The floor was paved with flat stone slabs. The space was vast and empty, with nothing inside.
Except for a stone door directly opposite them.
It was huge. Five meters tall and three meters wide, carved from a single massive stone. Dense runes covered its surface, matching the geometric patterns outside the tower, but far more complex.
At the very center of the stone door was a recess. Palm-sized and irregularly shaped.
Chen Hao stopped before the stone door and glanced at Yun Wanlan.
Yun Wanlan stepped forward.
She took something out of her robes.
It was jade, about the size of a thumb, and its shape matched the recess perfectly. This was the token the tribe chief had given her when she left the Taiyin Realm, the Gate-Opening Jade passed down through generations of the Sushen Tribe.
She pressed the jade into the recess.
Click.
A soft sound rang out.
The runes on the stone door began lighting up from the recess. Pale silver light spread along the engraved lines like water pouring into a dry riverbed, flowing all the way to the edges of the door.
Then...
The stone door slid silently apart.
Beyond it was a passage leading downward. It was wide enough for four people to walk abreast. Ever-burning stone lamps were embedded in both walls here, too.
But looking down... there was only darkness.
The bottom was nowhere in sight.
"How deep does it go?" Yang Wanqing leaned into the doorway to peer down, then pulled her head back.
Yun Wanlan said, "Very deep. When I came through, I walked for... seven days."
"Seven days??"
"The passage is very long," Yun Wanlan said.
Chen Hao had already stepped up to the entrance. He looked back at the three women.
"I'll take you."
With that, he