One step.
Two steps.
Three steps.
After a few more steps, Ye Lin finally arrived before the main doors.
Before he could open them himself, the wooden doors before him swung open on their own.
Staring into the darkness beyond, Ye Lin took a deep breath, then stepped inside without hesitation.
The instant he entered, the wooden doors slammed shut.
As Ye Lin stepped through the doors, the sensation beneath his feet made him pause slightly.
Not brick or stone, not wood, but... clouds.
He looked down. Beneath his feet were dense cloud-wisps, solid as white jade. Strands of Sword Qi rose from the gaps between them, winding around his ankles like living creatures gently probing him.
This grand hall was deeper and far more imposing than he had imagined.
The dome stretched beyond sight. At the edge of his vision, a Star River slowly turned, countless points of light drifting along some Xuanmiao trajectory, as though the entire hall were breathing.
The surrounding walls were not solid, but flowing ink-wash landscapes.
Mountains rose and fell within the paintings, waterfalls poured through shifting light and shadow, and from time to time, White Cranes swept out of the scenes.
They actually flapped their wings and flew out from the walls, circling once above the hall before turning into a wisp of ink and vanishing without a trace.
The most peculiar thing was the time within the hall.
Ye Lin noticed that in the corner on the left side of the hall, a lotus completed its entire cycle from bud to bloom to withering within the span of a breath.
The instant its petals wilted, time flowed backward, and it closed once more into a flower bud. The cycle repeated endlessly, as though it had been trapped in an eternal loop by