Hearing Cao Zhen's words, the two old men slowly opened their eyes. Their cloudy gazes swept over Cao Zhen, Bai Bing, Ouyang Jingxuan, and Yang Jing before finally settling on Cao Zhen. Both nodded without another word, their manner steady and taciturn.
Then they exchanged a glance, reaching an unspoken understanding, and circulated their true qi at almost the same instant.
In a flash, two streams of supremely condensed, incomparably powerful true qi surged from their bodies. Not a trace escaped; all of it gathered in their palms, forming two pale golden blasts that slammed into the immensely heavy stone door to the Inner Treasury between them.
The door had been fashioned from a single block of black iron mountain stone. It stood over twenty feet tall, more than ten feet wide, and several feet thick, its surface covered in the Profound Truth Sect's cloud-pattern restrictions. It was so heavy that an ordinary true qi realm martial artist could scarcely budge it even with a full-force strike.
As the two old men at the true qi peak exerted their strength, the true qi in their palms struck hard against the door. A muffled rumble immediately sounded. The restrictions on its surface glowed faintly white, and the door slowly slid apart to either side.
The stone door opened slowly, scraping against the ground with a low rumble as the smell of dust wafted toward them.
Once the Inner Treasury's door had opened completely, the two old men withdrew their true qi. Their auras instantly receded, and they closed their eyes again, returning to their cross-legged seats in the stone pavilion.
Their figures remained utterly motionless, as though they had become two stone statues rooted in that small pavilion. Not the slightest trace of their auras leaked out, as though they had