Chapter 24. A breakthrough.

As Naath was looking over the crowd waiting to tell his stories of Earth the crowd in front of him sat with rapped attention. Even the elders in the meeting hall were leaning forwards in their seats in anticipation. A few of them in fact wanted nothing more than to race down to where Naath was and listen in person. But this would give away that they were spying on Naath not to mention it would completely destroy any kind of dignity the position of sect elder held. Even the sect master was leaning forward unblinking at the screen and contemplating disregarding everything to go down and listen in person.

The sect master turned to ask elder Gui to disguise him with a formation so he could go down and personally listen but elder Gui was gone. Even elder Gui the grand soul master couldn’t resist learning about the past world of a reincarnator! He had used a formation to hide himself from the sight of others and was actually behind all of the youths and listening in person. Because he did this though, he could transmit sound as well as video as he was experiencing it personally so it wasn’t hard to simulate it. This eased the anxiousness of all of the other elders back in the hall as well as the sect master.

It was at this moment that King in Naath’s soul sea spoke up.

“Young Master, I can sense a formation nearby, it seems like a concealment formation. Someone is watching here in secret, and it feels like they are transmitting the information somewhere else.”

Hearing this Naath immediately switched moods and his face became serious as he scowled. King gave Naath a location and so he glared at that spot that was seemingly empty space and said.

“Whoever Is there come out now. I’ll be nice and give you five seconds to drop your concealment formation. If you wait till after that, you wont like the consequences!

5…

4…

3…

2…

1…

“Sigh okay don’t say I didn't warn you!”

With that Naath moved at his top speed and grasped at the empty air where elder Gui was hiding. Elder Gui’s hair stood on end, he couldn’t believe he was caught by someone who hadn’t even actually started to soul cultivate! Still with elder Gui’s cultivation Naath might as well have been moving in slow motion so he simply moved out of the way. To his surprise though, Naath turned and adjusted his reach and actually grabbed onto him! Then he felt a suction force from Naath that felt like an infinite abyss that could swallow everything.

Naath had activated the True Void Arts and started to devour the energy in the formation around elder Gui. Soon the concealment formation was completely out of energy and broke down, revealing elder Gui. When Naath saw him he was stunned and forgot to stop the energy of attraction from devouring elder Gui’s energy for a moment. This single moment though was enough for Naath to siphon what to him felt like a ludicrous amount of martial energy! Feeling all of this energy Naath immediately used it to compress a True Void Membrane. Even still there was some leftover energy and it wasn’t enough to even form the embryotic form of a membrane so with no other choice he sent it towards his other membranes and prepared to break through.

Slowly the energy gathered in the 16 membranes Naath had and started to go through the cycles of True Void. One cycle, then two, then another until the membranes reached 16 cycles. Over three times the cycles of last time. Each time after the cycle the energy slowly leaked out into Naath’s bones, adding to his perfect crystalline skeleton. But this time Naath felt like the changes occurring were different, like this breakthrough would be somehow different, but realizing that he was absolutely going to break through Naath quickly yelled to elder Gui.

“Grab everyone with a formation and get as far away from here as you can! My last breakthrough is going to seem like someone popping their joints compared to this one. HURRY!!!”

Hearing this elder Gui’s eyes went wide, he remembered just how monstrous Naath’s last breakthrough was and didn’t even argue about being ordered by his own disciple. He quickly made a large bubble like structure and carried away all the members of the True Void Faction. He even picked up Brutus who he saw along the way and fled with everyone. These bone hardening disciples simply wouldn’t be able to handle the pressure wave from this breakthrough.

Elder Gui flew as fast as he possibly could until he was a solid ten kilometers away in a matter of minutes. Back in the meeting area, Naath could no longer hold back his breakthrough. The energy from the 16th cycle slowly trickled into Naath bones but this time there was no painful shattering or massive explosion. The energy seemed like it was simply like a river flowing into the ocean, once all of the energy was inside of Naath’s bones though a change began to occur. The energy in his bones began to swirl and flow around. As it flowed around his bones it began to speed up more and more.

