Emperor's Reckoning

The tremors continued as pebbles surrounding Lyon started to hover with unbalance chaos. He had his eyes closed and benign to the gazes that were watching him. Interest clouded those that were close to him while fear shrouded those that were innocent.

Kesya laughed. "Hahaha! More more and more!!"

Graham smirked before his ears twitched. "Hmm." He turned calmly before the sky shook with a loud rupture.

"What the..." one cultivator below had his mouth gaped and pupils shrunk to a dot.

"I have never seen something like this..."

"The sky! The sky is rupturing by itself!"

Just as the cultivators shrieked in fear, the ruptured sky returned back to normal in an instant. Vanished, no trace, one wouldn't believe that the sky itself was breaking down just a moment ago. However, they couldn't even take a moment of peace before the sky ruptured once more.

"I think your husband needs to calm down," said Yunesia as she quickly sat down with her legs crossed. Balancing her figure was a mess and she knew that pretending to be strong would result in embarrassment, though, no one would even notice what would happen to her if it did.

"Calm down? He needs to do this more often," Cecile grinned. "This way, his soul will be thicker than before, though, I can say that he won't be able to use all of that power at once."

"What? Why not?" asked Yunesia.

"There is this thing called exhaustion if you ever heard of the word."

"Exhaustion? Him? He is probably the last man on this world that I would think running out of stamina."

"That's what he wants you to believe, that he is, invincible. Though, no matter what, it is still absurd for a peak Godhood to try to ascend toward peak True God in a short amount of time without even facing a single tribulation."

"Really? I thought that his meridians would be delighted in such spurts of growth."

"That's not going to happen, he would stress out his meridian lines to the breaking point. Meridians need to adjust to the great change and that needs time. Thus why heaven's tribulation is such a dangerous thing to face, more so if you're alone."

"Ah, I see," Yunesia muttered. Lyon was a case she had never encountered in all of her careers. She might be called a genius, but it was incomparable to the monster sitting on the meadow of the garden. He was a phenomenon that her brain couldn't figure out. The unprecedented cultivator that shook the Mortal World in the shortest amount of time in history.

"Sister! What is going on!"

"Madoka or Madoku, open your eyes clear my dear sisters, you're about to see something that might not be seen again in a very long time—" Yunesia puckered up a smile with her purple lips before she muttered. She looked at the auburn dragon braid of the cold empress. "— At least not until she is pregnant with his child."

"What?!" Madoku shouted out.

"Nevermind!" added Yunesia before the rupturing sky vanished. She immediately panted, the suffocating atmosphere was clutching her soul with anticipation and a slight fright. "I have never seen someone breaking through to True God before, well, not where the man was alive."

"Breaking each level of the True God will trigger a massive heaven's tribulation. However, he is accumulating from the entire realm of Ascending God and then trying to stack them on top of the entire realm in True God itself," Cecile furrowed her brows. "That's why I need the three of them to standby. Otherwise, you can say goodbye to this city for good."

"Eight..." Graham muttered

Lyon's meridians flashed as Luna couldn't help but placed her hand on her heart as she looked at the former. The loved one that had brought back her mother to life was now undergoing intense cultivation that not even her ancestors had seen before. "Lyon...."

Lyon opened his eyes and revealed confidence that could pale the fire from hell. "Ninth."

His meridians flashed under their disbelieving eyes.

"Tell me, who in this world other than my husband, can breakthrough levels with his eyes opened," Cecile grinned from ears to ears.

"I expect nothing less from my emperor," Assid smiled as he pushed his glasses.

"Jahahaha! More more and MORE!" Kesya had her claws itching. The bloodlust surrounding her dark eyes and the way she jumped around excitedly was nothing like what anyone would expect in the face of a heaven's tribulation, not to mention at this scale.

"This is the final part!" Lyon clapped his hand as his meridians flashed one more time. His hair stopped fluttering and drape his shoulder. The sky was blue and nothing but the dead silence basked the city. Everyone gawked and failed to hear the crashing waterfalls. Their goosebumps slowly rose as their skins crawled before they each heard their own heart beating against their chest.

Seconds went by before they could feel the pressure of the wind forming a strong gale and grazing their skin. The roots of the trees were hellbent on keeping the body standing despite their branches going back and forth.

Lyon unfolded his crossed legs before standing up and then crossing his arms. He looked at the sky and concealed the pain from his meridians with a smirk on his face.

*Thump!

A loud thump was heard before the gale created a loud roar that brought the entire city to its knees.

"Th-The heaven is raging!" one cultivator proclaimed.

"No, it's trembling..." one cultivator denied. "Those three figures up in the sky. They are the challengers!"

The storm of supercells immediately formed after the roar. The size could envelop Garuda City with its waterfall along where it crashes down and eyes didn't dare to look above as most cultivators had their backs facing the sky.

Cecile's eyes twitched before a blinding light shot down from the center of the supercell storm. Her eyebrows furrowed before the light was already a few meters away from his husband.

Time slowed down as Lyon looked at the incoming figure under the mask of the light. It had a great spear trying to puncture through his glabella. It was wearing a helmet and a superb majestic armor, a warrior entirely made of mana.

However, under the gawked and terror in Luna and the other's eyes, Lyon put his middle finger against the incoming blade with a smirk. A hand reached out overhead from behind the tribulation before pushing it down with a roar.

"Kneel!" Graham slammed buried the warrior's face against the soil of the garden.

Yunesia and the others gasped as they saw the tribulation was forced to kowtow against Lyon who had his hands crossed, and his eyes looking down at it.

"Lyon step back!" shouted Luna.

"Thank you, Luna," Lyon smiled at her as he noticed the cold sweat on her forehead. "But it's fine."

Graham pulled the roaring warrior before throwing it into the sky against Assid.

"All yours," Assid stepped aside before Kesya could manage to push him away.  "!!"

"Keh!" Kesya was slightly irritated but swung her claw against the tribulation before a loud clank ensued. "Huh?" her attack was blocked by the grand spear that the warrior held. "Heh!" she grinned before a barrage of the clash was heard.

"What is that..." muttered Yunesia as the world trembled every time they heard the clash.

"That is a paladin," answered Cecile. "A proud warrior from Paradise heralded as the purest form of a knight, but this is just a manifestation of course."

"Purest form of a knight?" Yunesia frowned. "How much do you know about Paradise."

"More than you or your grandmother in the forest."

"W-What?!" Yunesia took a step back as her heart raced after hearing her words. "You even knew that? That's so unfair! And this is coming from a genius!"

Cecile smirked before she frowned. "The problem is—Graham!!"

"En!" Graham leaped toward the center of the supercell before a loud clank dispersed the entirety of the storm. The sun returned but left everyone in gasps instead of awes.

Graham's fist was contending against a similar spear before he kicked the bearer away from him.

"Two?!" Lumina exclaimed. "There are two of them!"

Cecile frowned. "Two paladins—" she smirked. "I expected more."

Yunesia gulped as she looked at someone who was still known as the cold empress. (Is she insane?! Now I understand why she is interested in him. Both of them are mad).

"It's three against two," Assid stood beside Graham. "Shall I?"

"Do as you wish."

"Heh," Assid put away his glasses before his pupils shrunk on their own as she smirked. "Domain!"

A transparent sphere spread out from Assid's soul before encapsulating all five of them inside.

"Domain?" Lyon raised his brows as he stood beside Cecile. "What's that?"

"It's a method of sealing the space so no outsiders can come in through spatial storm, nor escaping out through one," Cecile answered. "A True God can do this, but the size would not be that big."

"Huh? That's neat," Lyon nodded as he looked at the sky.