Chu Yao obediently unhitched the cart, removed the burden harness from White Ox, then walked beside White Ox as they stepped onto the sword stairs together.
Jiang Wang and Ning Shuangrong walked ahead, chatting as they went.
Chu Yao and White Ox followed behind, also chatting as they went.
Sword-Questioning Gorge looked exceedingly tall from afar, but only by truly walking these sword stairs could one gain a rough sense of its height.
In any case, Chu Yao walked until his legs went numb. For the latter half of the journey, he climbed by tugging on White Ox's tail.
At the end of the sword stairs, they stepped onto the swaying Heaven Gate plankway.
Though it looked none too sturdy, White Ox's weight had no apparent effect on it when he stepped onto it.
At this moment, the sword stairs scattered away again. Countless long swords whistled through the air like a flock of swallows returning to their nest, vanishing in an instant.
Standing midway along the Heaven Gate plankway, they looked up and found the cliff top did not seem so far away, as though they could reach it in a single leap. Yet clouds and mist curled about it, obscuring the view.
Looking forward and back, one suddenly felt that the gorge path itself resembled a sword.
And this Heaven Gate plankway lay precisely where the long sword's "guard" would be.
To ascend from the "sword guard" to the Sword Pavilion—what ingenious design.
The two fortresses hewn into the cliff walls and connected by the Heaven Gate plankway were the Sword Pavilion's two mountain gates.
The name "Heaven Gate" also referred to this.
To the northwest lay the Hidden Edge Heaven Gate; to the southeast, the Boundless Heaven Gate.
"Is there any particular significance to these two mountain