Lin Xue’s current cultivation was Golden Core Stage (initial stage), while her demon body was at the Body Tempering Middle Stage.
Currently, her Golden Core Stage could not be improved further due to a bottleneck.
Therefore, she could only prioritize raising the cultivation of her demon body first.
Lin Xue moved her tiny, liquid Serpent Core into her Essence Core, and her Spiritual Power immediately vanished.
Her cultivation instantly regressed to the Body Tempering Middle Stage.
She casually took out a Core Condensation Middle Stage Serpent Core from her Chu Wu Jie Zhi, popped it into her mouth, and swallowed it.
The Beast Control Secret Manual had already been evolved using 100,000 Experience Points into an Essence Core.
Now, the speed and efficiency with which she dissolved and absorbed Serpent Cores had increased greatly, worlds apart from how it had been before.
That Serpent Core quickly transformed into Demon Power, suffering almost no loss.
It circulated through her meridians once before condensing onto her own Serpent Core.
Lin Xue’s cultivation surged rapidly. Within a few breaths, she had completely absorbed that Serpent Core.
Her Serpent Core transitioned from a liquid state to a solid state with extreme speed, and then it rapidly solidified.
In the blink of an eye, Lin Xue had already returned to the Grand Demon Realm.
The weather in the canyon changed abruptly as a mass of black clouds gradually gathered in the sky.
Within the cloud layers, flashes of electricity snaked about like winding serpents, brewing a rolling Thunder Tribulation in preparation to descend as a Heavenly Tribulation.
Lin Xue did not give the cloud cluster even a single glance.
She took out several more Core Condensation Stage Serpent Cores from her Chu Wu Kong Jian and swallowed them one after another.
A moment later, these Serpent Cores were all perfectly dissolved. All the Demon Power was absorbed by her at the fastest possible speed.
The thick Demon Power condensed onto her own Serpent Core, and then it began to expel traces of impurities, gradually becoming crystal clear.
Soon, her Serpent Core had solidified into a perfect, flawless Demon Pill that contained no impurities whatsoever.
Lin Xue had once again returned to the Demon King Realm.
At this time, the Core Condensation Stage Lightning Tribulation brewing in the black clouds mid-air had not even had the chance to descend yet.
It appeared that for the first time, the originally aggressive cloud cluster had encountered such a situation. It immediately stalled, appearing somewhat at a loss.
The electric snakes winding through the cloud layers also vanished, leaving no trace of movement.
‘The target to be struck has suddenly risen to the next major realm. What should I do? Waiting online for an answer, it’s quite urgent…’
After a short while, the black clouds seemed to have come to their senses.
They began to churn and boil, continuously expanding.
Soon, they had increased several times in size, strengthening to the intensity of a Lightning Tribulation faced by the Demon King Realm.
The flashes of electricity within the clouds flickered even more violently, and the aura became more ferocious.
It was as if they could not wait to descend and harshly teach this unruly Demon Snake a lesson.
Down in the canyon, that late-stage Danjie Stage Demon King Realm Living Corpse was still violently attacking the Nine-Union Profound Jade Formation held by Zhang Zongnian and the others, letting out one booming crash after another.
The golden light shield was shaken by its blows, but it remained relatively stable.
Zhang Zongnian, Li Tianyu, and Nüyao like Hong Yanzhi exerted their full strength to maintain the magic formation.
They resisted the attacks of the Demon Corpse, protecting Lin Xue so she would not be disturbed.
The massive commotion attracted the surrounding Living Corpses.
More and more Living Corpses noticed that there were living people here.
A dark mass of Living Corpses began to crowd together and slowly surge toward them.
When Zhang Zongnian and the others saw this scene, they suddenly felt as if the surrounding air had frozen.
Although the Nine-Union Profound Jade Formation was powerful, it had its limits.
They could still rely on the formation to barely withstand the attacks of this single Demon King Living Corpse for a while.
However, with the addition of the immensely powerful Thunder Tribulation and these thousands of Living Corpses swarming up to attack continuously, the formation would likely collapse sooner or later.
Lin Xue, the only one who could quickly kill large numbers of Living Corpses from a distance, was still cultivation with her eyes closed.
None of the nine of them had long-range attack methods, so they could not stop the corpse horde.
They could only watch helplessly as countless Living Corpses surged toward them.
Although they were extremely nervous, not a single person retreated.
Each of them fervently hoped that Lin Xue could quickly complete her cultivation and get up to clear out these Living Corpses.
