At sunrise on the eighth morning of the Gu Family’s journey through the Nine-Continent Immortal Sect Lands. The morning clouds above Central Sky-Plaza—the neutral thousand-acre white-marble amphitheater standing at the border of the four central provinces—parted. A golden pillar of ancient sword-light that shot three miles straight into the heavens!
HUMMMMMMMMM—CLANG!
Right in the center of the thousand-acre amphitheater, a three-hundred-foot-tall archway of ancient star-carved white jade slowly materialized out of the void.
Inside the shimmering portal of the archway rose a breathtaking, thousand-step stairway of snow-white immortal jade that spiraled upward through clouds of fire, illusion mist. Thunder toward a floating golden altar at the very summit—where the three-thousand-year-old [Rank 5 Peak Nine-Continent Sword-Emperor Inheritance Seal] rotated slowly inside a halo of nine golden sword-dragons!
Around the tiered marble stands of Central Sky-Plaza, over one hundred thousand spectators—including clan patriarchs, rogue cultivators, merchants. Thousands of families carrying glowing Gu Family Citizen Cards and munching on five-stone Rank 5 Gummy-Bear Pills—craned their necks in astonishment at the towering jade portal.
“The thousand-year Heavenly Stairway Junior Secret Realm really opened five years ahead of schedule!”
“Look at the crimson rune-chain glowing across the bottom of the archway! That’s the ancient Sword-Emperor’s Under-Twenty Bone-Age Lock! Any cultivator whose skeletal bone-age exceeds twenty years by even a single day will be repelled by the Golden Core law-formation—or trigger the secret realm’s self-destruction if they try to force their way inside!”
