*Cr-Craaackle!* *Boom!*
"Tsk!" Huo Yuhao raised his hands, his Rinnegan gleamed as he conjured dozens of black "pillars" out of his body and scattered them throughout the frozen wasteland.
The Heavenly Tribulation, no, it should be more accurate to call this a false one. Nonetheless. Thunder rumbled harshly as thousands of crimson lightning bolts descended!
Huo Yuhao was unafraid as the crimson lightning bolts struck down, striking at him and the black pillars around him viciously.
*BOOM!*
The frozen wasteland of his dantian exploded into blinding red and silver light. Lightning spears as thick as 2 meters struck him directly, while others slammed into the black pillars he had scattered across the landscape.
"Ugh!" Huo Yuhao gritted his teeth. There was no blood, but his spiritual body shimmered and on the verge of breaking down.
'If it weren't for these Black Receivers taking on 90% of the damage, my spiritual avatar would've been destroyed.' He glanced at the black pillars, now taking on a fiery red-hot hue. They were overheating.
They're called Black Rods or Black Receivers, and in this situation the latter name is more appropriate.
They are formed out of chakra and can do a variety of purposes to what the users have in mind.
AN: To make it clear, the chakra mentioned here is the combination of soul power and spiritual power that Huo Yuhao had perfected to use. It's mentioned in the description of the Heavenly Tempering Soul Technique in chapter 317.
And if it wasn't obvious enough, Huo Yuhao was using these Black Receivers to take on most of the Heavenly Tribulation lightning bolts. By his estimation, they had taken about 90% of the damage.
Even so, just the first wave was almost enough to shatter his spiritual avatar.
If this was the outside world, Huo Yuhao would've been confident to take on this false Heavenly Tribulation with ease.
But here? No chance.
This place was a small spatial dimension to seal and nurture Snow Empress's soul. It was a modified version of the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style, a fūinjutsu of the Uzumaki clan, that could seal a soul beast of her caliber within Huo Yuhao's dantian for a long while.
It was designed to only contain her soul, it doesn't have capabilities to contain something like this ferocious Heavenly Tribulation lightning! Fake or not!
It's considered fake because it's only one type/color of a Heavenly Tribulation, when it's usually 7 or 9.
Huo Yuhao had left that lightning bolt alone for so long was because one, he didn't have any method to get rid of it without it going berserk. Two, Indra had placed a Four Symbols Seal in the Heavenly Tribulation lightning to connect with the main seal within his dantian so that it would enhance the seal, his soul power, and weaken it.
He thought that the seal was working its magic and Snow Empress was likely absorbing its energy during her hibernation.
Turns out, this freakish thing was acting like a tiger in pig's clothing!
It completely fooled him, someone who has the Eye of Destiny that sees through fate and karma.
But it looks he wasn't strong enough to delve deeper into the secrets of the Heavenly Way yet.
'If my soul hadn't been struck by Heavenly Tribulation(Punishment)before, my consciousness would've been obliterated just now.'
Crimson lightning flashed, Huo Yuhao tilted his head to the side and his form started glitching once more.
Even just being close to the lightning was causing his spiritual avatar to become unstable.
"This isn't good. The Heavenly Tribulation causes too much devastation, the seal would collapse and Snow Empress's soul, along with her tremendous origin energy, would flood my dantian and shatter it." Huo Yuhao's expression turned ugly as he flew around at high speed, dodging the lightning bolts coming at his trail.
His soul power cultivation would be gone or worse, death.
'What should I do in this situation? Using the Preta path wouldn't be of use since it would just go back to my body.'
'Spatial displacement then?' Huo Yuhao snapped his fingers, his first soul ring shone.
Absolute Domain!
The space behind him shattered like glass that stretches out for miles. It appeared so suddenly, the crimson lightning bolts couldn't change directions and entered the rift.
Huo Yuhao quickly closed it and waited.
For half a breath, hope flickered in his eyes.
*Kraakoom!*
Huo Yuhao's eyes widened as huge blood-red streaks of lightning bolts ripped through the void and appeared before him.
'What?! How the—? No. It can pierce through time and space, and stays locked on to me?!' He quickly turned around and fled, the Heavenly Tribulation hot on his trail once more.
'What kind of bullshit is this?!!'
Also, was it just him or are the lightning bolts more ferocious than before?
'Right now, this Heavenly Tribulation is treating my spiritual avatar as if it's the real "me". If this spiritual body is destroyed, the Heavenly Tribulation would indeed go crazy and wreck the seal, subsequently my dantian, right before I could form a second spiritual avatar.' Huo Yuhao's mind worked overtime as he tried to find a way out of this situation.
It was then, at that moment, the situation changed!
The crimson lightning bolts all halted in place in the air, electrifying currents surged maliciously and crackling noises started slowly intensifying.
