Ten thousand feet beneath the sparkling blue waters of the Central Lake, there was a secret cavern carved entirely out of cold green jade.
For the past five hundred years, not a single footprint or whisper had disturbed this dark underground hall. Four giant coffins made of thousand-year spirit wood sat in the middle of the floor, arranged in a square around a bubbling fountain of liquid white light. Four thick black-iron tubes dropped down from the ceiling of the cavern and plugged directly into the mouths of the four coffins like giant drinking straws.
Inside those four coffins slept the real rulers of the Central Continent.
They were the four Rank 6 Golden Core Ancestors—Ancestor Pill-Fire of the Myriad-Pill Pavilion, Ancestor Blood-Sword of the Azure-Sword Sect, Ancestor Heaven-Lock of the Heavenly-Lock Array Sect, and Ancestor Gold-Bone of the Joyous-Gold Sect.
Five hundred years ago, all four of them had reached the end of their natural Golden Core lifespans. Their hair had turned white, their skin had dried up like old tree bark, and the golden cores inside their dantians had started to smell like rotting mud. Refusing to die, the four old monsters had tapped directly into the four thousand-year-old Branch Spirit-Locking Nails that pinned down the main underground Spirit Veins of the Central Continent.
