The three of them followed the mountain path upward.
The path was steep, and the black rock walls were covered in crisscrossing natural lightning patterns. From time to time, pale blue lightning shot from cracks in the rock wall and struck them head-on.
But Vance had been the commander of the Thunder Whale Guard, and he was intimately familiar with this innate lightning power. A faint ripple of lightning around his body deflected it all cleanly away.
The same went even more so for Zhong Shenxiu and Lan Jinghe.
Along the way, they could see massive chunks of Thunder Crystal embedded in the rock walls, glowing a deep blue. Pieces as large as fists were everywhere.
There were also strange black plants, their leaves as thin as cicada wings and flowing with fine sparks of lightning. They swayed gently in the mountain wind, looking both bizarre and beautiful. The farther up they went, the denser the lightning power became. Fine electric threads drifted through the air, crackling as they struck the skin and left it faintly numb.
After walking for about half an hour, they finally reached the summit.
The view suddenly opened up before them.
At the mountaintop stood an enormous black stone platform spanning dozens of miles. At its center rose a grand temple built entirely from black stone. A huge Thunder Whale relief was carved along the ridge of its roof, its head lifted toward the heavens as though it wanted to break through the clouds. It should have been imposing and solemn.
But once they drew close, they discovered that the temple had long since fallen into ruin.
The heavy doors had been shattered in half, one broken section leaning crookedly against the wall. A large portion of the roof had collapsed, exposing a pitch-black hollow.