At 6:00 AM sharp on Saturday morning, the first pale rays of dawn pierced the mist of Red-Leaf Valley and struck the towering thirty-foot basalt archway of Secret Realm #1: The Hidden Flame-Marquis Tomb.
Dismounting from his lathered black warhorse a hundred yards outside the scorched-earth perimeter, Second Prince Qian Ye [Regressor Halo: 76%] staggered slightly on his boots.
Because the ancient blood-key ritual required twenty-four hours of strict fasting and three bowls of fresh royal heart-blood. Qian Ye’s lips were chapped white, his stomach was cramping with hunger, and his head was throbbing. Yet as he stared at the untouched, moss-covered basalt gates of the Flame-Marquis Tomb, a cold, triumphant laugh escaped his throat.
“Look closely, General Wei!” Qian Ye said hoarsely, holding up the glowing 10,000-Silver Crimson Blood-Key Talisman before his twenty elite Rank 3 Eastern Palace Guards. “The outer Rank 4 Scorching-Earth Array is still completely intact!
Not a single mortal or cultivator has set foot inside this valley in five hundred years!
Inside that core vault lies a bed of one hundred Thousand-Year Fire-Lotuses and a slumbering Rank 4 Early Two-Headed Flame-Spirit Hound! Draw your shields and prepare the blood-net—once I open the gate, we will slaughter the starving hound for its beast core and harvest every single lotus!”
