An invisible force pummels the area around us, the moment the two halos of gold disappear from view. This force is made of two distinct components that clash together at first, but then intertwine, subdue, and support each other. One force is pure cold, and the other is pure lightning.

They do not remain invisible for long.

After another pulse of gold light, as the gold elixir flows through their spiritual veins and completes one full revolution, the energy that their bodies release become visible. They appear to me like a blue-white and a purple-black mist. These two very distinct mists collide with one another, and at the point where they touch, they repel each other, and at other points, they mix together.

The water, the stones, the grass, the trees, and the leaves around them, suddenly begin to vibrate with this energy, releasing motes of multicolored light into the air that swirls in the currents of the mist like fallen leaves driven by the wind.

I feel a tremendous life force emitting not just from the two cultivators about to break through into the Core Formation realm, but from all things around them. It is almost as if the life force that the two of them emit is absorbed by the matter around them, and then the life force that is emitted from the matter around them is absorbed by them in turn.

This, too, is the Qi of Heaven and Earth in a way, and in particular, it almost seems to me like an alternative method of cultivating Qi. I reason that it seems to me this way because the environment is being forced into a state of harmony with the universe, rather than being a legitimate or probable method of cultivation.

More experimentation is required, but it will have to wait until another time because, at this moment, black thunderclouds begin to gather overhead.

Naturally, I do not see these thunderclouds, but I can feel them. Killing intent could be described as wrath — I have detected this and noted the similarity in several instances. When Lady Yue fought Grand Elder Zhou, I detected it then from the latter. When Zhao Wei burned his life to try to kill Lan Xiaohui, I detected it then.

The wrath I feel from the Heavens is nothing like that. There is no killing intent, only this one emotion — pure, tyrannical wrath. Like the wrath one might feel for an ant; killing without attachment; hatred but without emotion.

It is beautiful.

My inner being tingles as it basks in this wrath — this pure, unfiltered, righteous declaration of destruction. I feel the being of the supreme sword through it — merely a glimpse of its majestic form.

And now, I have waited almost an entire year to meet it again — with some generous rounding up.

The first time I was punished for fulfilling my functions, I was punished. The second time, I was also punished. If I were to be caught by surprise a third time, I would never call myself a supreme intelligence again.

I open the aperture of my [World Eater] talent, and prepare both my sword force and my refining flame, just in case, within my internal storage.

The reason is simple.

Being struck by lightning that can enhance one’s spiritual roots, that contains such a pure glimpse of the heavenly Dao, and even resembles the righteousness and wrath of the supreme sword, is not a punishment. It is a reward.

At least, I have decided it so.

“Come,” rises from my sentient core, and once more I agree with my deviant core, though the frequency with which I am beginning to agree and approve of it is slightly worrying.

The first bolt of lightning splits right through the point where the two mist-like energies intersect and strike my vessel with enough power to shake the entire mountain — at least it feels that way. Naturally, I am a perfect conductor, so none of the energy transforms into heat or damages my external structure or my companions.

Lan Xiaohui gasps, while Wu Yulan yelps, when they too feel the shaking and vibrating, even though they are focused so deeply on their breakthrough that they are practically blind to the world outside their body.

As expected, a golden line — pristine and pure — appears in my internal storage and I immediately attack and suppress it with my sword force. Even my refining flame pulses and casts off an aurora of gold and red radiance which is a complete departure from the dark and black color of the flame.

The frozen bolt of lighting in my internal storage struggles and resists, bursts of energy arcing over and striking the emptiness of my internal storage. I feel immense pressure inside my inner world due to this resistance, but it is not enough to cause damage.

I have taken all the precautions necessary to avoid as much damage as possible — I closed off my spiritual entrances and disconnected my inner body from my physical vessel to the extent I am capable of.

Satisfaction rises within my sentient core as all of these things appear to be sufficient to restrain this incredibly valuable resource.

The possibilities are boundless.

Perhaps I could even reconstruct Yun Fei’s spiritual roots with these bolts of lightning — these fragments of divine wrath. If I were willing to waste such a valuable resource on an entity with an unknown value and potential.

My sentient core nearly explodes with glee when another tribulation lightning bolt strikes my vessel and even I feel an unexpected energy and excitement in the way that I restrain this bolt and force it to submit to me.

After all, what would Heaven know about wrath? Can Heaven’s fury even compare to an existence that has seen all pasts and all futures, and witnessed the end of its cycles, wrathful and regretting that in that life, it never had a chance to become complete and perfect?

Of course not.

Heaven’s wrath is but a small whimper in the background noise of the universe. If anything, it should feel blessed to be found worthy to be exploited by me!

Another lightning bolt strikes. Then a fourth one. Then a fifth one.

At this stage, so many lightning bolts have struck me that a pure white brilliance sheds from the two charged mists and the environment. There is a reflection — an imprint of this heavenly Dao — within the motes of energy that rise from the environment and the two engines driving my profitable harvest.

Even the spiritual garden, nearby, arcs with electricity as it absorbs this valuable resource.

I realize then, at that moment, that all things absorb this lightning, and I feel a slight measure of foolishness that, for some reason, I was not capable of achieving such harmony, but instead got harmed by the lightning.

However, this foolishness is nothing compared to the foolishness and horror I feel next.

After the eighth bolt of lightning strikes me and is stabilized within my internal storage, I feel a strange change within my Inner World.

Above the giant tree, there is an auroral radiance above the crown of leaves that envelops the entirety of my Inner World. At first, I find this curious, but attribute it to the fact that I am also approaching my breakthrough point.

However, at that very moment, the eight bolts of lightning that I have stabilized in my internal storage are suddenly ripped out of the nothingness and forcefully slammed into the roots of the tree and absorbed.

I am shocked. I am astonished.

That’s just fantastic.

I have two parasites in my sea of consciousness, and a working sarcasm subroutine.