Leaving Dao Sword City, Ye Lin followed the map in his memories and pressed onward.
He had only glanced at that map once, yet it had already been deeply etched into his mind.
Ye Lin continuously tore through space as he hurried along.
In the blink of an eye, a full day passed.
And by now, he had arrived at the place indicated by the map.
Before him stood a bronze gate.
The bronze gate before him stood half-concealed amid a barren mountainside. Its doors rose over three zhang high, their entirety suffused with a dark, greenish patina, mottled as though they had been dredged up from the depths of time.
Yet the rust did not seem decayed. Looking closely, it was in fact made up of crisscrossing sword scars, some deep, some shallow.
Some were as fine and dense as spring rain nourishing all things; others as wild as a thunderclap splitting the sky. Each had left an indelible, razor-sharp intent upon the bronze surface.
There were no ordinary decorative carvings on either side of the gateframe. In their place, hundreds upon hundreds of sword blades were embedded in the bronze, their bodies long fused with the gate itself. Only an inch or so of their hilts remained exposed, like a thicket of brambles.
When the wind passed, those broken swords let out the faintest hum, like sleeping sword souls murmuring in their dreams.
Ye Lin raised his eyes. At the exact center of the gate was a vertical scar that ran from top to bottom, piercing through the entire door. The cut was smooth as a mirror, yet a thread of cold light faintly shone from within.
That light was not a reflection of daylight, but Sword Qi spilling from the depths of the bronze gate. Thin as