Tribulation of Myriad Races

“Seventy-eight stripes.”

With the appearance of the seventy-eighth stripe, the crimson clouds transformed into a massive spear before shooting down at Su Yu. At this point, he had added eighteen pages to it.

Once again, he hammered the book with one hand and punched the spear apart with the other hand before sending his blood character out to absorb the remnants of the tribulation.

Even when multitasking, Su Yu’s aura remained completely stable. The massive recoil from his clash with the tribulation washed over his body, but he was able to withstand the impact without much trouble.

Boom!

Page after page was added to the book, and one roaring beast after another appeared. The more pages he added, the stronger the resistance was. All the beasts were resisting the fate of being sealed inside the book.

“Suppress!”

With a roar, Su Yu forcefully suppressed the resistance before continuing with the forging. Beads of sweat continued appearing all over his body. As the process continued, the speed at which the crimson clouds were appearing started increasing.

The appearance of a saintly weapon would be rewarded by the heavens. However, the appearance of a calamitous weapon would be punished.

However, Su Yu merely snorted at that thought. Heavenly laws? What nonsense. Killing never stopped in the Myriad Realms. In his opinion, saintly weapons should be the ones punished instead. Did the heavens truly expect someone to move the many psychopathic butchers in the Myriad Realms into redemption?

What a joke.

Curbing slaughter through slaughter was the only feasible path.

When the seventy-ninth golden stripe was about to appear, numerous crimson swords started shooting toward him from the sky. Each sword had the strength of a Mountainsea, but Su Yu was not to be underestimated either.

With a slap, he swatted all the swords apart before absorbing the remnants clean with his blood character. Finally, the seventy-ninth stripe appeared.

“Absorb!”

With a roar, Su Yu inhaled deeply and dragged a large amount of heavenly source qi into his body to replenish his source qi. Additionally, he also swallowed a hallow source qi fruit to replenish even more source qi before resuming his work.

Eventually, the eightieth stripe appeared.

Boom!

Crimson lightning appeared and started bombarding Su Yu and his book. As a response, Su Yu sent his characters out, clashing against the crimson lightning bolts in the sky. After a long time, with a final rumble, the crimson lightning bolts were defeated. At this point, the tribulation reached the level of a seventh-stage Mountainsea.

Zhao Tianbing warned, “You have to be careful from now on. At the eighty-second stripe, high Mountainsea tribulations will start appearing!”

It wasn’t easy to forge a weapon and deal with heavenly tribulations at the same time. At the same time, the book was roaring nonstop as well. Or to be precise, all the beasts sealed into it were roaring, resisting their enslavement by Su Yu.

Their resistance would only grow the more pages there were. Up in the sky, crimson clouds continued appearing, warning Su Yu that he had better stop here.

“Stop?”

Su Yu snorted. After investing so much, he wouldn’t stop so easily. With his yang acupoint, he would be as strong as a late-stage Sunmoon.

That would grant him enough strength to handle even a heaven weapon. A weapon would only be a heaven weapon with at least 109 golden stripes. What was the point of settling for an early earth weapon? He would take this chance to push the book as far as he could. He would never give up before reaching his absolute limits.

He had plenty of pages left to add.

One more hour passed. The eighty-first golden stripe appeared, pushing the weapon to the peak of the early earth grade.

Boom!

The crimson clouds in the sky transformed into multiple miniature humanoids. Each of them had the strength of a peak sixth-stage Mountainsea. They all dove down at Su Yu, who reacted by sending several characters to meet them midair.

He was too busy to deal with them personally. He was forcefully suppressing and forging the book.

At eighty-one golden strips, forty-five pages had been added to the book. The difficulty of forging was now much higher than before.

Su Yu was finding it harder and harder to suppress the book. It wasn’t that he wasn’t strong enough. Rather, he felt his strikes starting to become inaccurate due to the recoil from hitting the book.

Suddenly, Zhao Li said, “Follow my instructions. 162 stacks, split them into three waves, gradually weakening your strikes…”

Su Yu asked nothing and followed Zhao Li’s instructions. Zhao Tianbing’s eyes shone brightly as he advised, “Activate the five elements and trap the book with the Five Elemental Cage. This is an incredible weapon. Even at such an incomplete state, it is starting to gain a tiny bit of sentience.”

Su Yu did not question the words of the two grandmasters. He forged according to their instructions. Sure enough, the sense of recoil was no longer as strong and the resistance of the book weakened significantly.

Traces of the eighty-second golden stripe started appearing. The full appearance of this stripe would push the weapon to the middle of the earth grade.

“Junior Brother, get ready!” Zhao Tianbing warned.

