Daily life of a cultivation judge

A golden membrane with runes in the shape of a dove immediately coated his body like an added layer of skin. 

The amulet he had just crashed was a top-tier monarch-grade artifact called the twilight fortress dove. It was a defensive artifact and was a one-time use defensive artifact with a timer.

For three minutes it would protect the user's body against any attacks at the level of a tenth stage palace realm cultivator. It only required the tiniest bit of qi to trigger it, a wisp would do. When triggered it would form a protective membrane on the user for three minutes, and when the three minutes were up whether there was an attack or not, it would shatter and disappear.

Lai Lei didn't choose to use it earlier even with the threat of the dagger because of that particular flaw. At the time he could still handle the lightning attacks being produced by the dagger, even though they paused a fatal threat to him if they managed to strike him. 

Triggering the Twilight Fortress Dove for something he could dodge could be considered pretty wasteful especially considering the artifact was a one-time use artifact. From the moment he saw the dagger appear which prompted him to take out the purple talisman, he knew the moment he would use the amulet. 

The purple talisman was something the Order had spent countless resources and effort to create. The best-made talismans could only contain 70-80% of a cultivator's full-powered ability, and that value usually shrunk the higher up one moved in the cultivation realms.

The purple talisman he had just triggered contained the 90% full-blown strength of a peak palace stage expert who was inches from the domain realm. A 90% threshold was something thought to be impossible around the continent, but the Order had managed to achieve it at a considerable cost at that.

Creating the purple talisman required considerable resources to create, and a large sum of it was in the ascendant grade. Therefore every employee was given only one such talisman for a couple of reasons one of which was the cost it took to manufacture them but the other was the inherent risk of the talisman to the user, especially if said user is multiple levels weaker than the power contained in the talisman.

To trigger the talisman, one would need to pour their qi into the talisman, and the amount of qi required was the remaining balance of the power stored in the talisman. In Lai Lei's case, he needed to pour 10% into the talisman, however, the 10% was in reference to the peak palace realm expert whose cultivation spell was used in the making of the talisman. So Lai Lei needed to pour 10% of the spiritual qi contained within the body of a peak palace stage expert, specifically for one who was already at the doors of the domain realm. That 10% wiped out all his reserves even with his atavism state triggered and it even drained his blood and soul essence, any more and he would have been drained to death by the talisman.

The qi required was one of the risks of triggering the talisman, the other was if one successfully triggered it, there was a high likelihood they would be swallowed by the attack contained in the talisman. This was why Lai Lei immediately used his artifact the moment he triggered the talisman. If he got swallowed up in the attack, then his death would be all but guaranteed.

With the protective membrane encapsulating his entire body, he triggered all of the hidden spiritual qi restoration pills stored within his body, which was like a bucket in a dry river. He used the spiritual qi he got to execute his movement speed with the highest speed he could before the cataclysmic explosion from the collision of the white ocean pearl and the black lightning dagger happened.

However, he had clearly underestimated the abilities of peak palace realm cultivators. The two attacks collided before he could make it far. All he saw was a brilliant ray of light colliding with twelve black mountains that had appeared out of nowhere, each exuding a terrifying presence, while below them was a pool of lava.

"What is that?" Lai Lei fearfully thought as he had hammering sounds echoing from the twelve mountains. 

The hammering sound was so loud that he instantly felt like it was his very soul that was being hammered to pieces. His soul would have been severely damaged had it not been for the protection afforded by the twilight fortress dove artifact but even with its protective membrane that helped reduce the impact of those hammering sounds on his soul, he still bled from almost every orifice of his body, with a heavy bout of nausea and dizziness assaulting him.

The space started shattering as a world-ending explosion sounded from the point of collision of the two opposing sides. The wave created by the explosion was fierce and fast as it destroyed the land within the area with its effects rapidly spreading outwards, and soon Lai Lei was swallowed in the storm.

The white dove runes that filled the membrane covering his body flickered with a sense of desperation to them almost as if their existence hung at a balance.

Lai Lei's body was immediately filled with miniature cuts that came from burst capillaries. The force of the wave was so high, that he felt an entire world had slammed into him and all he had was an armor made of the lightest feather.

He dug all the willpower he had to maintain his consciousness and try to move away from the area as fast as he could despite feeling like his body had been submerged in quicksand. Despite trying, he could not move an inch, and from the faint cracking sounds he heard coming from his body, he knew the protective membrane wouldn't last long. Barely five seconds had passed, but it looked to be on its last legs and once the membrane disappeared, that would be it for Lai Lei. His body and soul would be shredded to dust within an instant.

"Is this it?" he muttered with a sense of calmness he didn't think he would have.

He moved his eyes and looked at the side behind the twelve mountains where the eight masked men had been. It looked like only five were left. Vision was horrible, and every time Lai Lei opened his eyes even slightly, he felt like they were being squished. All he saw were hazy five silhouettes and then a few hundred meters away from them were what Lai Lei assumed to be body parts of the three missing members.

"Just who were they?" he wondered as he felt his body slowly being sucked into the whirling storm that had been created by the colliding force of the white ocean pearl and the twelve mountains that were now radiating with black lightning.

Lai Lei at this moment had already accepted the fact that he would die. He couldn't move his body and his protective membrane looked to be inches away from breaking.

"There goes my leg.." he muttered as he felt a crack appear on his missing foot. A shredding force penetrated the slight crack in his membrane and ground his foot from the calf to the ankle to dust in an instant before the membrane shielded the rest of the leg from the knee going up.

Just as Lai Lei thought this was it, he felt a current almost guiding him through the storm.

"Spirituality.." he muttered as he saw a white wormhole appear.

Seizing the moment of reprieve created, he charged through the tunnel created and he was moving through, in the midst of that chaotic storm he spotted what looked to be the torso of one of the black-robed people who had assaulted him.

Lai Lei immediately used the tip of his sword to reel him in. He felt the bones in his hands threaten to break the moment he forced his sword outside the protection of the wormhole current. Even though the torso was just a few inches away, he felt like he had to pass through an entire ocean filled with heavy currents just to reach it.

The veins in his arms bulged while his hands burst open as he desperately tried to get his sword to the torso. After much struggle, he managed to drag the torso into the safety of the current provided by the white ocean pearl. Immediately after he made a mad dash through it as it looked to shatter at any moment and his guess proved to be true when it shattered just as he was close to the edge.

Lai Lei borrowed the force of the explosion to launch himself further away from the collision of the two forces.

He executed the Albatross feather flow stride which was a top-tier orange grade art, about the only decent movement art he could fully execute with a missing leg, heavily injured body, and depleted qi reserves.

It was a light step movement art that borrowed the force of the wind to propel the user forward and it also left minimal traces.

Lai Lei glided crisscrossing through uneven terrain that one would not believe that he was running on one leg.

"Silver-scaled oak forest should be about 20 kilometers from here, I can try and see if I can get a signal from there. If I remember correctly there should be a cave set up by the roaming inquisitor that she uses occasionally to rest in between assignments.

I hope my medallion works.." thought Lai Lei as he ran north, leaving behind continuous thunderous explosions that did not seem like abating.