The Mountain Range
It took nearly two hours of continuous walking for the mountain range to reveal its true outline.
As you approach, the blurred edges illuminated by the sunlight begin to break down into concrete details. It consists of a broad, arched wall, its surface covered with wind erosion marks of the same texture as the plain, but far thicker and taller than the low wall. The arch slowly unfolds in view, eventually converging at the ends of its two wings into vertical sections, like the top half of an inverted giant bowl that has been cut off.
Long Tian stopped about a hundred paces from the wall. From this vantage point, he could clearly see the structure of the wall's surface—it wasn't a naturally formed rock formation, but rather an arched barrier made of massive stone bricks. The joints between the bricks were so tight that the gaps were almost invisible, and the surface was covered with wind erosion patterns of varying depths. However, in the gaps between these patterns, at intervals, one could see a deliberately carved line running straight through the stone surface, parallel to the wall's arc.
He took a few steps closer. The wall was taller than he had initially estimated, about two or three zhang wide at the base, narrowing at the top like a cut wedge. The wind erosion patterns on the wall surface were dark gray in the shadows, but when illuminated, they revealed a fine, sandy sheen. The carved lines gradually thickened in the middle of the wall, converging into a large curved depression with a vertical crack at the bottom. The crack was about two fingers wide, running longitudinally through the center of the depression, and along its edge, one could see clean cut surfaces, the smoothness of which contrasted sharply with the surrounding rough weathered surface.
As Long Tian approached the wall, the Dragon Shadow rose slightly from its position against his back, hovering in mid-air in front of the crack. Its wings were slightly spread, and all four eyes were open, fixed intently on the crack. While maintaining this posture, a layer of grayish-gold light seeped from the surface of the vertical line on its forehead, slowly extending forward along the longitudinal direction of the line, forming a thin layer of light that flowed continuously through the air, connecting the Dragon Shadow's forehead to the edge of the crack in the wall. When the contact layer reached the inside of the crack, a layer of grayish-gold light of the same origin as the Dragon Shadow lit up. The brightness of that light continued to increase after contact, like pressure accumulating in a connected pipe.
Long Tian stood a few steps in front of the rift. Under the continuous illumination of the gray-gold light, the inner surface of the rift began to change from dark to light, like a layer of old paint that had been exposed to the sun for a long time gradually peeling off under continuous heat. He felt the rotation speed of the Origin Return Pearl in his chest cavity was slowly increasing, and the pulsation of the new core was also accelerating in sync. The coordination between the two was tighter than ever before, like two boats tied to the same rope moving in the same direction in the same current.
Over the remaining time, the walls on either side of the crack slowly shifted outward a short distance, about the width of a fist, enough for a person to squeeze through sideways. The light shining through the crack after it opened wasn't the gray-gold of the Dragon Shadow, but a lighter, whiter gray, like the surface of sand illuminated by morning light. Long Tian squeezed into the crack, with Yu Jin following behind. The moment they entered the interior of the wall, the space around them transformed from a narrow crack into a wide passage.
The passageway was curved, following the direction of the outer walls. The floor was paved with neat stone slabs, their surfaces polished smooth as a mirror. At intervals along the stone walls on either side of the passageway were grooves, the bottoms of which held the black ash of ancient times, like scorched oil stains. The passageway extended forward for about a hundred paces before suddenly opening into an extremely spacious circular hall. The hall's dome was over ten zhang high, its surface covered by a massive bas-relief—a coiled dragon's head overlooking the entire space from its highest point. The dragon's head was remarkably similar in form to the Dragon Shadow behind Long Tian, with two heads side-by-side, four eyes spaced evenly apart, and a vertical line on its forehead. This vertical line was identical in shape to the one on the Dragon Shadow shadow's forehead, but several times larger and deeper, like a repeatedly polished spigot.
Long Tian stood in the center of the hall, gazing upwards for a long time. His Dragon Shadow slowly rose behind him to the highest point of the dome, hovering directly in front of the dragon head relief. Its wings were spread, and its four eyes corresponded perfectly to the four eyes on the relief. The gray-gold light seeping from the vertical line on its forehead instantly overlapped perfectly with the vertical line on the relief's forehead. At that moment, the entire hall floor lit up—countless fine lines simultaneously emerged from all parts of the floor, converging towards the center along regular paths, like a fuse of gunpowder lit from the edge, continuously drawing inwards. When those lines converged at the center of the hall, the stone slabs on the floor began to loosen and move outwards, revealing a pitch-black opening. A continuous low-frequency airflow emanated from the space below the opening, like a well that had been sealed for a long time being lifted and re-exposed to the air.
Long Tian walked to the edge of the opening and looked down. In the darkness, he could vaguely see an extremely deep platform. The surface of the platform was covered with a layer of grayish-white powder, the same as that of a depression in the plain, but the powder was several inches thick, and the surface was as smooth as a mirror, like a layer of ground that had been repeatedly compacted. He lowered one foot from the edge of the opening, his toes touching the surface of the platform. The powder layer sank slightly the moment he stepped on it and then bounced back, like stepping on dry sand. He put his other foot down as well, and his whole body stepped onto the surface of the platform. The powder layer remained flat under his feet while bearing his body weight, without sinking or raising any dust. The Dragon Shadow retracted from above and nestled against his back, its wing membranes folded, its four eyes half-closed, and the vertical line of light on its forehead shone steadily after entering this space, like a fire that did not need to be repeatedly lit, continuously illuminating the surrounding area.