Beneath Lu Chen’s crossed legs, the solid mountain stone hissed as moisture baked out of the deep stone.
Within his dantian, the Asura Crucible opened its iron maw.
Twenty-four hundred units of purified malice poured into the central burning chamber like a torrent of liquid red stone.
In a mortal body, channeling such huge spirit energy would have burst spirit veins and dissolved internal organs into blackened sludge within seconds.
Even with the Indestructible Gold hardware base of a Half-Step Martial Saint, the agony of the breakthrough was excruciating, gut-deep, and total.
There were no painless ascensions in the Crucible.
Every advancement was a violent, physical re-smelting of muscle, marrow, and bone.
THUMP. THUMP.
