122 The Massive Surprise

As Yun rested on the branch overlooking the mind mindbogglingly large nest, the small red avian continued to inspect her from within her protective nets. She had gotten used to this strange bird by now, assuming it was either an independent variant of the other sparrows or something else similar that didn't belong to this community. She kept her eyes closed and continued to rest. Over time the sky began to lighten and many of the sparrows began to leave the nest and travel the nearby regions to search for small prey they could consume.

Yun just kept resting, and the red one kept staying. A few times it would leave when she was the most awake, then return within two or three incense sticks worth of time, creating an odd rhythm where her most alert times were while the beast was gone, and her least alert was while it was present with her. There was a level of comfort being rapidly developed by her towards this potentially dangerous avian that just kept staring at her with an intelligent curiosity.

Finally, as the day continued to wane and the light levels were dropping, Yun began to get up and pack up her excess nets and knives. She was ready to head out and leave towards the south like the stars showed her. Standing up, Yun stretched a little and gave her little visitor a look. He was cute in a way. She was about to leap from the branch and begin traversing other nearby branches when a strange tingling sense told her to stay still. She froze.

Just at that moment something strange began to happen around her. A huge mass of ethereal bodies began to congregate into a massive sphere, encasing her within it with the nest. These strange and ghostly bodies looked to be the same as the living avians, but they locked together into an almost seamless barrier that Yun was sure she didn't want to test. Was this some sort of defense mechanism, or was it just poor luck that she was here at the wrong time? There was no way to be sure, but as she looked down she saw the scarlet bird was also looking dumbfounded. It had no idea what this was or what to do.

Suddenly, with a loud cracking sound, the enormous nest in front of her gained a large crevasse down the side, revealing complete darkness and a strange aura that seeped out, obscuring everything around it. Another crack resounded a few moments later, and aura could be seen seeping out another side of the nest.

"Just what is going on here?" Yun wondered to herself, not daring to make a single noise for fear of being noticed.

Crack!

Again a large fissure ran down one section of the nest.

SCREEEEEEEE!!!!!

A high pitched screech could be heard suddenly, emanating out, but it's origin couldn't be determined. The obscuring aura was now thick enough to hide the majority of the nest as another crack appeared amidst the sound.

The ground began to quake, and the sky above grew exceedingly dark as roiling clouds began to emerge. Yun's expression fell instantly, as an incredibly dangerous thought flitted through her mind.

Could this be Tribulation Lightning? But what sort of creature could this be that was encountering Tribulation at this sort of time, and what was this shield that sprung up? She began to sweat from the worry, but continued to wait and see with hope that she was wrong.

The cracking continued, and soon the vast majority of the shielded area was shrouded by the strange aura, obscuring everything from sight and sense. Yun stood with her back against the tree, stretching her senses to the limit as she attempted to figure out what was going on around her.

After nearly an incense stick of time there was complete silence, nothing seemed to be moving or even breathing within the strange shield. Another incense stick later the loudest crack so far sounded out, followed by a massive boom which whipped up the murky aura and gave Yun her first glimpse of what was going on in front of her.

Massive!

Too massive!

Before her was what she assumed had been just a large nest, but it turned out to be instead an extremely large egg! The side facing away from her had just finally collapsed, resulting in the interior edge of the shell being visible, but what was inside was not yet. She could see the inside of the egg was incredibly smooth and had a slight sheen to it, as if it had been polished by constant rubbing against something smooth and durable.

Screee!!!

As another loud screech resounded inside the shield a massive wing wiggled its way out of the back of the shell and stretched out to fill the space, at the same time, far above, thunder rumbled out from the dense clouds as lightning streaked across the sky. Quickly after the first, a second wing stretched out from the other side as well and thunder rumbled, more intense than before.

At this moment the shell began to fall away all the way around the enormous beast and reveal its appearance. Beneath the shell could be seen the fledgling head of an avian with an extraordinary tail curled up around itself, which was now rapidly spreading out and splitting into multiple tails. As the shell fully fell away and the massive bird stretched out, two more wings opened up as well, revealing a total of four, and it raised it's head up and screeched at the dense clouds above, seemingly evoking another rumble of intense thunder.

Moments after the beast raised it's head and cried out, the first bolt of lightning fell on the shield, causing a massive booming and distortion of the space around it. Thankfully, the shield held up, but it didn't seem like it would last.

Another crash of thunder was swiftly followed by the explosion of light as the shield was struck again. Over and over the lightning fell, but within the shield there was nothing happening. Each time, the shield would distort, but with a small scree from the large bird it would repair itself quickly. As time went on the color of the creature's feathers slowly changed from the pale white to a vibrant red, streaks of orange throughout. As the vibrancy of the color finally reached a peak, where it was so vibrant that it glowed, the shield around them finally shattered outward, blasting the latest stream of lightning that was falling down into oblivion.

As the shield dissipated, Yun got a strange feeling and noticed the large bird looking at her. As she looked back at it she got the impression it was entrusting her with something, but she wasn't quite sure what. Before she could think about it the avian monstrosity lifted it's wings and spread them wide, kicking up a powerful wind as it raised it's head in challenge to the heavens! The powerful gale created by these wings washed over Yun and the tiny red bird at the same time, but was strangely gentle. It lifted them off the tree and flung them into the distance as another massive lightning bolt struck down, but without the shield it's exterminating will and power were both palpable in the air.

Yun gasped as she struggled to keep breathing under this suppression, but as she grew further away from the site of the strike she felt it's strength weaken until, finally, she and the tiny bird were deposited just past the furthest edge of the clouds above. Certainly, at this point, Yun knew that what she was witnessing was Tribulation Lightning. This large creature was an existence in defiance of the Heavens, and the Dao sent down it's punishment to try and remove it. The only possible blessing for this large bird was that it was located on this world in the lower realms, where the Dao was extremely weak, but very few living beings on this world even knew this information about their realm.

Yun looked around herself as she recovered from the shock of that blast of lightning, figuring out which way she should be going as the massive booms of thunder continued to roll out across the area surrounding the Tribulation. The strange little red sparrow flapped a few times, cooing sadly, as it hopped up on her shoulder and rested there, seemingly at home. A strange feeling washed over Yun's spirit at this point, like there was something waiting for her acceptance before it could occur. She had never felt this sort of feeling, but as she did nothing it grew stronger and stronger until she had to pay attention to it.