The thunder of five thousand pairs of iron-shod boots echoed off the sheer granite cliffs like an underground tremor.
Forced forward by Grand Elder Xuan Ji’s old family command tally, the forward regiments of the Orthodox Crusade surged into the narrow neck of the Grand Defile. The sheer thickness of the advance was staggering. Gold-trimmed breastplates scraped against bronze pauldrons. Matching flight-sword sheaths clattered against curved tower shields. Students from Heavenly Sword Manor, Crimson Flame Pavilion, and Azure Cloud Sect pushed and jostled in a wild bid to obey orders, packing their ranks so tightly that single swordsmen could scarcely swing an elbow without striking a martial brother’s ribs.
High on the southern low roof wall, half-shrouded by the fragrant pine boughs, Tie Shan watched the congested sea of glittering steel with a grin that split his furry face from ear to ear.
The titan bear smith rested one massive clawed paw on the main release valve of Battery One. Beside him, along a sturdy timber trench carved directly into the living dark rock ridge, twenty-four huge air-powered catapults stood poised. Their gleaming bronze pressure cylinders hissed softly, containing hundreds of pounds of tightly packed air generated by underground steam vents.
“Look at that, boys,” Tie Shan rumbled in a low deep that shook through the floorboards. “They’re bunched together tighter than wild blackberries in an autumn basket. Sect Master said no broken ribs, no cut limbs, and absolutely no sour faces at dinner.”
Two dozen burly bear-warriors, their thick brown fur dusted with powdered lime and resin, grinned as they gripped the wooden trip-levers.
“Range two hundred paces, height forty-two degrees!” Tie Shan bellowed, raising his five-hundred-jin meteor-iron hammer into the morning light. “Batteries one through twenty-four... High angle flight path! Release the Honey Silk Pods! Give our noisy guests a nice, sweet hug!”
With a timed together metal roar, twenty-four release latches clanged open at the same time.
Psssssh-THWUMP!
An ear-splitting chorus of air-powered discharges shook the ridge. From the bronze launchers erupted twenty-four massive oval canisters, each the size of a wine tun, woven from flexible green river bamboo and bound with polished copper bands. They hissed as they rocketed upward, trailing thin ribbons of shimmering cyan vapor against the azure mountain sky.
Down in the crowded defile, Sword Elder Bai Chong looked up, his sharp instincts flaring with alarm.
“Incoming artillery!” Bai Chong shouted, his voice cutting through the din of marching feet. “Shields up! Form the Iron Tortoise Canopy!”
Thousands of fighters reacted on pure instinct. Vanguard students snapped their heavy bronze shields above their heads, overlapping the rims to create a nonstop, shimmering metal roof intended to deflect heavy stone shot or explosive fire magic charms.
The twenty-four bamboo pods reached the apex of their flight path directly over the center of the five-thousand-strong host.
They didn’t detonate with fiery destruction or bone-shattering bone-shaking blasts.
Instead, with twenty-four gentle, rhythmic pops, the copper bands snapped cleanly. The woven bamboo casings peeled backward like the petals of a blooming lotus flower, releasing their tightly packed contents into the canyon breeze.
What dropped from the sky was not stone, iron, or poison.
It was a rainbow-bright, sapphire-tinted cloud of gossamer fibers, billowing outward until it spanned the entire width of the Grand Defile. Each canister contained thousands of yards of micro-spun spirit-silk harvested from underground cave spiders, thoroughly treated in Lin Xiao’s personal vats with refined ancient slime secretions, wild honeycomb nectar, and pure mountain peppermint essence.
As the shimmering mist drifted downward, it shot up fast upon contact with the surrounding spiritual qi.
“What’s that?” a core student shouted, squinting upward through the gap in his shield. “Is it poison gas? Hold your breath! Circulate the Purifying—”
The silk touched his shield.
The moment the gossamer fibers made contact with the cold bronze, the material underwent a violent phase shift. The airy mist condensed into thick, hyper-elastic blue-white cords that adhered to the metal with the grip of an ancient mountain root.
“Wait! It’s sticky!” the student yelled, attempting to shake his arm free.
His violent jerk only made things worse. The silk stretched like warm taffy, caught his right gauntlet. Then it snapped back, gluing his right wrist firmly against the center of his chest.
Before the cry could spread, the full deluge of honey-silk blanketed the five thousand advancing crusaders.
It fell like an endless, shimmering blue net, draping over helmets, shoulders, flying sword handles, sword sheaths, and leather boots. Two fighters brushed against each other in the press. Then, the elastic fibers bound them together in an iron-hard, springy embrace. Swordsmen who tried to draw their sidearms found their handles glued fast into their wooden sheaths. Fighters who tried to step backward discovered the soles of their boots were bonded to the sod with ten thousand tiny suction tendrils.
“Burn it!” a Crimson Flame deacon shrieked, wildly channeling his dantian’s internal fire to his palms. “Ignite the wildfire! Burn through the webs!”
