The turquoise whirlpool sped up into a roaring, emerald funnel.
Deep in the underground channels beneath the basin, the Nether-Devouring Toad gorged upon the ancient ice-veins of the deep pit.
Its vocal sac swelled beneath the water like a mountain of tightly packed frost, preparing to discharge thousands of tons of negative eighty-degree bile across the surface.
The surrounding air plummeted so fast that frost crystals condensed out of the empty air, clattering onto the rocks like iron hail.
Lu Chen didn’t wait for the eruption.
He stood on the slippery verge of the pool, his right leg raised eighteen inches above the swirling green vortex.
Within his chest cavity, the Five-Viscera Blood Cauldron operated at maximum squeezing.
His heart thudded with the rhythmic, heavy stroke of a town pile-driver. That forced boiling fire blood through the heavy channels of his legs.
