Beyond the tomb gates lay a broad spirit way, its greenstone paving as smooth as a mirror, reflecting the luminous pearls that glittered like stars across the vaulted ceiling.
On either side of the spirit way, sacrificial burial pits for tens of thousands stretched outward, packed with lifelike terracotta soldiers and horses.
There were vast numbers of these figures, filling the entire outer city.
Each wore black armor and carried a halberd or dagger-axe. Standing in the pits, they looked like an endless black ocean.
The Qilin cleared a path underground.
It was a creature formed from earth qi and mountain qi, and those two elements made up the bulk of the stone Underground Palace. Controlling them was as easy as eating and drinking for the Qilin. Wherever it passed, earth, sand, and stone blocked the critical points of every mechanism and concealed weapon before they could trigger, reducing them to scrap.
White-Browed Daoist, Zhao Xizhen, and the others traveled in the middle, following close behind the Qilin along the spirit way.
They were drawing ever closer to the inner city.
Behind them, the Fire Phoenix and Qiongqi shrank their bodies and flew low over the ground like lightning.
The three divine beasts had a clear objective: to do everything they could to find the sealed Three Fiends. They had already sensed the presence of their own kind, but formations covered that place, and the sealing power was as deep as an abyss, as oppressive as a prison, and extraordinarily strong. Even the earth-aligned Qilin could not directly control or destroy it, only wear it away bit by bit.
But at the same moment they sensed the Three Fiends, the twelve Golden Men guarding the First Emperor's remains opened their eyes inside his burial chamber in the Qin Mausoleum's inner