The taste of copper on Lin Ke’s tongue was thick enough to make him gag.
The sky charge above the central ridge had climbed so high that tiny sparks leaped between his iron boot-buckles and the wet slate tiles with every step.
A hundred feet overhead, the sky wasn’t dark anymore. It was churning in a triple-layer vortex of crimson and black glass clouds. The rotation was so violent that pine needles and dead leaves were being sucked straight up into the funnel like ash up a fire chimney.
*
In the center of the thirty-six pylons, Old Man Song swallowed the Breakthrough Pill.
The old man’s frail chest swelled. A pale gold light erupted from his lower belly, pulsing through his withered skin as his Foundation dantian began the violent, permanent phase change into a solid Golden Core.
The Heavenly Dao kernel responded within three breaths.
A low, underground hum shook the mountain roots. The clouds collapsed downward, tightening into a needle-pointed vortex that crackled with arcs of crimson star-fire thick as wagon tongues.
