With a vacant stare, Qi Hai looked at the broken Sovereign Stele, then at the Path of Ingress leading straight into the central world. He raised his hand and almost slapped it down, but ultimately decided against the action.

Nephrite Major somehow already had a new celestial emperor on her throne, one who should’ve been in seclusion to refine the heavenly mandate. To fully refine a mandate required at least a thousand years!

In other words, apart from the dead Exalted and Truespirit celestial emperors, who’d earned the acknowledgment of their heavenly mandates, none of the others had mastered theirs in the truest sense. At most, they could borrow some strength from it.

However, the new generation of celestial emperors, including the now-deceased Zhao Changkong, had been groomed by their predecessors...