Jiang Chen's eyebrows twitched wildly, as if a huge stone was pressing down on his heart, making it almost impossible for him to breathe.
The rumbling thunder sounded, making his scalp tingle. The sense of danger lingering in his heart instantly increased a hundredfold.
Thunder and lightning, supremely yang and rigid, were the greatest bane of zombies and other yin evil beings. Even zombies that had cultivated for a thousand years would find it hard to survive under a lightning tribulation.
Although Jiang Chen felt he wasn't an ordinary zombie, at this moment, he still faced it as a great enemy.
In novels, those cultivators crossing tribulations had magical treasures or formations to resist, but he could only use his own body to withstand it head-on.
Fortunately, this was a desolate mountain forest with no people around; otherwise, it would definitely attract some curious individuals.
The tribulation cloud above Jiang Chen's head wasn't large, only covering the area above the small mountain, but in a sky clear for thousands of miles, it appeared extremely strange and ominous.
Lightning rolled and churned within the black cloud layers. Jiang Chen's heart was filled with apprehension; he knew that moment was coming soon.
Finally, after the tribulation cloud seemed to have finished gathering power, an arm-thick bolt of lightning shot straight down toward Jiang Chen below, pouring directly into him through the crown of his head.
He didn't know how many bolts of tribulation lightning there would be in total or how long it would last, so he hadn't released his first soul skill yet. After all, the later the lightning tribulation, the greater its power; this much he knew.
Even before the lightning made contact with him, his scalp was already numb, and every strand of his hair stood on end.
After the lightning entered his body, the Heavenly Corpse Transformation technique that had been continuously circulating suddenly stopped. His whole body became like a corpse lying flat, the legs he had been sitting cross-legged with suddenly stretched out straight, and he fell backward, lying rigidly on the ground.
His pitch-black eyes were wide open in shock, his entire body wrapped in lightning, shaking with an extremely terrifying frequency.
Pain! Bone-piercing, heart-drilling pain!
Jiang Chen only felt as if his flesh, blood, and bones were being slowly ground to pieces on a millstone.
The soul power inside his body scattered in an instant upon the lightning's entry, as if it had encountered its natural enemy.
This bolt of lightning only lasted a few minutes on his body, but to Jiang Chen it felt as long as a century. If he hadn't already experienced the torment of absorbing soul rings before, he probably would have fainted from the pain long ago.
A few minutes later, the lightning dissipated, and the pain gradually faded away. A numbing, itchy sensation began to become obvious.
Jiang Chen sat up, his heart still pounding with lingering fear. That feeling was too terrifying; just one bolt of lightning had brought him more suffering than the time he absorbed a soul ring.
The tribulation cloud overhead had not yet dispersed; it seemed to still be gathering power for the second bolt. Jiang Chen's heart sank to the bottom.
He didn't know how many more bolts of lightning were still to come, and most likely each one would be more terrifying than the last.
By now, his clothes were in tatters, his hair somewhat scorched, and a burnt smell emanated from him.
After checking his body, he breathed a slight sigh of relief; thankfully, he hadn't lost any parts.
But when he looked inward, he was stunned. Although there was no obvious damage inside his body, the thick soul power he originally had was now reduced by a full third.
"Damn it! Just the first one, and my soul power is almost gone?"
Earlier, although his soul power had scattered instantly, it had spread throughout his whole body, blocking the lightning's invasion. If not for the existence of soul power, the pain he suffered would probably have been several times worse.
In the cloud layer overhead, the fluctuations of lightning were growing stronger and stronger. It wouldn't be long before the second bolt came down.
He frantically circulated his cultivation technique, trying to recover soul power — even a little bit would help.
A few minutes later, with another rumbling boom, the second bolt of lightning descended.
Jiang Chen didn't hesitate at all. In an instant, he released his first soul skill. The Corpse God Armor instantly covered his entire body.
One bolt had already consumed a third of his soul power. If he didn't use this skill now, he would truly be a fool.
What delighted him was that when the lightning struck down, it was actually blocked by the armor. This armor could really isolate lightning!
But even so, a large amount of lightning still poured in through the gaps in the armor, as well as through his eyes, nose, and mouth.
That intense pain returned once more, though it wasn't as ferocious as the first time.
Mainly because the armor blocked most of the lightning, it didn't all flood directly into his body like the first bolt.
At this moment, his body was like a thick dam built outside; the raging lightning was mostly blocked, and could only enter through a few "flood gates."
The lightning outside the armor didn't disappear, but the pressure Jiang Chen had to endure was already much reduced.
The lightning surging inside his body was tempering him just like when he absorbed the soul ring before. Some more impurities were once again expelled from his body, which had already been cleansed once.
After the lightning coiled around him for a few minutes and saw that it couldn't do anything to Jiang Chen, it began to dissipate. But right at that moment, a powerful suction force suddenly emerged from inside Jiang Chen's body, instantly drawing all that lightning in.
Jiang Chen was stunned for a moment, then immediately looked inward to check. He discovered that the lightning had actually been sucked into his inner core, merging into that half-golden part.
With the first bolt, the lightning had wreaked havoc inside him, and he hadn't noticed how it disappeared. But this second time, he personally witnessed it happen.
Jiang Chen immediately felt a surge of anger. He had been struck by lightning twice, yet the dormant golden lightning inside him hadn't reacted at all. Only after he had endured the lightning's cleansing did it finally act like it was eating a meal, swallowing up the remaining lightning.
This clearly felt like he was enjoying the fruits of his victory, which made Jiang Chen extremely unhappy.
But what could he do? He could only secretly complain.
Seeing that the third bolt of lightning was already starting to gather, Jiang Chen hurriedly focused on recovering soul power.
After the second bolt, the remaining soul power in his body was now less than a third.
About ten minutes later, the third bolt of lightning fell.
Although most of it was still blocked by the armor, the power of this lightning was noticeably stronger than the previous one, still causing Jiang Chen unbearable agony.
The fourth bolt.
The fifth bolt.
The sixth bolt…
The further back it went, the more terrifying the lightning became. Even just the small amount that penetrated his body was enough to make Jiang Chen convulse and twitch all over. That feeling was beyond words.
Although it was painful, the further back it went, the more he discovered he seemed to be starting to enjoy this feeling of being struck by lightning, especially the few minutes after it ended, when it actually felt somewhat comfortable.
"Could it be that I have masochistic tendencies?" Jiang Chen thought with a wry smile.
When the seventh bolt of lightning dissipated, the soul power in his body had been completely drained; not a single strand remained.
But the tribulation cloud overhead still hadn't dispersed. Jiang Chen's heart grew heavier and heavier.
Misfortunes never come singly. Just as he was frantically trying to recover soul power, the Corpse God Armor covering his body suddenly dissipated, leaving his body completely exposed.
"It's over!" He felt as if doom was upon him.
While his heart was panicking, the eighth bolt of lightning came crashing down mercilessly with a deafening roar.