A gout of orange flame flared from the deacon’s hands—and instantly vanished with a muffled fizz.
The slime-infused silk was a non-Newtonian, thermally inert substance. Instead of burning, the honey-gel absorbed the heat in a split second, converted the heat energy into moving stretch. Then it puffed up into a warm, fragrant cloud of sweet steam that smelled delightfully of toasted marshmallows and wild honey.
“It... It won’t burn!” the deacon wailed, finding his hands now entombed in a plump, sweet-smelling mitt of blue jelly. “It just smells like a bakery!”
Within thirty seconds, the mighty, terrifying vanguard of the Orthodox Crusade had ceased to be an army.
Five thousand heavily armored, sword-wielding fighters were transformed into a vast, wriggling carpet of pastel-blue cocoons. Students were stuck back-to-back, shoulder-to-shoulder, and boot-to-boot. Some were glued in half-crouches. Others were pinned flat on their backs with their legs sticking stiffly into the air like upturned beetles. Someone tried to kick free. Then, the hyper-elastic silk simply stretched out two feet before snapping them gently back into place with a soft boing.
The physical sensation was bizarrely pleasant.
There was no agony, no cut sinews, and no fractured bones. The ancient slime within the silk acted as a nonstop moving shock absorber, cushioning every joint and supporting every spine in ergonomic mid-air. Also, the specialized qi-heat padding properties of Lin Xiao’s fluid gently lulled the crusaders’ churning dantians into a peaceful, calm frozen stillness, fully preventing the violent meridional backfires that normally accompanied battlefield array collapses.
A crisp, semi-clear blue screen chimed into Lin Xiao’s mindscape:
Down at the low cedar table, Lin Xiao took a satisfied sip of his tea. He listened to the gentle chorus of confused grunts, squishy stretching noises, and confused sniffles drifting across the clearing.
“Ah,” Lin Xiao remarked, turning his gaze toward the locked still horde. “Tie Shan really outdid himself with the peppermint oil. It fully clears the sinuses after that smoky fire dragon earlier.”
Gu Qingfeng walked along the edge of the sticky outer edge. His travel sandals stepped cleanly on the un-netted turf. He peered down at a burly Heavenly Sword lieutenant who was glued face-down to the turf, his rear end pointed toward the heavens and covered in a thick layer of springy blue fluff.
The lieutenant glared sideways through one uncovered eye, his teeth grinding. “Vagabond... What ancient demonic binding is this?! When my sect master purges this valley, you shall be ground into ash!”
Gu Qingfeng chuckled, using his willow twig to gently tap the lieutenant’s armored backside with a playful thwack. The elastic jelly bounced, making a cheerful sproing sound that shook the lieutenant’s entire torso.
“Save your breath, boy,” Gu Qingfeng said with a wide grin. “If this was an ancient demonic binding, your bones would already be dissolving into black grease. Instead, you’re sitting on a cushion softer than an empress’s feather bed, smelling like sweet clover honey. If you wiggle too hard, you’ll just pull a muscle in your lower back.”
Up on the floating flagship Sky-Cleaver, Grand Elder Xuan Ji stared down at the canyon with eyes that threatened to pop out of their wrinkled sockets.
The entire floor of the Grand Defile looked as though a sky giant had dropped a five-hundred-yard bowl of semi-clear, glowing blue marshmallow pudding directly onto the pride of the Eastern Training Sector. Five thousand elite swordsmen were writhing like helpless caterpillars in a sweet, peppermint-scented bog.
Xuan Ji clutched his chest, coughing a spatter of blackened blood onto his golden collar as his spirit veins screamed in apoplectic horror.
“The vanguard...” Xuan Ji rasped, his voice trembling with frantic disbelief. “Five thousand students... Conquered by... By honey?!”
From the shadows along the tree line, Xiao Hei padded forward on silent, huge paws. The great moon-wolf had shrunk down to the size of a mountain mastiff, his sleek black glass fur gleaming under the sun. He trotted down the grassy path, sniffing curiously at a cluster of trapped sword students who were stuck together like a giant candied hawthorn skewer.
The students shrank back as far as the elastic silk allowed, scared that the black beast would bite their jugulars.
Instead, Xiao Hei casually nosed a dropped waterskin out of the dirt, rolled it onto its side. Then he gave a young student’s nose a wet, friendly sniff before letting out a soft, bored yawn.
High on the low roof wall, Tie Shan rested his hammer on his shoulder and cupped a hand around his mouth. “Hey! Little Sect Master! The nets worked like a charm! Should we haul out the kitchen carts now? Ling’er said the soup cooking pots have been simmering since dawn!”
Lin Xiao looked up at the warm midday sky. Then he turned back to five thousand sticky, wide-eyed crusaders.
“Aye, Old Man Tie,” Lin Xiao called back with a bright, welcoming grin. “Roll out the carts. It’s high time our guests had something warm in their stomachs.”