The avalanche on Mount Kunlun rolled down through the entire night.
By daybreak, the land beneath Jade Void Peak had changed beyond recognition.
More than half the once-jagged glacier had been sheared away at its waist, exposing the blue-black bones of rock beneath.
Snow had filled the valley to a depth of several dozen feet. Only a bottomless fissure remained, bearing the traces of the Kunlun Sword's emergence from the earth.
He Chen, meanwhile, had long since left the summit.
The Northern Desert, the Göktürks' royal court.
Inside the golden tent, tallow torches blazed, bathing the entire pavilion in crimson.
He Chen sat cross-legged on a tiger pelt, the radiant Kunlun Sword resting across his knees.
His eyes were closed, his aura deep and still as an abyss.
Since returning with the sword, he had studied its mysteries day and night. That last paper-thin barrier he had failed to pierce for more than ten years had quietly cracked under the nourishment of the [Kunlun Sword].
The Seventh Realm.
He had truly stepped into the realm that had halted Ye Fashan's advance.
And as his soul resonated with the ancient sword day after day.
An inscription engraved deep within the silver filaments of its hilt, written in some ancient seal script, slowly surfaced in his sea of consciousness, word by word, like writing rising from beneath the water-
"Kunlun is the pillar of heaven and earth, the ancestor of all mountains. This sword was forged in the ruins, endowed with the essence of Taiyi and imbued with the breath of creation."
"He who bears this sword may draw upon the power within the ruins, diffuse it through metal, and bestow it upon arms and soldiers."
"Where its breath envelops, common iron becomes a divine weapon; where its light shines, flesh