The stone door stood about ten yards high and five yards wide. Its entire body had been carved from black divine ironstone, heavy and solid, with no unnecessary ornamentation on its surface, only dense elder runes, packed across the door panels in lines of varying depth.
The patterns of the sigils twisted in obscure, difficult strokes, their shapes ancient and strange. They belonged to no common script of the present age, and carried the weight of a wild, distant era.
The faint morning light fell across the stone door. The obscure sigils began to move slowly, giving off a dim, cold blue glow.
The blue light flickered between bright and dark, and an ancient, vast, mysterious presence spread out from the stone door. It was heavy, boundless, and violent, as if it had come from the first opening of primordial chaos itself. Every instinct warned against approaching lightly.
On both sides of the stone door stood two giant humanoid stone statues, positioned in perfect. symmetry.
The stone statues had been carved entirely from blue-black rock. They wore heavy, primitive ancient cuirasses with clearly defined armor plates, and each gripped a long, sharp spear, the spearpoint angled down toward the ground in a posture of severe authority.
Their faces had been carved with fine detail, their brows and eyes hard-set, their features sharp and distinct. Only their eyes were hollow and black, without pupils, yet they carried a detached majesty that looked down over all living beings.
They were like ancient guardian war-gods, silently guarding the sanctuary entrance and coldly watching every living creature that dared try to enter the secret realm.
A faint wind moved through the mountains, drawing the surrounding fog into a slow drift.
The blue light on the stone door wavered, and the shadows of the stone statues stretched and twisted across the ground, turning the air bleak, eerie, and solemn.
Silas stepped forward first. His steady footfalls struck the hard rock under him, each one ringing crisp against the stone platform.
He stopped directly before the black ironstone gate and lifted his right hand. The bones of his fingers stood out clean and sharp as his fingertips brushed over the uneven elder runes carved into the door. The black ironstone gate lay cold and hard beneath his touch. Deep inside the runes, an ancient warding force remained hidden, sealed into the grooves.
After probing it for a moment, Silas drew his hand back.
He turned toward Master Wellspring behind him, his voice still cold, clipped, and stripped of anything unnecessary. “The sealing force on this door is extremely strong. One person’s spiritual power cannot break it… The entrance ward requires three Golden Immortal cultivators to pour in spiritual power at the same time. Only when the three forces blend together can the seal be unlocked and the sanctuary gate opened.”
Master Wellspring raised his eyes to the vast, ancient stone door before him. At his chest, the jade vial gave a faint tremor, as if Jared’s soul inside it had also begun sensing the old chaotic aura beyond the door.
Master Wellspring pressed down the ripple under his ribs and gave a grave nod. “Understood…”
As soon as the word fell, Master Wellspring moved forward at an unhurried pace. He took the center position before the stone door, lifted his hand, and laid his palm flat against the cold black ironstone panel.
His blue-green Daoist robe stirred lightly in the wind. Around him, a pale blue-green spiritual power began to circulate in slow, graceful currents, gathering itself for release.
Silas shifted to the right side of the stone door. His tight black outfit clung close to his body as favonovel.com pressed his palm hard to the panel. Dark, cold black spiritual power surged in his palm, its killing aura held inward, waiting to strike.
Luna stood on the left side of the stone door, dressed in white that looked purer than snow. Her figure was light and poised. Her fair palm rested softly against the stone as warm, pure white spiritual power flowed out in a gentle, unbroken stream.
The three of them formed a triangle before the gate. Their palms pressed against the heavy stone door at the same time, and in that instant, their auras drew tight. Every trace of attention fixed on the door.
“Move,” Silas ordered, his voice low and heavy.
In the next instant, three completely different streams of spiritual power burst from their palms at the same time.
Master Wellspring’s blue-green Aureate Way spiritual power was pure and enduring. It moved with a warm, weighty steadiness, carrying a vast, upright force that cleared the heart and held to the proper path.”
Silas’s black spiritual power of slaughter was dark and cold. It came sharp and violent, wrapped in a killing intent that cut like winter iron.
