Two hundred feet beneath the black-iron keep of Violet-Thunder Fortress, the golden-blue glow of the Subterranean Northern Leyline Core reflected warmly off the polished green-jade bridges.
On the morning of the forty-sixth day, the nine interlocking rings of golden dragon-runes sealing the three-foot-thick stone gate at the end of the central bridge finally hummed and rotated open.
Up on the surface, inside the heavily guarded stone pagoda overlooking the inner plaza of the fortress, twelve Half-Step Martial Emperor powerhouses stood at their posts.
Four of them were the white-robed Array-Protectors from the Imperial Formation Pavilion in the capital, led by the white-bearded Protector Elder Zhou, who had escorted Consort Zhu Qingzhu north a month and a half earlier.
