Two hundred feet beneath the granite foundations of Violet-Thunder Fortress, the stone lift came to a smooth halt before the massive, circular Ninth-Tier Leyline Core Gate.
Once Consort Zhu pressed her golden medallion into the inner lock—causing nine interlocking rings of golden dragon-runes to seal the three-foot-thick stone gate behind them so that not a single sound or energy fluctuation could reach the pagoda on the surface—the group stepped out into the vast Subterranean Northern Leyline Core Chamber.
The chamber was a breathtaking sight: a dome of black star-granite a hundred yards wide, suspended directly over a roaring underground river of liquid golden-blue leyline energy!
At the center of the chamber, connected to the walls by seven bridges of carved green spirit-jade, stood a thirty-foot-wide octagonal altar of warm, glowing white and green jade—the central control nexus that regulated the defensive barriers for the entire northern border!
