Cloud Peak was bigger than the name suggested.
The range was three peaks, each above the treeline, with a shared valley between them. The valley was full of permanent mist — not weather, but environmental qi discharge from the sealed realm's pressure leaking into the surrounding terrain.
They came to the valley edge at mid-afternoon and looked down.
Below: organized chaos.
Six different groups had established camps at the valley floor. From the camp configurations and qi signatures at this distance — the Pale Flame sense pulling its twenty-three foot range information and extrapolating from aura patterns — he counted: three independent cultivator groups, one sect he didn't recognize by their uniform color, one that he did recognize by blue-grey uniforms as the Clear Sky Hall, a mid-sized regional sect, and one group with no uniform at all who sat in the best position at the valley's center.
The centermost camp had the strongest qi signatures. Three Level Fives and one Level Six.
"They control the direct approach to the realm entry," Zhou Jin said.
"Yes." Wen Dao studied the valley. The sealed realm entry was on the north wall of the valley — a section of cliff face that was visibly different from the surrounding stone. Wrong texture. A seam in the rock where the stone itself was continuous but the qi composition shifted.
The realm was still sealed. The entry hadn't opened yet.
"What holds a realm sealed after it's been reported opening?" Cai Rong said.
"The original seal has weakened but not collapsed. Whatever activated the weakening paused." Zhou Jin looked at the cliff. "External pressure from multiple cultivators' qi probing the seal could actually reseal it temporarily. All these groups prodding the entry point may be keeping it closed."
"Or the realm opens on a schedule," Wen Dao said. "Related to celestial position or an internal timer. The sealed realm under Iron Mountain had been operating for six hundred years. The timing of its reactivation was not accidental."
He looked at the cloud cover. At the sun position.
"Three more hours until sunset," he said. "At sunset the direct sun angle will change relative to the cliff. If the realm entry is solar-aligned—"
"It opens at sunset," Zhou Jin finished.
"Possibly."
"Then everyone in the valley will rush for the entry simultaneously," Cai Rong said.
"Yes."
"And the group holding the center position will get there first."
"Unless someone is already at the entry point before sunset."
A pause.
They both looked at him.
He was looking at the valley wall. Not the cliff with the realm entry. The opposite wall. The mist was thicker there — the ground was rougher, less convenient, nobody had camped near it.
But the qi density was higher on that side. Strange. If the realm was on the north wall, why was the qi discharge denser on the south?
Because the realm is not only accessible from the north cliff.
"Secondary entry," he said. "The qi discharge is symmetric. The realm has two faces. The main face everyone is watching is the obvious one. The secondary—"
He traced the south wall with his eyes.
There. Forty feet up the south valley wall, a ledge. The rock texture changed at the ledge line. Different composition. Not natural.
"Forty feet up the south wall," he said. "There."
Zhou Jin looked. A moment, then: "I see it."
"Can we reach it before sunset without being seen from the valley floor?"
Zhou Jin looked at the angle, the distances, the mist patterns.
"From the east approach, coming around the back of the south ridge — yes. The mist covers the south wall from the valley floor perspective."
Wen Dao stood up.
"Then we move now," he said.
He did not look at the six camps below.
He was already thinking about what was inside.
— ✦ —