They headed farther up into the Thirty-Three Heavens.
Their altitude kept rising.
The sea of clouds grew darker the higher they went. Golden yellow turned grayish white, then leaden gray.
The concentration of spiritual energy in the air was changing too. It was not thinning, but growing more turbulent.
Yang Wanqing pricked up her ears.
There was a sound in the distance.
Muffled. Heavy. One beat after another. As though someone were pounding a drum tens of thousands of miles across.
"Thunder?" she ventured.
Before the word had faded...
The entire sky lit up.
It was not a single bolt of lightning. Dozens struck at once. Blue-violet arcs tore out from deep within the clouds.
Each stretched over a hundred kilometers, bursting across their field of vision before fading. The light washed everyone's face deathly pale.
Then came... thunder.
Not a single boom. It was an unbroken, rolling roar surging in from every direction. Their eardrums vibrated.
Yang Wanqing ducked her head. "This is way too intense!"
Chen Siyao surveyed their surroundings. Leaden-gray clouds churned, with arcs of electricity weaving through them.
Every few seconds, a massive discharge erupted. The entire region was like a thunderstorm factory that never stopped running.
"The boundary between tropospheric layers in the Thirty-Three Heavens," she said. "An extreme thunderstorm zone."
Chen Hao led them deeper into the thunderstorm zone.
Outside the spiritual power barrier, electric arcs struck its walls in a frenzy. Blue-violet light flickered incessantly.
Yang Wanqing had already grown used to it. Her master's barrier never failed anyway.
They flew for roughly another half hour.
"Look." Chen Hao stopped.
Yang Wanqing looked in the direction he pointed.
At first, she thought her eyes were playing tricks on her.
Deep amid the thunder and lightning were two enormous—no. "Enormous" would not do. The