After the kaleidoscopic space vanished, a weathered runic teleportation array appeared before the hunters' eyes.

"Captain, is this... a teleportation array?" Yang Ze, who was the most worldly among the members of Team Zenith, asked what the other hunters were thinking.

"Yes, it is!"

"Where does it lead?" Sun Mengmeng asked.

"To a great hunter's inheritance," Zhang Lie elaborated. He walked toward the heart of the array.

The other hunters were still in shock. A hunter's inheritance? 

The only one who understood what it signified was Yang Ze alone. How had Zhang Lie known that he would be able to access it from this location? It was something every hunter from an established clan dreamt to find, but which few ever did!

"Don't just stand there, get over here!" Before Yang Ze could ponder matters further, Zhang Lie urged them forward, and the hunters stepped into the heart of the array with questions peppering their heads.

Once everyone was in position, Zhang Lie released a burst of genetic energy, activating the array. The hunters' vision turned dark. By the time they could see again, they had entered a completely mysterious space.

Before them lay an ancient castle.

"Captain, this..."

"A castle... just whose inheritance is this?!"

The hunters were stupefied. Mottled copper gates, golden-red glazed roof tiles, stone lamps shining with light—the architecture hearkened back to ancient China. How much wealth would this have taken to maintain—and in an extradimensional space, too?

"Well? Isn't it grand?" Zhang Lie stepped up to the mottled copper gates in front of the palace.

"It's ridiculous! Captain, just who are you, and how did you learn about this place?" The hunters chatted among themselves, trying to uncover the mysteries behind this place and how Zhang Lie had found it.

"No, no, the most important question is: whose inheritance is this? Captain, won't you tell us? You've whetted our appetites enough!" Yang Ze asked amidst the hubbub.

Zhang Lie nodded sagely. "I didn't intend on hiding it from you. This castle was once the property of the Eclipse Sage, and once we open these gates and pass the trials of the castle, everything here will become ours!"

The Eclipse Sage!

A martial sage?! Such a designation was only given to those hunters who had reached the apex of the third realm, having acquired all the gene fragments accessible to them.

Such hunters had to have spent hundreds of years in the dimensional world alone. [1] In that case, there would surely be quite a few rare treasures hidden within. How had Zhang Lie managed to find a place like this?

The members of Team Zenith stared at Zhang Lie as though they were looking at a deity. 

Only Sun Mengmeng seemed to react upon hearing about the castle's original owner. "The Eclipse Sage? Captain, isn't that the hunter who possessed the eclipse domain..."

"Oh, not bad! Mengmeng, you've read about him?" Zhang Lie affirmed Sun Mengmeng's conjecture.

"It's really him?!" Who is it?! Tell us, Sun Mengmeng!"

Despite Zhang Lie's confirmation, Sun Mengmeng still found it hard to believe the truth. Beside them, Fang Yi pressed her to get her to reveal what she knew. 

Sun Mengmeng glanced at Zhang Lie's approving face, then began to speak. "The Eclipse Sage was known to be the strongest fire-attuned hunter in the third realm of the dimensional world. 

"His signature technique, [Eclipse], was a mythic-grade technique with no elemental attunement that he devised himself. He stood at the top of all leaderboards in the third realm for more than thirty years, and was widely considered the strongest among all the hunters there. As far as I'm aware, he last appeared about thirty years ago, and I can't believe that we've found his inheritance!"

Sun Mengmeng's explanation left them all dumbstruck. The top hunter for over thirty years?!

"Captain, let's enter immediately!" Fang Yi couldn't wait to see just what sort of treasures lay in wait for him.

What self-respecting hunter wouldn't get agitated upon learning of this fact? This was the inheritance left behind by a sage, a sage!

"We will enter, but before that, all of you have to promise to listen to my every command. Do you understand?"

"Yes, Captain!"

Zhang Lie motioned for all of them to step back as he placed both palms on the mottled copper gates. He sucked in a deep breath, then began circulating genetic energy throughout his body, swiftly generating a cloud of black mist around him.

Within the mist, a black serpent circled Zhang Lie, so vivid it almost seemed to be alive. Zhang Lie seemed like a miniature black hole, sucking up all the energy around him.

Fang Yi, Sun Mengmeng, and the others, just from standing by his side, started to find it hard to breathe, and the genetic energy in their bodies began to dissipate. Just as they stepped further back, the gates that Zhang Lie was trying to push open at his full strength creaked, and a slit of light shone through.

However, that was as far as Zhang Lie seemed to be able to get. His face was flushed red with exertion, and the veins were clearly visible on his palms. Despite all his efforts, the copper gates refused to budge any further.

The rest of Team Zenith was about to help him when Zhang Lie shouted, "Don't come over, there's no point!"

At the same time, he activated the superior-grade blood ant soulshard in his soulspace.

"Open!" Zhang Lie shouted, his body seeming to bulk up. With all his genetic energy, with all his strength, the gates finally began to creak open, revealing the interior of the palace.

As they did so, a white light shot out of the tallest peak of the castle. Such was the intensity of the light that the dark skies seemed to whirl around it. The beam of light pierced the skies—as well as the extradimensional space itself.

Back on Earth, a dazzling beam of light shone out of the Tailin mountain range, with such brightness that it turned night to day within dozens of kilometers of the beam. 

Such an unusual phenomenon was easily noticed by nearby residents, and news of the event quickly spread throughout the city of Liao, then all of China, then the rest of the world, and even the solar system. After all, if such a phenomenon wasn't manmade, then it surely heralded the discovery of a ruin. 

Scouts from each of the major clans were immediately dispatched to the scene.

1. Remember the ten-to-one time dilation, so a century in the dimensional world translates to a decade in the real world. ☜