After the fragment was taken, the howling winds on Thunderstorm Islet gradually subsided. The roiling black clouds began to loosen, and the frequency of the lightning visibly decreased. Shen Xiu stood on the stone platform before the thunder hollow, feeling the energy field formed by the eight fragments slowly revolving within his sea of consciousness. It felt like a mirror that had been mostly pieced together, lacking only the final piece to fully reflect its original appearance. Liu Qingyan stood at his side, her gaze fixed on a direction high in the heavens that she could not see but knew existed. The sea breeze slipped through the gaps in the thunderclouds, stirring the loose strands of hair before her brow.
"The entrance to the gate is in the sky." Shen Xiu withdrew his gaze from the distance and turned to Liu Qingyan. His voice was calm, yet carried a trace of solemnity. "It is above the heavens, not within any mountain peak or cloud layer. It is more like... a rift fixed in midair. Only when you get close enough will it reveal itself."
Liu Qingyan followed his gaze upward. Above the sea were dispersing thunderclouds and the gradually emerging blue sky, no different from any clear sky. She did not question Shen Xiu's words, only asked, "How high do we need to fly?"
Shen Xiu extended his divine sense upward, passing through the dispersing thunderclouds, through higher layers of clouds, through the thin stratosphere, all the way to the outer edge of the heavens—there was an almost imperceptible fold there, like the faintest ripple upon the water, cleverly concealed by the refraction of light and shifting angles. The fold was nearly nonexistent unless one sensed it carefully, yet to the Thunderheart sequence within his body, it was as clear