The eastern mountains shook at midnight.
Xin felt it through the ground first. Then through the Chorus. The deep gate was opening.
He rode east with Zhou and the captured Fifth Gate practitioner tied to a second horse. The man's name was Wei. He had stopped talking after confessing about the gate.
The shaking got worse every mile.
Dao Chen met them at the mountain base.
Shen Bao was with him. Blood on his sword. Northern sweep abandoned mid-operation.
"The gate is forty miles inside the range," Dao Chen said. "The energy release is accelerating."
"How long until full opening?" Xin asked.
"Six hours. Maybe less."
"Wei says two hundred practitioners sent energy for sixty years."
Dao Chen looked at the bound prisoner. His face showed nothing. But his hands were tight at his sides.
