Heavenly Pillar.
Steps ran up the pillar in neat rows, stretching straight into the clouds.
According to ancient legend, whenever someone set foot on those steps, the entire Heavenly Pillar World would be filled with celestial wonders. Immortal music would ring out, and countless immortals would come to witness the event.
But too much time had passed.
Now, not only did no immortals come, the Heavenly Pillar itself had broken.
And with it came a fact that gradually drove cultivators to despair—
Fewer and fewer cultivators could successfully advance to become Mount Sumeru Masters.
In the past several thousand years, the number of cultivators who had become Mount Sumeru Masters was zero.
The age of cultivation seemed to have entered a slow, irreversible decline.
Under the night sky,
Xie Daoling led eleven cultivators up from the earth, flying along the broken Heavenly Pillar.
Before long, the cultivators saw a lake above the sea of clouds.
Its waters reflected the sky and stretched far beyond sight.
Xie Daoling said nothing. She formed a hand seal and flew into the lake first.
The others followed one after another.
The cultivators plunged into the lake and kept flying downward, until the light around them grew dimmer and dimmer.
At last, the water was shrouded in darkness, and they could barely see anything.
A faint glimmer flickered.
The light was almost impossible to notice, but the cultivators had already extended their divine senses, searching for it with unwavering focus.
"Over there," Turtle Young Master called at once.
Xie Daoling moved, leading everyone toward the flickering light.
Before long, the darkness around them gave way to light.
Sunlight filtered through the water's surface, scattering ripples across the lake.
The water grew clearer and clearer, until it was transparent.
They leaped out of the water.
The