Pure Dust Temple, atop the cliff on the Back Mountain.
After those six terrifying bolts of purple tribulation lightning that seemed capable of cleaving heaven and earth apart, the world fell deathly silent.
The dust, gravel, and shattered vegetation swept up by the hurricane seemed pressed down by an invisible giant hand, drifting down to cover the cliff top that had already changed beyond recognition.
Where Chen Shi'an had originally sat cross-legged, there was now only a vast, charred pit several feet deep. The uneven ground around it had been leveled, and the rocks along its rim had taken on a glassy appearance after melting in the heat and rapidly cooling, giving off wisps of smoke and an acrid, scorched smell.
At the bottom of the pit, a human-shaped sculpture that almost blended into the scorched earth stood silently...
The sculpture still maintained a standing posture, but its entire body had been carbonized.
Its skin, muscles, and even the surfaces of its bones were covered in a thick, cracked, blackened shell, like charcoal left after burning in a stove, without the slightest sign of life.
His clothes and hair had vaporized in the lightning and flames, leaving him looking utterly wretched. Never mind Fat Cat almost failing to recognize him-even if that damned old man came to look, he would never recognize this lump of charcoal as him!
"Meow..."
A faint meow, still shaken and worried, came from the distant grass.
Fat Cat cautiously poked its head out, its amber eyes round with lingering fright. Every so often, it glanced up at the sky, afraid another bolt of lightning might fall without warning...
That world-destroying spectacle had nearly scared its soul out of its body.
It had watched with its own eyes as the Stinking Taoist was completely swallowed by