Time flowed like water. In the blink of an eye, half a year had passed.
Late at night.
Over the Northern Barrens, lightning flashed and thunder roared beneath oppressive black clouds.
They completely obscured the already dim moonlight, plunging the earth into darkness. Apart from the occasional flash of lightning, there was not a glimmer of light.
Whoosh...
Torrential rain poured from the sky, the dense raindrops almost joining into silver threads.
Boom!!
In the surrounding mountain forests, a low mountain gave off muffled rumbles beneath the pounding rain. Countless rocks, trees, and grasses tumbled down together.
This was only the beginning. As though a chain reaction had been triggered, surging mudflows kept appearing throughout the surrounding mountains.
A storm of this magnitude was exceedingly rare, not only on land, but even on the storm-ridden Eastern Sea.
Amid this extremely dangerous storm,
atop the mountains, a tall, straight figure sat cross-legged on a smooth, large slab of bluestone, motionless as a statue.
At that moment, a bright, lustrous white radiance shone from his body.
As time passed, the white radiance visibly brightened, until it suddenly contracted and gathered between his brows, forming a dazzling ball of light.
Almost tangible, the ball of light rose from between his brows, slowly separating from his body.
Then it began trembling continuously, until it abruptly split into a dozen or so balls of light and shot straight toward the sky, where thunder dragons rolled.
Within mere breaths, they had risen a thousand meters into the air. Showing no intention of stopping, the balls of light continued upward.
Meanwhile, the mudslides sweeping through the mountains below grew ever more violent.
Even the mountaintops were not spared. Cracks appeared across the solid mountainsides, crisscrossing like spiderwebs, before they collapsed with a crash under the impact of