They soon reached the main hall. As they remembered it, the bronze door and stone door were both there.
Yet everything inside the main hall looked normal. Black jade still covered the ceiling like a night sky; only the two passages leading aboveground were missing.
Chao Tian found this exceedingly strange and asked in bewilderment, "Your Majesty, the doors were still here when Your Humble Servant came in earlier. How have they disappeared?"
Zi Shou was equally baffled. "Could we have taken a wrong turn?"
Ao Lie narrowed his eyes and surveyed their surroundings. "Your Majesty, this Palace has a profound and mysterious layout. The eight Side Halls outside the main hall correspond to an eight-gate formation: Rest, Injury, Life, Obstruction, View, Death, Alarm, and Opening. Presumably, if we find the Palace at the Gate of Life, we can leave without needing the bronze door. This must be some mechanism. Mechanisms are commonplace in an Imperial Mausoleum."
Ao Lie felt rather pleased with himself. Earlier, he had seen the Eight-Gate Golden Lock Formation and several other battle formations on the brocade silk. Exceptionally clever, he had memorized them at a glance, and now they were coming in handy.
"What are you doing? Hurry up! Move!"
Zi Shou called loudly from ahead, sounding somewhat impatient. An eight-gate formation, the Gate of Rest, the Gate of Injury? Do you think you're opening the Eight Inner Gates?
Ao Lie froze and looked ahead, only to see a huge opening in the Palace wall, with a pillar still standing where it had been smashed through.
Probably only King Zhou could forcibly demolish an Imperial Mausoleum's Underground Palace like this.
Outside the Palace, everything was pitch-black. There were no Luminous Pearls or any other strange lights, making it impossible to find their way.
Just then,