Qin He had no idea what realm the skeleton had reached, but it was certainly above the Imperial Dao Realm.
The problem now was that everything above the Imperial Dao Realm was a blank.
There were no names for those realms, no methods for breaking through. Even when he poured all his Saint Tier reserves into divining the heavenly secrets, all he obtained was a haze of chaotic mist.
It was as though someone had forcibly severed the uppermost reaches of this world's cultivation system, trapping everyone inside an invisible cage.
It was like spending years studying by a cold window, mastering every established field of knowledge, only to discover that everything on the road ahead had been erased—even the right to know had been utterly stripped away.
The heavenly secrets had been concealed so tightly that not a breath could slip through. It was terrifying in the extreme.
The laws of the entire world were deliberately suppressing and blinding the perceptions of all cultivators.
As he pondered this...
The outline of the Nine-Aperture Palace broke through the sea of clouds and came clearly into view.
This was a foothold the Divine Court had established in the Mortal Realm, as well as one of the core teleportation arrays spanning the northern and southern reaches of the Lower Realm. It was never open to outsiders.
The palace was not built from ordinary bricks and stone. Instead, nine heaven-piercing pillars of profound jade formed its bones, and eternal star sand formed its roof tiles. It stood suspended a hundred thousand feet in the air.
A faint, hazy glow surrounded the palace. It was not dazzling, yet it carried a weighty presence capable of suppressing the eight wildernesses.
An invisible force kept all drifting clouds at bay. No birds crossed within a hundred