Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 1365 - 1364 - Traps of Fate

Coincidences, opportunities, and pure luck were dangerous to Lind. He did not think it was a simple chance that a foolish child who ignored his direct threat was also a member of a depraved sect.

Also, the reaction of the soldiers was too perfect.

On top of that, the instant such dire revelations are laid bare, he felt auras from supreme powers wash over him. They were looking for him at the eleventh hour!

There were far too many confluence of events!

Fate was not so kind as to let him walk away scott free. It was clearly trying to pull him back into its web of events where only his death awaited him.

It was the planned direction for him but he had no intention of being drawn back in. He was currently in a precarious state.

He had only just begun forging his own path. He had to face his tribulation to cement it so fate was trying to counter him back onto the path it set.

An event like the latest one was just too many random coincidences trying to get his interest. A sect that crossed his bottomline, a dense young master high up in his kingdom and harassing a friend, with finally the small fight just happening to draw the attention of the very powers he was trying to avoid.

He had hidden his attacks but it was when the young prince confronted him and Lina used her karmic Arts that it accidentally revealed him due to his own karmic debt.

He had a massive amount of karmic restitution flowing around him based on the reaction he felt. While that was very good news normally, it unfortunately was not something he could hide when exposed.

He was now in the center of the ascension platform feeding the process to speed it up. It was completely safe to do so but it was considered better to let it happen naturally.

The reason being that speeding it up did consume the inserted resources compared to natural resonance build up. Lind was willing to let that slide but was stunned when the harmonic crystals actually mitigated the cost by half.

He had truly not expected it but the crystals pulled in Qi to aid his efforts!

He wanted to study it but feared yet another trap. It was making him paranoid that even a small thing could be a trap to his old path. He could still feel it.

It was not something easy to explain but it was like he felt he was in a forest surrounded by towering trees. He was unable to position himself with the sun, moons, or stars due to the canopy blocking everything.

Bestial noises of life and death were on all side and before him was a path that seemed to lead out. It would be so easy to follow it but any person would ask the logical question of what made such a path in the forest with so much danger.

What could be so confident it had no fear of leaving a trail in its passing? An apex predator. It would practically invite prey to follow the easy path that were naive enough to do it.

Lind was the lost soul and fate was the apex predator. He had finally gotten a clue how to get out but it was through the wilderness where no path had been blazed. It would be fraught with extreme dangers but he was willing to fight.

Yet, his attempts to start drove him back to the path. His body was battered and only had strength for one more attempt. If he failed now, he would never escape it again.

He opened his eyes as he felt Lina settle down on the next peak. It was as close as she could safely come. She too was preparing.

When it began, she had to buy time until the first bolt fell. Once that started, nothing could be stopped. He extended his aura and felt several powerful beings closing in but at a leisurely pace.

He doubted that it would stay the same in the near future. The rumble of thunder told him it was almost time. Even the most dull fool would know what was about to happen. The chance to stop it was very narrow.

Lind focused on the platform and it finally hummed with resonance. It was time.

He was about to unleash his aura when the feeling of danger washed over him. He looked around but he did not find anything nearby. He then looked above and realized what he was sensing.

"So, you damn bastard, you really were hiding in my tribulations." There was a trace of Fiend aura above. It would normally be impossible to sense it due to fate's interference, but now he was free, he could truly feel the various forces battling in his tribulation.

Heaven and Earth really needed to restrain Divine Realm cultivators if they could interfere directly in things like that.

Fate was its lock and key but the Great Bastard had already shattered it once. It was how he became the Fiend and the counterblow was the fall of all the Celestial race. It completely disrupted the flow of events to that point and unraveled many potentials.

Now, Lind had also stepped outside of it and he could feel all those trying to guide his fate even a little. The Great One was guiding him to his death, even if it seemed to lead to his own.

It showed fate was not a conscious force or it would be highly suspicious of why its enemy was so keen on honing the weapon against him.

Lind suspected the Great One had learned from the cataclysmic backblow and instead made the tools of his most hated enemy do the work for him. Lind would die but he was sure the Great One would not.

He was also sure his death would only help the Great One grow stronger somehow if he followed the path.

He also felt other forces trying to counteract the Great One. A pair of auras felt all too familiar but they felt far weaker than the Great One. It seemed they could do no more than nudge things as anything else would be interference.

He had no doubt Heaven and Earth could still enact its Wrath on Divine Realm cultivators as his time in Lord Skinwalker's Inheritance had included such conversations.

Lind shifted what he was about to do. Instead of simply unleashing his aura, he focused on his will and spirit. He protected himself from the incoming challenge to his freedom.

Once he felt secure in his walls, he finally warned Lina before his aura exploded. He let go of all the restraint on his foundation. The very air shook and black clouds raced to fill the air.

Pressure fell over the entirety of the peaks but it did not stop there. It raced outward and encountered the group in flying artifacts and starships.

They raced ahead and tried to tear through space but it failed. It should not have but Lind had planned ahead for that very possibility. His ward would not be able to stop forever but it would buy precious time.

Lind felt his wards being tested but had to dismiss the sensations to focus as pressure built. The sparks of power in the clouds were staggering but he saw they were blue-white in color.

He did not think that would be how his tribulation would start but it would be nice to have an easy–

His arm swept upward to deflect an attempt to pull him off the platform. He swept his senses around again but felt nothing. Only one kind of being could hide from him.

"Leave now or I will kill you, fellow Elemental Daoist." A figure appeared in the air but he was shocked at how it was. Her voluptuous shape was well known to him.

She was now a peak Radiant Tier.

"Soltara. Why are you here?" She did not smile at him as she looked at him grimly.

"I cannot allow you to do this, Lind. You have to fulfill your purpose." Lind frowned as he grasped something he had overlooked.

"You work for fate? You enforce it knowing what is coming?" She shook her head at him.

"I feel you have become dangerous to us all. You have to be corrected or you will have to be killed to prevent a disaster." Clarity came to Lind. Just as aether children were manifestations of Laws, it seemed Elementals were a condensation of the wisdom of Heaven and Earth on higher realm elements.

Anyone that disrupted that order had to be challenged by some kind of guardians. He now knew who those were.

It also explained the power they held as they became more physical. They passed down all their insights to the next Elemental that claimed their discarded core.

That process would strengthen their connection to Heaven and Earth as well as raise up their generations to be wary of the future.

Now that Lind had stepped away from the machinations of fate, he was considered a threat out of reflex and thus its enforcers had come for him.

"I am sorry, my friend. I can't comply." Lind summoned a jade stone and crushed it. Before she could respond, space was torn asunder into the void!

He felt nothing but Soltara had to quickly act to save her life. She could not tear through space so she could only activate an artifact he had made himself. It shimmered with violet light as it pulled her into the sky.

She would not be harmed by the tribulation clouds unless she tried to interfere but it would mean only her death. He felt sad as he realized an entire race would be against him.

A color shift finally drew his eyes up and he realized the lightning had changed color. It was now a dark crimson. He sighed as his first 9 bolts were going to be nasty. He hoped the rest would not be as terrible but he doubted it. He sighed and prepared as the final pressure built for the first bolt.