At first, it was only a golden line stretching across the horizon.
Then that golden line grew wider and taller. After the procession passed through a sea of clouds ten thousand li across, Qing Chen finally saw the city clearly.
It hardly looked like a city at all. It looked like a heavenly court in the mortal world.
The Imperial Capital's outer walls rose over three thousand zhang high and stretched for untold tens of thousands of li, built entirely from pale gold immortal-pattern divine stone and profound white jade marrow.
Every hundred li along the walls stood a Demon-Locking, Devil-Subduing Tower. Golden lamps burned eternally at their summits, with what seemed to be dragon shadows roaming within the flames.
Inside the walls, towers and pavilions stood like a forest, and the Palace Complex stretched on without end.
Ten thousand wards in the Outer City, nine layers in the Inner City.
A great river flowed from the northwestern horizon and passed through the city, its waters as clear as glass. Countless soaring bridges spanned its surface, pedestrians streaming across them while Spirit Boats shuttled beneath.
That was Great Jin's famous Heavenly Luo River.
Legend had it that its waters came from the Nine Heavens Spirit Spring on Luo God Mountain and connected Tianzhou's earth veins. They could cleanse the heart of worldly dust and nourish the divine soul; mortals who drank them extended their lives, while cultivators who drank them sharpened their sight and calmed their minds.
Higher still, above the clouds, the ninety-thousand-zhang Jade Capital Mountain could faintly be seen suspended over the very center of the Imperial Capital.
The mountain looked nothing like an ordinary mountain, but rather a white jade pillar piercing heaven and earth.
Above its slopes, seas of clouds churned and immortal palaces appeared and