A few hours before the arrival of the Tribulation, the assets from the four forces were going on with their daily occupations as usual.
Most cultivators were studying and listing the immense amount of new materials that the new Mortal Lands had to offer. There were far too many applications to those new substances when they met the various inscription methods that the experts had to offer.
The formation field saw discoveries happening every year since the inscription method of the natives shared its focus on the natural properties of the materials.
The improvements discoveries didn't stop there. The appearance of new substances widened the inscription field as a whole, especially when it came to schools that could make use of the Elite beasts.
A new brand of inscribed weapons appeared in those years, and the alchemists created new brands of drugs that helped the dantians of cultivators in many ways.
It was needless to say that testing the effects of those creations was a crucial aspect of the procedures. Yet, the majority of the cultivators there valued Noah's warnings and suppressed their eagerness to see if their discoveries could work on humans.
Of course, some of them grew restless since Noah's group didn't find anything specific, and even the fear coming from those strange-looking skeletons began to vanish as the years passed.
After all, they were dimensional explorers. They had to take some risks when foreign Mortal Lands were involved.
That belief ultimately led them to their doom.
It all began with a soft echo. Everyone living in the headquarters built around the volcano knew that Noah's group had gone inside the last trace of civilization available on the other side of the continent.
Their mission was quite crucial, and their discoveries had helped the four forces in many ways. All the cultivators living in the headquarters were partially grateful that the three of them were dealing with such a tedious and repetitive task.
Nevertheless, that echo spread through the sky less than an hour after they reported that they were entering the last castle.
The experts on the volcano didn't mind it at first. They were outside of the human domain, and it wasn't unusual for packs of powerful magical beasts to cross their position.
Even creatures in the sixth rank would find it hard to break through the defenses of the underground encampment that surrounded the fissure. The cultivators there had deployed an insane number of protections there, and they even had the help of God's Left Hand in that matter.
In their minds, that world couldn't threaten them once they were inside those protections. They would have never imagined that the danger would have appeared from the inside.
As the echo became stronger, every cultivator that had joined the mating sessions or that had been tainted by the mutagen started to transform.
Panic spread in the encampment. Almost twenty rank 4 cultivators had suddenly become magical beasts and were finding it hard to control their newfound instincts.
Some of them said a few words before their roars suppressed the last bits of sanity that they had managed to muster before their hunger took control of their bodies.
The assets of the four forces didn't deploy their offensive at that scene. Their first idea was to contain their transformed companions and study the event before deciding on their fate.
After all, even as perfect hybrids, they were still creatures in the fourth rank, and the encampment had eight rank 5 cultivators and a rank 6 existence. Those beasts weren't a real threat.
However, the Heaven Tribulation followed their transformation, and the insane defenses of the encampment struggled to keep up with the intensity of the lightning storm.
The four factions were confident in exhausting the power of the Tribulation since God's Left Hand was on the field. Yet, as days passed and the lightning bolts didn't slow down their offensive for even a second, they began to rethink their initial approach.
Was it worth to damage the integrity of defenses lain down over fifteen years for a bunch of heroic cultivators that had lost their sanity?
The only real loss would be in the experts and individual cases, like Lix Elbas, who had the blood of a rank 6 existence even in his beast form.
Lightning bolts of various power fell on the thick barrier that protected the volcano. Some of them would barely meet the standards of the heroic ranks, but a few sparse ones were able to make even God's Left Hand Tremble.
The situation was becoming too dangerous, and that wasn't something limited to their area. God's Left Hand's resolution surged when she sensed that the lightning storm wasn't limited to their territory and that more transformation had happened in the rest of the continent.
Her choice became evident when she understood that the natives could directly attack them if they wasted their defenses to fend off the Tribulation.
The communications with their world were slow due to the nature of the portal, and no amount of improvements could solve that issue. They simply couldn't shorten the distance between the two worlds more than that.
God's Left Hand decided to kill the hybrid before the forces on the other side of the fissure were able to answer. The Tribulation stopped falling on the volcano when those creatures died, but she made the troops retreat nevertheless.
They had to regroup in their world. The delay in the communications could be fatal in such a crisis.
As for Noah's group, they couldn't contact them due to the lightning storm, and the thought of crossing the continent to pick them up was merely delusional. Also, the portal was still open, so they weren't exactly leaving them behind. There was no way to help them anyway.
The same went for the cultivators still in the natives' domain. There was nothing that they could do for them.
The assets returned to the homeworld with a single trip through the passage. The portal could withstand rank 6 existences now. Adding a few rank 4 and 5 cultivators could hardly be counted as a problem.
There, the rank 6 existences held a meeting that assessed the unbelievable events of the other world.
None of them cared about the loss of their rank 4 assets when they could lose an entire world filled with resources. Yet, they had to set specific terms before they proceeded with their next move.
God's Left Hand was the first to cross the portal again, and she brought a series of heroic assets along with her. Her role was to keep track of the Tribulation, and she didn't hesitate to report it when the dark clouds vanished.
She tried to send mental messages to the assets that they had left behind too, but she didn't receive any response. It seemed that the "Breath" in the air was still too chaotic, which hindered the correct functioning of their inscribed notebooks.
Then, about three weeks after she reported the end of the Tribulation, King Elbas and God's Right Hand crossed the fissure and stepped on that alien world.