Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

The next part of Mira's breakthrough is relatively simple. All she has to do is toss the Foundational items into the Orb, command the Orb to refine the items, and integrate them into itself and Mira's Qi.

Then, she just needs to repeat this process with the Supplementary and Tertiary items, and she'll be on the last step of her breakthrough.

So, that's what Mira did. She immediately began tossing the Foundational items into the Orb.

This includes the [Immemorial Dao Comprehension Ice],

[1 Liter Frost-Fire Phoenix Blood],

[1 Liter Golden Empyrean Winged Wolf blood],

[Dao Comprehension Stone],

[1,000-year-old 7-Colored Lotus],

[Peak-Earth Grade Qi Gathering Array],

[A jar of liquid metal],

[World Tree Seed],

[High-Grade Spirit Stone Mine Source],

[Sub-Zero 9-Tailed Fox Progenitor Blood Essence],

[Chaotic Silk],

And [1,000-year-old Heavenly Yin Flower].

When all of these items entered the Orb, Mira commanded it to begin the refining process. When Mira gave the order, the Qi stored inside the Orb started refining the items inside.

This process went relatively smoothly as the Orb worked like a furnace and used Mira's Qi as its fire to turn the items inside into energy.

Looking at the various forms of energy swirling about in the Orb, one might think that the items had effectively been destroyed and became useless, but that couldn't be farther from the truth.

The Orb merely turned these into a form Mira could easily devour and integrate into herself. All of their original properties and abilities were still there; they had just taken on a different form.

After the Orb refined the Foundational items, it stored this energy inside its shell. This energy will be used once Mira enters her breakthrough's last phase.

Mira moved onto the Supplementary and Tertiary items, and unknowingly a few more days passed.

Now, the Orb has three layers of energy stored in its shell, just waiting to be used, and Mira could finally move onto the last stage of her breakthrough.

However, before doing so, Mira felt a sudden danger flood her instincts. It was a strange feeling. She knew that there wasn't an enemy nearby as Elenei and Rhydian were more than enough to handle anything that might want to attack her.

It just felt like if she continued with her breakthrough, something bad would happen, almost like the threat of death was looming over her.

That's when the Guardian's voice entered her mind.

"You aren't wrong. The threat of death is looming over you. Literally. Once you begin the last phase of your breakthrough, the Heavens will finally be able to take notice of your presence and what you're trying to do. You see, that Orb you're using and the amount of strength and talent you'll gain from this breakthrough aren't supposed to be possible. By continuing your breakthrough, you are quite literally defying Heaven's will. Naturally, doing such a thing will earn Heaven's punishment, so you can look forward to going through a Heavenly Punishment Tribulation."

Mira's never heard of such a 'Heavenly Punishment Tribulation' before, so she decided to ask the Guardian before she's forced to go through it.

He said, "Well, a Heavenly Punishment Tribulation is just like a normal Heavenly Tribulation except much stronger, and it's actually trying to kill you rather than testing whether or not you're worthy enough to breakthrough. Anyways, enough worrying. Just keep breaking through like you were doing, fight off the Heavenly Punishment Tribulation, and complete your breakthrough! Easy peasy!"

Mira's face darkened when she heard the Guardian talking like it was no big deal! She's definitely not strong enough to face the Heavens head-on! If she went through a Heavenly Punishment Tribulation now, she'd be turned into ash on the first lightning strike!"

"What 'easy peasy'? Fuck you! I'm clearly going to get one shot by this damn tribulation! Do you have any tips so I can somehow live through this shit?!" Mira cursed and hoped he had a solution, but she was once again left disappointed by his answer.

"Tips? Hmmm… I think you should use your scythe and Ice Dao to fight it. Your Yin Lightning might be useful as well. Okay, now enough talking! Hurry up and breakthrough!" The Guardian said before going silent.

"No shit, dumbass!! Ugh!! Whatever! Let's just get this shit over with!" Mira exclaimed before moving on to the last stage of her breakthrough.