The moment the eighty-second stripe took form, a tribulation at the level of a peak Mountainsea would definitely appear. It was unclear if Su Yu could handle it when he was so occupied.

Switching all his focus and strength to the tribulation would fail his forging. To prevent that from happening, he wouldn’t be able to use more than thirty percent of his strength to deal with the tribulation.

Zhao Li nodded.

He said, “Forge ahead. We both use the same forging technique. I can take over at any time.”

This was Zhao Li’s main role as the assistant in this forging.

Any tribulation might distract Su Yu and cause the forging to fail. The tribulations would target both the weapon and the weaponsmith. The weaponsmith had to personally deal with them. Nobody else could face the tribulations on behalf of the weaponsmith.

Su Yu did not answer. He continued slamming his hammer down. Any carelessness would break a golden stripe. The entire forging would fail. He wouldn’t dare to be careless at a time like this. With Zhao Li around, he could forge ahead with confidence.

He continued adding pages to the book. With the addition of more pages, the recoil from hammering the book grew stronger.

The pages were still resisting.

Boom!

No. They were doing more than resisting. They were attacking him as well. Their attacks weren’t too powerful, but they were enough to reduce the accuracy of his hammer strikes. Annoyed, Su Yu’s eyes turned cold. He roared loudly at them.

Hum!

His roar struck the pages like a roar of the heavens, shattering the projections they produced before bringing his hammer down again.

***

Outside, a storm was forming.

A large number of crimson clouds converged in the sky.

Heavenly Forge King and the others looked incomparably solemn. Heavenly Forge King said, “The weapon is going to reach the middle earth grade soon. What a lad. He first forged a saintly frame before proceeding with the demonic part of the weapon. The heavenly laws are akin to toys before him. But with the saintly and the demonic sharing one body, the difficulty of the forging will increase significantly.”

Yun Chen nodded solemnly.

Su Yu was simply too brazen.

At most, he was only a middle earth weaponsmith. However, this weapon was on the verge of surpassing that level. It did not look like he would stop the forging anytime soon. Could he really last until the end? Could he keep things under control?

The crowd around the city continued swelling.

At this point, even the veteran weaponsmiths who had long withdrawn from public life, including some heaven weaponsmiths, were starting to show up under the escort of various experts.

A weapon that was both saintly and demonic at the same time.

The weaponsmith forging such a weapon was a youngster like Su Yu. For many weaponsmiths, this was an incredibly grand and rare occasion. They couldn’t miss out on something like this.

A trembling and seemingly senile old man listened attentively for a bit before muttering as though he was talking in his sleep, “Things aren’t going too well. The clanking sounds seem a tad bit messy. Is he…adding blood spirits to the weapon as well?”

The laymen wouldn’t understand what he was saying. Meanwhile, those familiar with weaponsmithing nodded.

Heavenly Forge King was also listening attentively. When he sensed the chaos amid the clanking sounds, he roared, “Su Yu! Adjust yourself! Use the Five Elemental Forge Technique! Don’t try to force it!”

However, Su Yu ignored the advice and continued forging in the style of the Zhao Family. Heavenly Forge King frowned. Clearly, the kid did not trust him. If the kid continued forging the weapon forcefully, things would get more and more troublesome.

***

Inside the mayor’s residence.

Zhao Tianbing frowned and said, “Follow his advice.”

Zhao Li disagreed, “Keep using the Zhao style. With a flexible exterior and a solid interior, these pages will continue disobeying you in the future. Do not be lenient with them even if you have to risk failure. Only with force would their obedience be ensured.”

“…”

Zhao Tianbing looked at his junior brother disapprovingly and sent a voice transmission, “Do you know how big a loss it would be for him if he fails the forging?”

“I only know that a disobedient weapon is better off destroyed. What is the point of leaving a weapon that might turn against its master around? All the famed master-devouring weapons in the world only exist because of people like you.”

Zhao Li snorted coldly. Heavenly Forge King was not wrong. Zhao Tianbing was not wrong as well.

Following their advice, the success rate would increase considerably. One was a heaven weaponsmith while the other was a peak earth weaponsmith. Their reputation was deserved.

However, following their advice would leave the possibility that Su Yu’s weapon might turn against its master in the future. This was how most of the master-devouring weapons in the world came to be. Their weaponsmiths were unwilling to fail the forging. Thus, they had kept the possibility of rebellion open for the weapons.

If Su Yu couldn’t suppress their rebellious nature during the forging, their resistance would be even more dangerous in the future. After all, it would continue growing as Su Yu gathered more blood and corpses into the book.

Thus, he had to beat the pages into obedience during the forging.