened. He searched around and finally saw Ba Shifang also rise out of the rubble but no Bai Weiwei. A flash of hatred entered his eyes, but Ba Shifang could care less.
With an ugly expression, his eyes zeroed in on the epicenter of his Nuclear Detonation Technique.
Bing Huoyuan wanted to rush to him and grab his collar, but before he could, something attracted his and Bai Ningwei's eyes.
At the center of the crater, motes of light the color of gold appeared. They gathered together and formed one large blob of light. The blob shifted and eventually shrunk until it resembled a humanoid. As the lights died down, it revealed a familiar face.
Bai Weiwei stood at the center wearing gold robes with a coronet in the shape of a sycee. Despite possessing the same face, the aura she exuded did not resemble her former self at all, and her eyes possessed an agelessness that even immortal emperors did not possess.
Ba Shifang was the first to speak. "Who are you?"