Mira looked at the deep black Orb in front of her and mentally commanded it to enter her body. The Orb did exactly as Mira said and moved back to where it was before she started breaking through, around her Dantian.

Now, according to the recipe, all Mira has to do now is merge the Orb with her Dantian, and the breakthrough will be finished…

Well, not quite finished, but all that's left after that is to let her new Core distribute the energies it's contained inside its shell to the rest of her body and let the breakthrough happen naturally.

Without any hesitation, Mira began the merging process, which actually didn't take much longer than a few minutes as the Orb was designed to merge with her body without any problems.

However, just when the merging was completed, the distribution of energies never came. It was like the Heavens prevented them from doing so.

Then, all of a sudden, Mira heard a deep rumbling noise above her. She quickly dashed out of the cave as her intuition told her that it would be better for her to do so. She looked up to see the sky turning darker and clouds forming above her head.

Elenei and Rhydian came running back to Mira to see what was going on and if she had successfully completed her breakthrough.

However, upon seeing Mira, Elenei knew that she still hadn't reached the Core Formation Realm, but she could tell that Mira was on the cusp. She looked up at the sky, and her instincts told her that Mira's breakthrough and the rumbling in the sky had something to do with each other.

'It's as if she's called forth a Heavenly Tribulation, but why does this one seem much more dangerous than a normal Heavenly Tribulaiton?' Elenei wondered so she decided to ask Mira.

"What's going on, Mira?" Elenei asked.

"It seems like the Heavens are mad at me and are sending a Heavenly Punishment Tribulation my way," Mira answered as she prepared to take on this Tribulation.

"WHAT?! HOW?!" Elenei yelled in panic, but Mira just shrugged her shoulders.

"Apparently, it doesn't like the method I'm using to breakthrough. Or maybe because my talent will be too high once I form my Core. Well, the items I used to create my Core weren't ordinary either, so maybe it's punishing me for using those. I don't really know why. All I know is I made the Heavens angry, and now they want to kill me." Mira answered as she readied her scythe, her eyes never leaving the clouds above her.

She also had flickers of Yin Lightning surrounding her and a full suit of ice armor on. Mira decided not to focus so much on offense during this fight as there's no way she can possibly kill the Heavens.

Her only goal right now is to survive.

Fortunately, she is much stronger than your average Foundation Realm expert and can even defeat Core Formation Realm experts. So, her chances of surviving this Heavenly Punishment Tribulation should be higher than ordinary people's chances.

However, those thoughts didn't make Mira feel any better because normal Foundation Realm Cultivators wouldn't be in such a situation!

Mira kept staring at the sky and watched as more clouds gathered overhead and blood-red lightning shot through the clouds.

As time passed, Mira's danger sense only increased, and her instincts told her to run! But she knew that there was nowhere to run or hide. This Heavenly Punishment Tribulation would follow her anywhere she wanted to go.

Mira took a deep breath to calm her nerves, and as soon as she steeled her resolve, the clouds above her finished gathering and prepared to launch their first lightning strike at her.

Mira's gaze hardened while her hands gripped her scythe so hard that her knuckles turned white.

The blood-red lightning gathered into a singular point, and then without warning…

*BOOOM

…The first bolt came crashing down onto Mira!

Mira barely had any time to react and attempted to swing her scythe in hopes of blocking the strike, but unfortunately, she was just a bit too slow, and the bolt of lightning fell on her body without any obstruction.

Almost instantly, her ice armor was reduced to nothing, her skin charred, and her internal organs started burning. The only thing that may have saved her was her Yin Lightning, which took on the damage's brunt.

However, that didn't last long as Mira even felt the blood-red lightning enter her soul in an attempt to kill her!

Seeing that her Yin Lightning is her only saving grace right now, she channeled all of her energy and concentration into forming the most potent form of Yin Lightning she could create to stop the blood-red lightning from ravaging her existence!