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Then, all of a sudden Naath’s True Void Membranes opened up without any guidance from him. They opened fully and cycled to attraction on their own, then like 16 black holes they began to suck in energy at a terrifying rate! Soon the energy in the surrounding kilometer was gone, then two kilometers worth then more and more. Soon there was a massive whirlpool of martial energy that appeared with Naath as the center. Energy was consumed and drawn into the whirlpool at an absolutely horrifying rate. There was enough energy siphoned off for a normal cultivator to go from the first stage of bone hardening right through to the organ refinement realm.

Soon it was like a typhoon of martial energy, every element from every possible direction was sent swirling around into the empty space where all energy was consumed inside of. As this energy went into this typhoon it was quickly absorbed and taken in by Naath’s True Void Membranes. The sound of this typhoon of energy was horrific, at first there was no wind or sound but it quickly became a rumbling storm. It sounded like the world was being destroyed in it’s entirety it was like one continuous explosion as the energies ground against one another and interacted in this typhoon. Meanwhile in Naath’s body, his True Void membranes were sucking in this insane level of energy and showed absolutely no signs of slowing down.

It seemed like they would need to consume all of the martial energy on this planet in order to be satisfied! The energy was compressing, and compressing again, and again, soon it reached a similar realm to his soul energy, every membrane felt like it held it’s own internal dimension! Even still, they were sucking in horrific amounts of energy. Then, above Naath dark clouds began to gather. Lightning began to gather inside of the clouds and the rumble of thunder could be heard even over the typhoon. Seeing these clouds, King suddenly spoke up.

“Damn, even the heavens have to step in for young masters cultivation on this world. This is clearly tribulation, haha it seems like this world itself is too low level for my young masters True Void Arts. But seriously this breakthrough is insane! I haven’t seen anything like this since I had my own body… Maybe young master can achieve that long cherished goal?”

After that King fell deep into thought and had no mind to pay attention to the events outside Naath’s soul sea any longer. The people outside however were fleeing in absolute terror! The sect elders and sect master were grabbing disciples and fleeing far, far away with them! The energy typhoon finally stopped growing at 100 kilometers and encompassed the entire core region of the sect! This was terrifying enough to all of them but when the elders and sect master looked back and saw tribulation clouds they went completely pale. It was like every drop of blood was removed from their bodies all at once. They all knew what heavenly tribulation was.

It was the laws of the world itself coming down to bring judgment on a cultivator who broke the balance of the world! Every cultivator had to go through this once they reached the cell awakening stage. For it to appear for a disciple who was simply breaking through bone hardening, exactly what kind of cultivation method did Naath use?! Then, as all of the elders were watching the lighting came down from the clouds in a bolt the thickness of a tree trunk!

When the lightning hit Naath it was like a drop of water falling into the ocean, it simply disappeared completely. Then another bolt fell down, and another. Eventually after nine consecutive strikes of lightning landing on Naath the energy typhoon slowed and came to a stop and then the tribulation clouds slowly dissipated. Everyone watched with unblinking eyes there were two options for Naath who had been struck. Either he was dead beyond dead, or he had successfully broken through.

During all of this Naath’s attention was inside of his body as he observed the changes happening. His True Void Membranes had taken in an amount of energy that left Naath dizzy. Then it seemed like they reached some sort of critical point and they stopped taking in energy all at once and sealed themselves off. Inside of them they underwent the cycle of True Void but the cycle was odd. After each change in the cycle there was still energy from the previous cycle remaining. At the edge of his membranes was True Void energy then a layer of creation energy, then attraction, destruction, and at the core more True Void energy. After this odd seemingly incomplete cycle was finished the energy began to move from his True Void Membranes to his bones.

In his bones as the energy began to flow in it joined the already existing energy that was shifting around. After all of the energy was moved from his True Void membranes to his bones, it began to settle down in specific areas in his bones, transforming the crystal bones in the area they occupied. In the very center of Naath’s bones inside of the marrow, creation energy moved in and took over the job of producing blood cells while the energy of True Void filled in the sponge areas in the marrow. Beyond this the energy of attraction formed a protective layer over the marrow and settled down here between the creation marrow and the bulk of Naaths bones that the energy of destruction was filling in. Outside of this layer was another very thin layer of the energy of True Void.

This outer layer seemed almost like a dimensional wall, or a container as it surrounded, coated, and outlined every bone in Naath’s body. Then when this energy finished settling, something odd happened. The creation marrow began to produce new blood, various kinds of blood cells were made with the various energies of the void!