Heavenly Tribulation, inside the cave abode.
Xu Xuan's life and soul trembled. At that moment, he seemed like a fetus cradled in the womb, utterly unaware of the outside world. Even Tiantuo's voice no longer reached him. His soul seemed to wander out of his body and enter another world.
All manner of inconceivable sights flashed past, drawing his mind into them.
Within a thunder marsh as vast as an ocean, an ancient god with a crimson face and a dragon's body leaped up, beating his belly to sound thunder and splashing thunderous fluid across the sky. Xu Xuan was its tiniest droplet, swallowed by an azure flood dragon.
Suspended at the very summit of the thunder marsh was the Three-Faced Thunder Drum, its faces splendid purple, profound black, and silvery white. As they sounded in succession, peal upon peal of thunder fell upon the mortal world. All things withered, flourished, and sprang to life in accord with those peals.
Everything swiftly collapsed. The thunder marsh dried up, the Three-Faced Thunder Drum vanished, and the divine beings and flood dragons within departed. Only remnants of purple lightning remained, and thunder sounded no more.
After an unknown span of time, a thread of mystic azure qi opened within the marsh. Deep, boundless chaos qi spread, and something fell from within it, its shape beyond description.
What emerged from that chaos seemed to be a lifeless thing. It remained here, unmoving through the ages. Xu Xuan was merely a surviving droplet of Thunderwater in the marsh, able to do nothing but keep a barren vigil.
It seemed a thousand years passed, yet also only an instant. He saw numerous colossal figures approach this thunder marsh: crowned emperors and Daoists bearing horsetail whisks. One after another, they came and carved something upon the