Mo Caihuan climbed onto the Color-Patterned Butterfly's back. It felt like stepping onto a soft brown sofa.
The other cultivators also brought out their own tools for boosting speed. For a moment, light and sound filled the air: thunder, shrill whistles, streaking radiance, and dazzling colors in endless variety.
Everyone readied themselves, for only five hundred lucky souls would be able to enter the hall.
The seven-story pagoda spun ever more slowly. When it stopped, pure white light shone from its base.
"Go!" As though at a signal, countless streaks of light surged toward the white glow at once.
The Color-Patterned Butterfly beat its wings and shot toward the white light like wind and lightning, overtaking most of the others in an instant.
Beyond the white light lay a long, pristine white racetrack, with a red glow ahead that seemed both close and impossibly distant.
Every cultivator focused entirely on accelerating toward the red dot. Only by reaching it could they enter the High Tower. Once the quota was filled, the Teleportation Gate would close, leaving everyone behind with no chance of entering.
The Color-Patterned Butterfly was already very fast, but others were faster still.
Mo Caihuan saw several colored streaks ahead. Some people had spread wings, others rode flying swords, some had plastered their legs with talismans, and still others had transformed directly into lightning...
Each displayed their own methods.
She felt a sense of urgency, but the Color-Patterned Butterfly was in the leading group and would certainly make it into the High Tower. They might not be first, but they would not fall far behind.
Only as they approached the red light did she discover that it was another Teleportation Array, ten meters in diameter and quite magnificent.
Carrying all three of them, the Color-Patterned Butterfly plunged headfirst