The ascent to the Yun estate was not a path of dirt and stone, but a vertical pilgrimage through the clouds of the Heavenly Pillar. For three days, the expeditionary force of the Murim Alliance—led by three "Divine Generals" handpicked by High Lord Jo Mu-Sang—had marched through the Anhui wilderness. They were the elite remains of the Silver Vow: General Iron-Skin of the Kongtong Sect, the Violet-Eyed Swordstress of the Emei, and the Great Strategist Jaegal Woon.
"They have no sentries," Jaegal Woon remarked, his eyes narrowing as he adjusted the silk fan in his hand. "No archers in the ridges, no pits in the trail. It is as if they are inviting us to their front door."
"They are arrogant," General Iron-Skin growled, his massive frame pulsing with the golden hue of his Venerable Rank-8 Golden Body Forging. "They think their 'resonance' will save them when I put my fist through their gate."
They reached the first plateau, a wide stone terrace where the air grew unnaturally thin. In the center of the path stood a simple stone archway, weathered by centuries of wind. Above it, three characters were carved in the ancient script: The Gate of the Titan's Breath.
The First Gate: Gravity
As the first rank of Alliance warriors stepped beneath the arch, the world changed. There was no flash of light, no sound of a spell. Instead, the atmospheric Ki—the very air they breathed—suddenly crystallized into a physical weight.
It was the first application of the Universal Origin Scripture: Atmospheric Displacement. To the Yun masters watching from the heights, the air was not a vacuum, but a heavy ocean of energy. By synchronizing their "Martial Soul" with the local pressure, they had turned the terrace into a high-gravity domain.
General Iron-Skin, a man who could carry a carriage on his back, buckled. His knees slammed into the white stone with a crack that echoed like a hammer-strike. Beside him, the "First-Rate" warriors of the vanguard were instantly pinned to the earth, their internal Ki stagnating as if their dantians had been filled with molten lead.
"This... is not an array!" Jaegal Woon gasped, his fan snapping shut as he struggled to remain upright. "They are... overwriting the laws of nature!"
"Stand... up!" Iron-Skin roared, his skin turning a deep, bruised gold as he pushed against the invisible titan pressing down on him. It took an hour for the generals to crawl—literally crawl—through the hundred-yard zone. When they emerged on the other side, their armor was warped and their lungs were burning. The first gate had not taken their lives; it had taken their dignity.
The Second Gate: The Heart-Mirror
The second plateau was a forest of black bamboo, where a mist as thick as milk drifted between the stalks. This was The Gate of the Star-Mirror, an illusion zone maintained by the Yun Clan's medical and spiritual elders.
As the Violet-Eyed Swordstress entered the mist, she saw not the bamboo, but the faces of the disciples she had sacrificed to reach her position. Every "Orthodox" sin, every moment of "corrupted" greed she had hidden behind her Emei robes, manifested as a physical shadow.
"Illusion techniques are the tools of cowards!" she screamed, drawing her blade and striking at the fog.
But the mist reacted to her "Sword Qi". Every strike she made was reflected back at her with double the intensity. She was fighting her own "Martial Spirit," a ghost that knew her every weakness. Behind her, the Alliance warriors began to turn on each other, hallucinating that their comrades were Yun assassins.
It was only when Jaegal Woon—using a forbidden "Mind-Sealing" needle—forced his own heart to stop for a heartbeat that the illusions flickered. They stumbled through the forest, exhausted and bleeding from wounds they had inflicted on themselves. The second gate had shown them the rot within their own "Justice."
The Third Gate: The Boundless Void
The final gate stood at the very threshold of the Yun estate. There was no archway here, only a bridge of single-strand silk stretching over a mile-wide chasm. At the far end, the Young Patriarch, Yun Baek-Ho, sat cross-legged, a tea set resting on the ground before him.
"You have passed the Breath and the Mirror," Baek-Ho's voice drifted across the void, as clear as if he were standing next to them. "But the Third Gate is the most difficult. It is the Gate of Non-Existence."
General Iron-Skin stepped onto the silk strand, confident in his weight-distribution techniques. But as his foot touched the silk, he felt... nothing. No Ki, no air, no gravity. It was a "Battle Void," a pocket dimension where the Yun Clan had erased every law they had exploited in the first two gates.
In this void, traditional cultivation was a death sentence. The harder they tried to circulate their Ki, the faster the void "devoured" it, leaving them physically hollow.
"To cross the Void, you must realize that the 'Self' is a lie," Baek-Ho said, sipping his tea. "You fight for the Namgung name, for the Alliance title, for the legacy of iron. None of those things exist here."
The Divine Generals stood at the edge of the chasm, looking at the silk strand. They were the "Absolute" masters of the Central Plains, yet they were terrified of a single piece of thread. Behind them, the million-man army of the Silver Vow was stalled, unable to even reach the first gate.
"Tell your High Lord," Baek-Ho said, standing up and looking into the distance. "The Yun Clan did not build these gates to keep you out. We built them to show you that the world you claim to rule is an illusion. The Murim is changing, and your feet are still stuck in the dirt."
With a single wave of his hand, the gravity of the first gate was released, and the Divine Generals were blown back down the mountain trail by a "Divergent Flow" of wind that felt like the breath of a god.
The Trial was over. The Alliance had reached the gates of the West, and for the first time in five hundred years, they realized they were not the masters of the Heavens. They were merely the tenants.