High above the sky, fierce winds howled.
The First Emperor stood atop the clouds, looking down at the illusory yet real paradise below. His gaze swept over the empty jade towers and palaces, the freely growing flowers, grasses, and strange beasts, and a trace of arrogance and mockery rose in his eyes.
"The people are gone, the buildings stand empty, and Kunlun has no master. Since you have abandoned your duties, this immortal blessed land shall be managed by Us instead!"
With that, the Ancestral Dragon raised the Tai'a Sword in his hand. With a cold smile, he opened his mouth, and a brilliant golden pellet flew from his abdomen. It expanded against the wind, transforming into a colossal object stretching three hundred li.
Mountains and rivers covered its surface, while towers, pavilions, and courtyards stood complete.
Brick paved the ground beneath its corridors, while pebbled drainage lined beneath its eaves. Its interior walls were all covered in murals, filled with people, animals, chariots, horses, plants, and, more than anything else, lifelike gods and monsters.
The towering Lishan Underground Palace descended toward Kunlun with the force of Mount Tai crushing down.
If the immortals and gods filling the heavens had already fled, leaving behind nothing but empty shells, what right did they have to receive the worship of the people of the Nine Provinces?
The First Emperor showed no courtesy as he hurled the Lishan Underground Palace, which preserved fragments of five thousand years of Chinese civilization, at the jade towers and palaces that had originally belonged to Kunlun's Celestial Beings.
Since the gods had vanished without a trace, there was no use in leaving these things behind. We could turn back the falling heavens with one hand and take their place.
From this day onward, he would seek neither