The three hundred flying war-chariots hung frozen in midair like giant flies caught in golden amber.
Sect Master Yan Lie stood stiff as an iron rod in his lead chariot, his crimson blood-saber trembling violently in his hand. His singed eyebrow twitched with uncontrollable panic as he stared straight down the gaping, glowing bores of five hundred colossal artillery turrets.
Beside him, Yan Huo’s knees completely gave out. He collapsed onto the chariot’s cedar floorboards, clutching the brass railing with white, bloodless knuckles.
“F-father...” Yan Huo squeaked, his voice cracking like a dry reed in winter. “Those are not mechanical ballistas... those barrels are forged from solid star-mythril! They are ten-meter plasma cannons! Every single one is humming with pure Golden Core energy! Even their cooling shrouds are carved from five-thousand-year cold-star iron!”
Matriarch Bing’s frost staff shook so violently that the ice runes flickered and died. Her pale lips turned blue with dread.
“Where did they get five hundred Golden-Core cannons in seventy-two hours?!” Matriarch Bing shrieked, backing toward the rear of her chariot. “That requires the industrial capacity of an entire imperial realm! A thousand master forgemasters working without sleep!”
“They got them from the men you called porridge-wasters, Sister Bing,” Sect Master Gui hissed, his poisonous green serpents retreating down his sleeves in pure, shivering terror. “Those were the men who built our mountains, and now they build for Lin Mo.”
