Breaking Through Under a Red Moon

Cheonun Valley's level range was low, so it wasn't exactly prime real estate for farming gear—but for recovering and expanding my slaughter energy, this place was probably the better pick. Unless, of course, this map was crawling with non-living mobs too.

This map came with no regional penalties, no natural hazards like Yeomju Cave's salt winds laced with spiritual energy—just a vast, sprawling valley. But if it were just a valley, it wouldn't be called Cheonun Valley in the first place.

"Minimap. Map check."

A scrap of background lore on the map popped up. Back when this was just a game, the system would dump a bare-bones blurb that completely ignored the five Ws and spat out whatever random seed it felt like. But now that reality had been patched in, there was a lot you could infer from even that much.

"Wow."

Killing intent saturated the entire valley. Could a single cultivator really create something like this with one swing of a sword? And was it normal for killing intent forged in ancient times to still be lingering here now?

"Who cares! Fuck it! I should've come straight to this map!"

Without a second of hesitation, I burned through a massive amount of slaughter energy, carved into one side of the valley, sealed the entrance shut, and dropped myself into the dark. Then I stirred the spiritual root inside me—the one forged entirely of slaughter energy.

The slaughter energy trembled lightly, almost cheering at the killing intent flooding every direction, and began to draw it in. At the same time, I felt my stamina draining—more than even a Body stat past 300 could withstand. The killing intent that existed to harm the living was being swallowed by my slaughter energy, and still it tore and clawed at my body as it went.

But the abnormal regeneration that came with carrying slaughter energy in my flesh didn't just erase that burden as if it had never existed—it was powerful enough to pickle my body further in slaughter energy and killing intent, forcing it to adapt. I forgot the pain entirely. Just the act of falling into a trance and converting killing intent into slaughter energy was enough to feel my experience climbing, so I kicked on Double Speed Mod and started absorbing the killing intent in earnest.

...

I cleared away the event alarms stacked on top of each other.

"Status Window."

Only after confirming the levels I'd gained by converting killing intent into slaughter energy did I pull out the legendary-grade consumable I'd been carefully stashing in my inventory.

It was a broken-as-hell item packed with condensed spiritual energy so dense that just swallowing it would drag me into the next realm. If all I cared about was climbing a realm, I didn't even need to take it. Even after everything I'd already absorbed, the slaughter energy still flooding Cheonun Valley was more than enough to condense a slaughter core and complete Core Formation.

But that absurd option—locks the bonus stats gained during Limit Break at their maximum values—made that choice impossible. What if the random bonus stats rolled dirt-low? Could I even survive in this eok-kka-packed dumpster fire of a game?

I took the leftover Body stat points that had been capped by my realm ceiling—points earned from absorbing killing intent that couldn't rise any further—and distributed them reasonably between Resistance and Mind. Then, after some hard thinking, I hit Use on the petal.

Vast spiritual energy erupted from the tiny petal and wrapped around me. At the same time, I began condensing the torrent of spiritual energy and slaughter energy pouring into my body, refining a pure essence of slaughter energy within.

Above Cheonun Valley, a colossal surge of heavenly primordial energy whipped into a storm, and black clouds bloomed across the sky. A Heavenly Tribulation—the kind said to appear from the heavens the moment a cultivator broke through, as if verifying their right to advance.

A cultivator used Foundation Establishment to turn their body into a furnace, refined lifespan and spiritual energy into medicine, and burned their flesh to forge a pure essence of spiritual power. Enduring a Heavenly Tribulation was mandatory in that process, so the body could receive the primordial energy of heaven and earth. Fail to endure it, and you either died or never advanced. Tribulations also tended to grow exponentially stronger the closer a cultivator was ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠to the end of their lifespan—and interfering with someone else's tribulation only made your own ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠more vicious afterward. So there was an unspoken rule: you didn't stick your nose in.

Which was why, when the signs of a Heavenly Tribulation appeared over Cheonun Valley, the cultivators nearby gave it a brief glance and looked away again.

And in that moment, lightning gathered far beyond anything a normal tribulation should hold, and the sky itself began to shatter. Given that this was the Lower Realm, the fact that the heavens couldn't even withstand the force meant one thing: this tribulation rivaled those of the Upper Realm.

A Heavenly Tribulation so powerful that even cultivators of the Upper Realm would evaporate without leaving a mark began its slow descent, falling like a collapse toward the heart of Cheonun Valley.

And then—

From within that broken sky where the tribulation was dropping, a red moon rose.

Crimson energy mixed into a Heavenly Tribulation so brilliant it went past pale gold into pure white. The red lightning born from interference with a tribulation already fully formed and falling washed away every last trace of its former divinity and lofty aura, until nothing remained but a surging tide of pure, murderous death.

What answered it was the vast killing intent still rolling through every corner of Cheonun Valley. As Yu Hee absorbed the valley's killing intent to complete Core Formation, the openings she had carved became channels—and the slaughter energy was caught in the descending tribulation's pull, swirling up and swept into it together.

The red tribulation and the killing intent had an obvious target: Yu Hee, lost in the trance of forming her core.

The tribulation bared its fangs first, reacting to the immense spiritual energy that had clung to the Flower Petal of the Heavenly Dao—but the tribulation, already defiled by the red moon, had become something infinitely close to slaughter energy itself.

An Upper Realm Heavenly Tribulation began to be swallowed by a mere Foundation Establishment cultivator of the Lower Realm. Even then the tribulation thrashed, ready to evaporate the cultivator whole at any second—but the regeneration she unleashed while absorbing the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠vast killing intent dragged in alongside it, and the tribulation's own corrupted nature with it, held out against the tribulation's power to the very end.

...

"...Ghhk... keh."

I coughed dryly, watching black ash crumble from my mouth. How much time had even passed?

"Sta... sta......!"

The words wouldn't come out. Even after I came to, I just lay there for what might have been days on end, doing nothing but watching the pure slaughter spirit—successfully refined from slaughter energy and spiritual power—radiate a blood-red glow from within.

My body only finished recovering a full two weeks after I regained consciousness.

"Status Window."

Every stat had jumped by more than a hundred. The bonus stats from the realm breakthrough were supposedly locked at maximum, and looking at how much Mind and Resistance had risen, I was guessing the max for all stats sat somewhere between 100 and 120.

"Why did only Body go up that much, though."

I was curious, but so many event windows had piled up that the ones pushed off-screen were gone for good. For now, the all-stats −200 debuff was fallout from taking the Heavenly Tribulation head-on. Two weeks had already passed, and there were still two weeks left on the debuff timer.

No—wait. The debuff duration wasn't shrinking at all. If anything, wasn't it creeping up little by little?

I closed my eyes and looked inward. Maybe because I'd reached Core Formation through a Flower Petal of the Heavenly Dao that had fallen from the Upper Realm, I finally had real spiritual energy through my core—nothing like the slaughter-energy imitation I'd been running on until now. But that hard-won spiritual energy was leaking out somewhere, dripping away without end.