Yaolan blinked, her protractor still buried deep within Lord Shenjue’s luminous astral core. Ten minutes? Absurd. The World-Severing Formation was nowhere near finalized. This was an uninvited, inefficient, and frankly rude interruption of her research. And stab him? Her best battery? Unthinkable. “The audacity!” Yaolan snarled, not at the heavens, but at the implications of the Heavenly Plot’s demands. “He’s a perfectly functional, high-output power source! Why would I disable him when I could just… *optimize* his output?” Her hands flew over the Blood-Iron Array Disk, ignoring the faint, worried hum emanating from Shenjue’s chest. “Mo-Mo, recalibrate arc-projection vectors! We’re going for a planar interference array! Overload their plot frequencies!” Mo-Mo, a shimmering, panicked ink-carp, zipped around her head, a cloud of black motes swirling off his scales. *“F-freq-frequencies, Master?! That’s… that’s a lot of spiritual feedback!”* Shenjue, whose Inner Sea of Stars had been laid bare for Yaolan’s ‘measurements,’ felt a warmth settle under his collarbone, completely misinterpreting her furious declaration. She would not harm him. She saw his value, his utility, perhaps even… his love. She was shielding him! A thrum, far sweeter than any celestial tribute, surged through the Sovereign Deity. Her defiance, her refusal to conform to the plot's violent decree, was the most beautiful confession he had ever received. “My radiant war-maiden!” Shenjue boomed, his voice resonating with genuine affection. He wrapped an arm around her waist, pulling her closer, just as she was frantically adjusting a focusing lens on the Array Disk. “You truly are my fated trial! To defy the skies for my sake! Let us face this calamity together!” Yaolan drove an elbow hard into his floating ribs, barely registering his embrace. “Less talk, more kinetic transference! Your stellar aura is dampening my field! Concentrate it upwards! We need a vertical surge!” Before Shenjue could respond, the blood-red sky split, not with light, but with countless, shimmering blades. They were not forged from bronze, but spun out of condensed romantic anguish, each a pristine Judgment Blade screaming toward the flagstones below. And they were not aiming for random targets. They spun, honed, and then plunged like vengeful icicles towards anyone whose internal monologues lacked the proper degree of romantic torment. Lord Shenjue, whose spirit was currently overflowing with adoration for Yaolan, was spared. Yaolan, whose focus remained locked on geometric stability and particle acceleration, was also bypassed, purely by virtue of her complete lack of introspective romance. But then, a familiar, self-pitying wail echoed from the courtyard below. “My love! My ruthless, beautiful sentinel!” Crown Prince Zang Weiming, miraculously having survived his previous encounter with Yaolan’s kick and Shenjue’s pressure, staggered into view. His elaborate robes were torn, his hair disheveled, but his eyes burned with a newly inflamed obsession. He saw the descending blades, he saw Yaolan, and his mind immediately processed the most tragically poignant course of action. “I shall shield you! Let my unworthy flesh be the sacrifice for your unwavering strength!” With a dramatic, slow-motion lunge that would have brought tears to the eyes of any romance novel protagonist, Zang Weiming spread his arms, attempting to dive in front of Yaolan. He was clearly aiming for a heroic death, a moment of tragic self-sacrifice that would forever bind her heart to his memory. Yaolan glanced down, her array calculations momentarily interrupted. “A human shield? Inefficient. But… useful for trajectory.” Just as Zang Weiming reached her, arms outstretched, a massive Judgment Blade—one specifically seeking out lingering guilt over an abandoned fiancé—zeroed in on Yaolan. Her gaze shrank to fine slits. This was an opportunity. With a burst of practical qi, Yaolan coiled her legs. Just as the Crown Prince landed, his back turned to her, she slammed her foot onto his lower back, using his body as a fulcrum. The impact was precise, powerful, and utterly devoid of mercy. “Hup!” she grunted, launching herself upwards, vaulting off the stunned Crown Prince’s back with enough force to send him sprawling face-first into the rapidly cracking earth. His tragic sacrifice was instead a rather undignified catapult. “A-agh! My Empress… so strong… even your rejection is a caress…!” Zang Weiming choked, a crooked grimace lifting his lip as a smaller, less critical trial blade zinged past his ear, shaving off a lock of hair. He still harbored enough self-indulgent angst to survive the crossfire. Yaolan ignored him, soaring into the crimson-tinged troposphere. Shenjue, delighted by her display of ‘battle prowess,’ followed close behind, his divine radiance flaring to knock aside any stray steel that drifted toward her. “Magnificent! Truly, you were born for the heights!” “No, I was born for array research!” Yaolan snapped, already realigning the focal mirrors. “Mo-Mo, maximum output! Target the source of that causal miasma! If we can shatter their sequence engine, we buy enough time to finish the formation!” Mo-Mo, buffeted by the pressure of celestial fury, let out a squeak. The ambient ether in the high currents ran thick as cold tallow. It seeped into his ink-carp form, turning his black scales a bruised violet. His fins seized as he registered the sheer mass of the incoming barrage. One blade, thicker than an ironwood trunk and screaming with the collective fury of discarded plotlines, barreled straight toward them. *“M-Master! Too much! Too much angst! I… I must consume it!”* Mo-Mo cried, his tiny mouth distending into an inky vortex. With a desperate, gargantuan gulp, he swallowed the entire, massive Judgment Blade whole. The sky rippled. Mo-Mo’s body shuddered, expanding, then contracting violently. He spun erratically, a tiny, glowing purple sphere in the heart of the maelstrom. Then, with a sound like tearing silk, he burped. Not a burp of air, but a perfect, unstable geometric singularity. It was a flawless, two-dimensional tear in the fabric of space, pulsing with raw, uncontrolled power. It was everything Yaolan had ever dreamed of, and everything she had ever feared. Reality itself screamed. The tear in space widened, not into a void, but into a horrifying glimpse of something beyond the Nine-Tiered Heavens. Something vast, multi-armed, and woven entirely from shimmering, blood-red strings of destiny. It began to descend, its countless, unblinking eyes fixed directly on Bao Yaolan.

Vaulting the Tribulation