At Step #9,999—the highest summit of Myriad-Pill Mountain—the golden roof tiles of the Grand Pill Palace rained down like hailstones as a colossal, one-hundred-foot-tall figure rose from the shattered marble floor!
Its torso was Myriad-Pill Pavilion’s eight-hundred-year ancestral treasure: the Thousand-Ton Heaven-Refining Bronze Cauldron.
Thick bronze legs shaped like temple pillars sprouted from the bottom of the cauldron, two massive bronze arms holding forty-foot flaming iron fire-tongs stretched out from its sides, and a fierce three-eyed bronze mask formed its head.
Standing inside the glowing control core in the golem’s chest was Pavilion Master Yao.
His long white hair had turned as dry as dead straw, and deep wrinkles carved his face—he had just burned fifty years of his own lifespan blood-essence to forcibly wake the sect’s ultimate guardian and link it directly to the chained Wood-Fire Spirit Vein beneath the peak!
ROOOOOOOOAAAAAR—CLANG!
Every step the Rank 5 Peak Bronze Cauldron Golem took cracked the summit bedrock. Red-hot magma flames poured out of its three bronze eyes as Pavilion Master Yao’s crazed, amplified voice boomed down the mountain:
“PEI XUAN! YOU STOLE MY POISON FOG! YOU PAVED TAR OVER MY SACRED STEPS! YOU PUT MY GRAND ELDERS IN PINK SKIRTS AND ROBBED MY ONE-THOUSAND-YEAR HERB VAULT!”
