Before everyone could snap out of their daze, Yun Shu swiftly switched to the Dream-Entering Bell, pulling them all into a dream and altering the appearance of the heavenly punishment in their eyes.
She had used the Thunder Decree to punish evildoers in front of Shen Yu and the others more than once before. If she did not disguise it, she could not guarantee they would not notice any clues.
In truth, she did not have to go to all this trouble. She could have created the illusion of heavenly punishment using only the Dream-Entering Bell.
However, the Dream-Entering Bell's skill only created dreams, which would lack a sense of reality. Furthermore, constructing such a massive tribulation would take too much time, requiring her and the system to work themselves to the bone.
Therefore, using the Thunder Decree to strike herself with heavenly punishment not only saved a lot of time but was also highly realistic.
She just didn't know...
...if the blood packs she had prepared would be enough.
Completely oblivious, the crowd stared up at the sky, fear spreading through their hearts and nearly swallowing them whole.
The dark purple clouds had already descended to the city walls.
The fissures within the clouds grew wider and wider.
Before long, countless bolts of lightning coalesced into shape.
The entire city of Yecheng trembled. Bricks and stones cascaded down from the city walls, and roof tiles clattered violently.
A blacksmith's eyes filled with sheer terror. “This heavenly lightning is going to destroy all of Yecheng!”
Hearing this.
Everyone instinctively raised their heads, staring up at the sky, their eyes locked onto the terrifying heavenly tribulation.
The more clearly they saw the tribulation, the more they realized their own insignificance.
Against such a disaster, they had nowhere to run.
Some slumped to the ground, as if the bones had been sucked right out of their bodies, tears silently streaming down their faces.
Others held their children tight, burying the children's heads in their chests and shielding them with their own bodies. Even though they knew it was useless—that flesh and blood would be no different from paper when the lightning struck—they did it anyway, because they did not know what else they could possibly do.
Some knelt where they were, pressing their palms together, their lips moving rapidly as they muttered prayers.
However, the heavens paid no heed to their prayers.
Thousands of lightning bolts descended at the exact same moment.
At the same time.
A white figure soared into the sky.
Everyone saw it.
That figure was like a shooting star rushing upward against the current.
Her white-and-green gown fluttered wildly in the wind, and her silver-white hair trailed a long path behind her.
It was the Divine Lady!
The Divine Lady hovered in the air above Yecheng.
The howling wind whipped her robes and danced through her silver-white hair. Her expression was cold and detached. “Since I have acted against heaven, all karma shall fall upon me. It has nothing to do with these mortals.”
“I willingly accept this punishment. Do not harm the people of the city.”
But when the Heavenly Dao handed down punishment, how could it care for mere ants? Countless terrifying purple-gold bolts of lightning crashed straight down from the cloud fissures, hurtling toward Yecheng.
Before the lightning could even strike, a wave of scorching heat arrived.
In an instant, fine cracks splintered across the ground of the entire city, and the air warped from the intense heat.
The leaves on the trees withered and curled up in a split second.
Yet this heavenly lightning...
...did not fall on Yecheng in the end.
For at the moment the lightning descended, the Divine Lady raised her right hand, and a scroll flew out from her sleeve.
The scroll unfurled in midair, and a transparent barrier rapidly expanded from it, enveloping Yecheng.
The lightning struck the barrier.
In an instant, the world lost all color.
In the next moment.
It was as if everyone had suddenly gone deaf.
They could not hear the thunder, nor the wind, nor even their own heartbeats.
The world became a silent painting.
They could only watch helplessly as the Divine Lady stood alone outside the barrier, facing the full might of the heavenly lightning.
Within moments.
Tens of thousands of lightning bolts poured out of the fissures at once like a cataclysmic collapse, threatening to obliterate everything.
The golden, blinding, and scorching lightning illuminated the entire sky, the entire city, and the despair and tear tracks on the faces of everyone looking up.
All because, directly beneath those countless lightning bolts...
...was their Divine Lady.
Bathed in the golden glow of the lightning, the Divine Lady's face was hazy and blurred, making it impossible to see her expression.
They could only see her straight, unyielding back.
She stood there, completely motionless.
The lightning struck her body.
One bolt after another, leaving no room to breathe.
Affected by the residual shockwaves of the lightning tribulation, ripples spread across the pale golden dome of the Mountains and Rivers Map's barrier.
The people on the ground raised their heads, their faces bathed in tears.
They watched as the Divine Lady was pushed back again and again amidst the endless lightning, watched as she stabilized herself time after time, and watched as the blood at the corner of her mouth grew thicker, yet she still stood between Yecheng and the heavenly tribulation.
She never retreated a single step.
Shen Yu knelt on the ground, looking up at the sky. Tears had long since blurred his vision, and he could see nothing clearly except for that hazy white figure in the heavens.
He trembled as he sobbed, barely able to catch his breath.
“Divine Lady, Divine Lady...”
If he could, he wanted to endure it in her stead.
But he could not fly. He could do nothing. He could only kneel on the ground, looking up as the Divine Lady, in order to protect mere mortals, was struck black and blue by the heavenly lightning.
It hurt so much. His heart ached so terribly...
All over the city.
Cries and shouts rose one after another, weaving together into a tidal wave of sound.
“Divine Lady...”
“We beg the Heavenly Dao, stop the lightning!”
“Stop striking the Divine Lady...”
“Divine Lady, please return to the Ninth Heaven!”
“We are not afraid to die! We really aren't! Please stop shielding us, we beg you to leave!”
Yet that white figure never left. Her silhouette was deeply etched into everyone's minds.
The Divine Lady stood between heaven and earth, her spine perfectly straight.
A pillar of heaven and earth.
【Lu Sui Shock Value +100】
【A'rui Shock Value +100】
【Shen Yu Shock Value +100】
【...】
【Current Shock Value: 758,500】
This wave completely maxed out her Shock Value.
Yun Shu knew that was about enough.
And so.
She put away the Thunder Decree, stopping the lightning.
Fortunately, the skill of the Floating Life Silk—the robe component of the Floating Dream Set—was protection. Otherwise, she wouldn't have dared to strike herself with lightning.
Although she aimed for realism in her acting, she wasn't so dedicated as to actually tank the Thunder Decree's lightning.
That was truly unnecessary.
Thinking that it was time to wrap up this scene, she bit open a blood pack she had prepared beforehand.
Then, she prepared for a free fall.
The wind whistled past her ears.
The sky rapidly receded from her vision, replaced by the ground rushing up to meet her.
She had calculated the timing perfectly.
The moment before she hit the ground, she would return to the System Space and then come right back out.
This way, she wouldn't hurt herself from the fall, and she could play this beautiful, strong, and tragic role to the absolute limit.
How perfect.
However, the outcome was unexpected.
Yun Shu had not anticipated this.
Someone actually rushed toward her falling figure.
Not just one or two, but hundreds, thousands.
A dense crowd surged from all directions like a bursting torrent.
“Divine Lady! Divine Lady!”
Shouts mingled with the sound of hurried, chaotic footsteps, pouring into her ears one after another.
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