The violent blast of the explosion ripped the center of the bustling merchant avenue into a smoldering, pulverized wasteland.
Shattered timber beams, blackened brick fragments, and shredded market canopies rained down like burning hail.
The deafening roar of falling multi-tiered pavilions shook the earth, smothered immediately beneath a choking, greasy fog of sweet-scented rose and sulfur.
Across the street, the cheerful laughter and haggling of moments prior had transformed into an apocalyptic cacophony of agony.
Entire rows of tea shops and elixir parlors were reduced to burning splinters, while the cobblestones were stained in dark, boiling smears of gore as hundreds of mortal merchants and low-tier rogue cultivators were flung through the air like broken marionettes.
Down in the burning crater, where the vendor's stall had been wiped out of existence down to the bedrock, Qing Yan was thrown violently against the shattered remains of a stone pillar.
CRASH!
