Pay-to-Win Cultivation: I Get 10,000x Returns

Chapter 235: What Crimes Against Heaven Did He Commit?

Hearing Wang Meng’s grim analysis, Lin Liuli shrank back slightly.

“Uncle Tiger… is it a monster? Like those cultivators infected by [Hatred]?”

Wang Meng frowned tightly, the scar on his face twitching. A flash of determination hardened his eyes.

“I can’t be certain. But if a cultivator infected by [Hatred] successfully undergoes their Tribulation here… the consequences would be unimaginable. Right now, in the midst of the lightning, is when they are most vulnerable. It is our best chance to stop them.”

He turned to the girl. “Little Liuli, stay here.”

“No!”

Despite her trembling legs, Little Liuli shook her head firmly. She clenched her small fists, her wolf ears flattened against her skull. “Uncle Tiger, I’m going with you!”

Wang Meng looked at the light in her eyes—terrified, yes, but refusing to retreat. He knew that if he fell, she wouldn’t survive long in this wasteland alone.

He nodded. “Alright. Suppress your aura completely. We’ll sneak in slowly. Whoever is causing this commotion is a world-shaking figure. We must be extremely careful.”

The two suppressed their spiritual signatures to the absolute limit, inching toward the epicenter of the storm like ghosts.

The closer they got, the paler they became.

The heavenly pressure wasn’t just an abstract concept anymore; it pressed down on their hearts like a physical slab of iron. Every deafening thunderclap seemed to explode directly inside their souls, shaking their spiritual platforms until their vision blurred.

Wang Meng’s heart was pounding with boundless shock.

He was a Great Cultivator at the peak of the 3rd-level of the Nascent Soul stage. He had personally experienced a Nascent Soul Tribulation. He knew what it felt like.

But the apocalypse unfolding before him was completely beyond his comprehension.

“Is this really a Nascent Soul Tribulation?” he wondered, his hands trembling. “This world-destroying power… even at my peak, I wouldn’t survive past the seventh bolt. Just who is sitting under that cloud?”

Just as his mind reeled, the Eighth Wave descended.

It wasn’t a lightning bolt. It was a sea.

A sky-obscuring, earth-covering ocean of purple thunder collapsed from the highest heavens. Countless arcs of electricity, each as thick as a palace pillar, twisted together like dragons. In that instant, the Minor World lost all color, washed out by a blinding, searing violet-white light.

Wang Meng shook uncontrollably. It wasn’t cowardice; it was the instinctive biological fear of a living creature facing the wrath of the cosmos. He almost grabbed Lin Liuli and fled right then and there.

The Eighth Wave raged for what felt like an eternity before slowly dissipating.

Wang Meng gasped for air, sweat soaking his robes. His keen senses picked up a change—the aura of the person in the center had finally weakened. It was chaotic, flickering.

He looked back at Lin Liuli. She was biting her lip so hard it bled, but she stood her ground.

He opened his mouth to order a retreat.

But the Heavens didn’t give him the chance.

The Ninth Wave erupted without a single second of respite.

This time, there was no rhythm. It was an endless, continuous, frenzied bombardment.

The sky was torn open, a gaping hole in reality. Destructive thunder poured down like a torrential waterfall. Bolt after bolt, each fiercer than the last, merged into a single, terrifying pillar of light that connected heaven and earth.

The ground groaned. The bedrock cracked and shattered, screaming as if the entire world was about to disintegrate.

“This is insane!”

Wang Meng’s expression twisted in horror. He couldn’t worry about stealth anymore.

Buzz!

His Nascent Soul aura exploded outward, forming a thick, radiant shield that clamped down over him and Lin Liuli.

BOOM—RUMBLE—!

The shockwave hit them like a tsunami.

The protective shield warped violently, groaning under the strain. Wang Meng gritted his teeth, blood seeping from the corners of his mouth.

“Just the residual shockwaves are this powerful?” he thought, terrified. “What heinous, heaven-raging crime did this person commit? Why is the Heavenly Dao trying to erase them from existence with such hatred?”

He didn’t know how long the bombardment lasted. It felt like hours.

When the earth-shattering noise finally faded into a ringing silence, Wang Meng collapsed. He dissolved the teetering shield, gasping for breath like a drowning man.

“A dignified 3rd-level Nascent Soul cultivator… nearly shaken to death by the shockwaves of someone else’s tribulation…” He laughed bitterly in his heart. “If this gets out, this old man’s reputation is finished.”

He waited a moment, then cautiously extended his Divine Sense toward the center of the crater.

Dead silence. The aura that had been stubbornly resisting the heavens was gone.

“Turned to ash, as expected?”

Wang Meng felt a wave of relief, followed by a trace of regret. “They must have been deeply eroded by [Hatred], intolerable to the Heavenly Dao. Still… to last until the Ninth Wave under such an execution… this person was a monster.”

Out of caution, he grabbed Lin Liuli and slowly approached the scorched core.

When they reached the edge of the impact zone, they froze.

The once-flat wasteland had been scooped out, leaving a massive, hemispherical crater. And in the dead center of the pit lay a giant, black object.

It looked like a cocoon made of charcoal, forged by the fires of heaven.

“Uncle Tiger,” Lin Liuli whispered, her voice trembling with a mix of fear and curiosity. “What is that?”

Wang Meng stared at it, unsure. “Maybe… maybe he was struck by lightning so many times he turned into a giant cinder block?”

To be safe, he flicked his finger. A dot of Qi shot toward the black cocoon like a bullet.

Snatch.

Just as the Qi was about to hit the shell, a hand—slender, pale, and terrifyingly fast—burst out of the carbon. It grabbed the Qi with surgical precision.

Wang Meng’s pupils shrank to pinpricks. Alarm bells screamed in his mind.

“Not dead?! And that speed… casual, precise control. I’m injured; I can’t beat him!”

In that split second, instinct took over.

“Little Liuli, RUN!”

Wang Meng roared, his eyes bloodshot. The Nascent Soul inside his body began to spin in reverse, glowing with a blinding, unstable light.

“[Heaven and Earth Share the Same Lifespan]!”

He was going to self-destruct. He would burn his soul to buy the girl a chance to live.

“Whoa, don’t! Brother Tiger, friendly fire! Friendly fire!”

A familiar voice rang out from the black cocoon.

Simultaneously, a beam of blue light—gentle, yet carrying an absolute, bone-chilling cold—arrived in an instant.

Snap.

Wang Meng, still wearing his tragic, heroic expression of self-sacrifice, was instantly encased in a block of crystal-clear ice. His self-destruct sequence was frozen mid-detonation.

The familiar voice… the familiar freezing sensation…

Behind him, Lin Liuli had been paralyzed with fear. But hearing that voice, her drooping wolf ears instantly shot up.

“Ah! It’s Benefactor’s voice!”

CRACK!

The ice shattered. Wang Meng shook off the crystals, shivering. He instinctively shoved Lin Liuli behind him, his eyes filled with disbelief and deep suspicion.

“Wait! Little Liuli, stay back! He might be controlled!”

Lin Liuli froze. The image of Lin Xiaozhu and Xia Chengyan standing on the flying boat with hollow, dead eyes flashed through her mind. Her excitement vanished, replaced by terror.

“Benefactor…?” she asked, her voice trembling. “Is it really you?”

Crumble.

The charred shell of the cocoon fell away like dried mud.

Zhang Xian stood up and stretched. His clothes were tattered rags, and his skin was covered in soot, but his eyes were clear and bright. His aura wasn’t dark or chaotic; it brimmed with the vibrant, terrifying power of a newborn star.

He flashed a grin.

“Of course it’s me!”