Before General Meng Tie could take a second practice swing with his new golden polearm, the midday sun above the smelting district vanished.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Five hundred pairs of black-iron boots slammed onto the cobblestones outside the Hundred-Refinements Weapon Bazaar in a single synchronized stomp. Columns of armored city-guard cultivators sealed off both ends of the avenue, their crossbows and longspears gleaming coldly as terrified mortal shopkeepers slammed their wooden shutters.
Above the ranks of soldiers descended a gilded eight-man flying palanquin carried by four two-headed spirit vultures.
Sitting atop a tiger-skin throne on the palanquin was a tall, gaunt cultivator in gold-python robes—City Lord Cao Kun (Goodness: -42). He had narrow, calculating eyes and a pair of six-inch waxed mustaches that curled upward like scorpion tails.
Lin Mo didn’t even bother standing up. He remained seated in the padded folding chair Tie Niu had placed just inside the bazaar’s open double doors, watching the crimson system tag pop up above the palanquin.
[TARGET: CAO KUN (IMPERIAL CITY LORD OF AZURE-MIST BORDER CITY)].
[CULTIVATION: RANK 6 MID (MID GOLDEN CORE)].