At this moment, the black clouds in the sky seemed to have finally finished brewing the Thunder Tribulation.
Having accumulated enough power, they let out a roar of rumbling thunder and struck a thick bolt of lightning toward the ground with a terrifying momentum.
Zhang Zongnian’s heart leaped into his throat.
The bolt of lightning traced a hideous curve between heaven and earth.
Carrying a majestic heavenly might, it struck directly onto the head of the Demon King Realm Living Corpse that was desperately attacking the Nine-Union Profound Jade Formation.
The Demon Corpse immediately let out a miserable howl and fell to the ground, twitching.
Although it possessed the Demon King Realm and extremely strong defensive power, it theoretically should not have feared this Danjie Stage Lightning Tribulation.
However, lightning naturally possessed a strong restraining effect on ghost and corpse-type monsters, dealing several times the normal damage.
Therefore, this single strike still caused it significant injury.
It struggled to crawl back up. Its fish-like eyes actually flared with anger as it lunged toward the group again.
The next bolt of Lightning Tribulation descended along with the rolling sound of thunder, once again accurately striking the Demon Corpse’s head.
The Demon Corpse fell to the ground once more.
It rose again, only to be struck down. It stood up again, and was struck down once more.
After nineteen bolts of Lightning Tribulation, the Demon Corpse’s head had been split into two halves.
It wobbled a few times, collapsed to the ground, and stopped moving.
By then, the swarms of Living Corpses had already reached the group and were beginning to reach out to grab the golden light shield formed by the formation.
One bolt of Lightning Tribulation after another descended, striking into the middle of the corpse horde surrounding the Nine-Union Profound Jade Formation.
Each bolt of Lightning Tribulation would shatter a whole patch of Living Corpses, sending broken limbs and severed heads flying in all directions.
Zhang Zongnian, Li Tianyu, and the Nüyao were all dumbfounded.
They watched as the Lightning Tribulation that was originally meant for Lin Xue was now actually helping them deal with the corpse horde before them.
They had never heard of such a situation before.
Lin Xue remained deaf to everything in the outside world.
At this point, she was already in the Demon King Realm. If she wanted to continue improving, swallowing Serpent Cores from the Grand Demon realm would yield too little result.
She took out the Demon Pill of the Hei-Pi Demon King that Zhang Zongnian had given her and swallowed it.
In the time it took to drink half a cup of tea, she had completely absorbed Hei-Pi’s Demon Pill, and her cultivation had risen to the Core Condensation Middle Stage.
Next, she used her Experience Points to raise her Changsheng Jue to the Golden Core Stage (middle stage) as well.
She let out a long breath and opened her eyes, preparing to deal with that Demon King Realm Demon Corpse.
However, she was surprised to find that the Demon Corpse had already fallen and been slain.
In the sky, the final bolt of Lightning Tribulation struck the ground aggressively, turning another pile of Living Corpses into charred, broken limbs.
The surrounding ground was covered in damaged body tissues.
In the entire canyon, half of the Living Corpses had already been wiped out.
The black clouds began to gradually disperse.
Lin Xue was stunned.
She looked at Zhang Zongnian and the others beside her and found that they, like her, all had looks of confusion on their faces.
What was going on?
The Lightning Tribulation brought about by her breakthrough actually didn’t attack her, but instead took the initiative to slay those Living Corpses.
Perhaps compared to a monster who cultivated in secret against the heavens, the heavens were even more repulsed by ghost-like things like Living Corpses?
So it let her go and prioritized clearing out the Living Corpses?
At this moment, a series of wild, angry roars suddenly erupted from within the cave.
Lin Xue and the others turned their heads to look.
They saw several tall Living Corpses, with cultivation levels similar to the late-stage Demon King Realm Demon Corpse from earlier, walking out of the cave.
They marched toward Lin Xue and her companions along with the crowded corpse horde.
Lin Xue did a rough count; there were more than ten of them.
Her heart skipped a beat.
She currently only had the cultivation of the Core Condensation Middle Stage.
She might be able to barely win against a single late-stage Danjie Stage Demon Corpse, but she had no confidence in dealing with so many at once while thousands of minor monsters at the Foundation Establishment Stage and Jindan Stage were also nearby.
She wanted to continue improving her strength.
But she had no new Demon Pills in her hands.
The Jindan Stage Serpent Cores she held were just a drop in the bucket for her now. For the moment, there seemed to be no way to continue her advancement.
Looking at the 9,999,999 Experience Points filling her panel, Lin Xue felt a sense of frustration, like having power but no way to use it.