Luna’s white healing spiritual power was soft and pure. It flowed warm and condensed, carrying its own purifying force.
The three colors of spiritual power followed the obscure paths of the sigils. One stream after another poured endlessly into the depths of the stone door.
The sigils, which had been dull and lightless a breath before, flared awake all at once. Their faint blue glow swelled fast, deepening from pale blue into a piercing ice-blue radiance that flooded the entire rock platform.
The sigils spun and flowed along fixed tracks. The ancient sealing force began to loosen, little by little, and a heavy tremor of space rolled across the surface of the stone door.
Buzz! Boom!
A deep, muffled roar exploded from inside the stone door. The sound shook the world and rolled through the empty mountainside in wave after wave.
The hard, massive black ironstone gate began to move inward along the seam at its center. A pitch-black, bottomless crack slowly opened and widened between the doors.
The moment the crack opened, a boundless, ancient, violent, and disordered chaotic aura rushed straight into their faces.
The current of air was turbid and heavy. It carried countless line fragments of the Law of Chaos within it, and the force of its impact. came brutally strong.
The blue-green spiritual power circulating around Master Wellspring suddenly hitched. A faint numbness spread through his meridians, and the flow of spiritual power inside favonovel.com slowed beyond his control. Something oppressive and wrong pressed through his instincts, sinking into his body with a dull, stifling weight.
His brows drew together slightly. He took a deep breath and forced down the churn rising under his ribs. Then favonovel.com tightened his hold over the jade vial at his chest and closed his hand around Willowbrand at his waist.
The cool sword hilt steadied favonovel.com by a fraction. His gaze held firm, with no trace of retreat in it.
“Enter…”
That one short word landed.
Master Wellspring moved at once, stepped forward first, and crossed into the pitch-black, bottomless seam of the stone door. His blue-green figure was swallowed by the chaos-mist in an instant. The light outside the door vanished around him.
Silas and Luna followed close behind. One black figure and one white figure stepped through the stone door one after the other, until all three had disappeared inside the sanctuary entrance.
After the three of them entered, the heavy stone door gave another rumbling roar. The gap slowly closed. The blue light dimmed bit by bit, until the door returned to its original sealed state, as though no one had ever opened it at all.
The two stone sentinels still stood on either side, their hollow eyes staring on without a flicker, silently guarding this ancient sanctuary.
The instant Master Wellspring stepped through the stone door, the daylight around favonovel.com vanished. The wind outside, the cries of birds, even the faint stirring of air were cut off all at once.
Within the sanctuary, there was no sky. There was no earth, no mountains or rivers, no grass or trees. No sun, moon, or stars watched over this place. As far as the eye could reach, there was only a boundless spread of gray fog.
The fog hung thick and filthy, its color sunken and dull, like a primitive void before chaos had opened and before the world had taken shape. It was barren. Dead still. Vast beyond measure.
Countless tiny, transparent fragments of the Law of Chaos drifted through the air. They came in different sizes and shapes, floating without order, colliding, then annihilating one another in silence.”
Compared with the Golden Immortal law-fragments in the mountain range outside, the chaos-fragments here were far more violent, far more primitive, and far sharper. Every single fragment held the purest, most tyrannical chaotic force, tearing and cutting at every living being that trespassed into this place.
A layer of green spiritual power had gathered around Master Wellspring on its own. The spiritual light shield flowed faintly over him, guarding his body. But in front of those savage chaos-fragments, that barrier looked painfully fragile.
The fragments struck and scraped against the spiritual power barrier in a frenzy, giving off thin, sharp sizzling sounds.
The spiritual light dimmed and burned away at a speed visible to the naked eye. Spiritual power drained from his body at a brutal pace. A fine stabbing pain spread through his meridians, and a crushing weight swept through every part of him.
Master Wellspring knew this was no place to linger. He had to find the Genesis Dew as quickly as possible and finish the purpose of this trip.
He forced down the discomfort brought on by the loss of spiritual power and kept moving with steady steps. He did not dare pause for even an instant.
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