"That's..." Huo Yuhao didn't stop. He calmly observed the changes of the Heavenly Tribulation.
*Kraakoom!*
Thousands of crimson lightning bolts shone brightly as they started merging back together, turning into one.
Not merely thicker.
Not merely brighter.
One singular pillar of condensed crimson judgment descended from the shattered sky of his dantian, spiraling downward like a drill forged from pure law.
The frozen wasteland trembled.
Space cracked like broken mirrors.
Huo Yuhao's expression finally changed....into a smile.
"Finally, you couldn't hold yourself back." His Rinnegan changed into a familiar blood-red color with a mystical lotus mark.
"Kuraokami — Absolute Zero Disintegration!"
In one moment. In a blink.
The temperature in this world of frost and snow, dropped down exponentially.
Darkness covered the ice and snow.
The terrifying crimson Heavenly Tribulation lightning bolt froze mid-descent.
After so long, his Mangekyou Sharingan left eye ability debuts once more with even more chilling capability; completely freezing a Heavenly Tribulation lightning with a single gaze.
Which shouldn't be a surprise, considering the breakthroughs he achieved.
Now, this ability now borders at the level of a conceptual power.
*Craaack*
The roaring pillar of crimson judgment of heaven's will was encased entirely in black ice. Crackling arcs stiffened into jagged sculptures of dark crystal, heavenly power coursing within froze completely.
"All according to plan."
Huo Yuhao smirked, his right hand raised and clenched into a fist.
"Break!"
*Craaack!*
The massive frozen crimson lightning bolt shattered, its fragments disappearing into the snow—absorbed into the seal.
"How utterly troublesome. Fortunately it acted exactly as I had anticipated
Huo Yuhao had planned the dissolution of the Heavenly Tribulation the moment it appeared. He made several plans, A to M, to be precise.
But the overall plan was actually quite simple: to get the Heavenly Tribulation to become a single entity.
Because if even a single one of them remain, then more would reform.
"...."
"Snow Empress. Are you going to keep silent until I leave?" Huo Yuhao turned his gaze towards the massive black-ice crystal that contained Snow Empress.
"..." Snow Empress's eyelids slightly trembled and chilling blue light emitted as she opened her eyes.
The ice casing cracked.
Thin fissures spread like frost patterns across glass, the crystal shell surrounding her slowly began to dissolve, snowflake-like sigils dimming one by one.
It then collapsed into drifting shards of black crystal that dissolved into pure yin energy.
Huo Yuhao's eyes widened. 'This pressure... As expected. It seems like Ice Empress wasn't the only one who benefited from this.'
The aura she exuded was far stronger than ever before, it was immeasurable! This kind of feeling was something that Huo Yuhao felt from one other being.
Di Tian.
Snow Empress. Ranked 3rd on the top 10 Great Beasts, is now 850,000 years old!
She was a peerless beauty of coldness and elegance, but also came off as ravishing. Her skin was as white as snow, her slender and exceedingly beautiful body was flawless, and her long white dress wasn't adorned with any accessories but with ribbons.
Her long, white hair flowed freely to her legs, and her sky-blue eyes were very clear. It was as if she could see through everything in the world.
Two people with white hair and exotic features.
A human and a soul beast.
If Huo Yuhao had fours of his six eyes closed, the two of them would've appeared as the perfect immortal couple.
This would've been another love story to be told in the history of Douluo Dalu.
"When did you notice?" Snow Empress softly muttered, but her voice could be heard clearly by Huo Yuhao.
Huo Yuhao transported before her in a silver flash.
He rubbed his chin, tilting his head, and smirked.
"From the start. You can fool anyone else with your shtick, but not me. My eyes can see through anything. Even some of Heaven's Secrets."
He hummed, his Six Eyes narrowing. "Oho. So you used the energy of the Heavenly Tribulation lightning that you absorbed in your hibernation and the ice-yin energy of the spring to form a second soul core."
Huo Yuhao chuckled and spread his hands, "Hehe. So that's why you couldn't move in to help me earlier, you were on the process of merging with your second soul core."
"And what happened to you? What's with those extra eyes on your face? I knew you were a monstrous genius, but I didn't think you'd actually think of becoming an actual monster." Snow Empress sharply replied, her eyes squinting.
As always, Snow Empress is a very cold woman.
"Should you really keep up with that attitude of yours? After all, you still haven't paid rent you've missed for the last two years."
Huo Yuhao was still smirking, yet his eyes showed a cold gleam.
"Tsk." Snow Empress crossed her arms. Though she glared at him, the coldness in her gaze lacked any hostility and enmity.
Surprisingly, there seems to be embarassment and guilt swirling into chilling blue eyes of hers.
❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️❄️
AN: Huo Yuhao is always five steps ahead.