The thirty disarmed hired blades of the Iron Vulture Gang were shunted to the southern edge of the Grand Market Square like a flock of hobbled sheep.
Under the watchful, amused gaze of Sword Saint Gu Qingfeng not a single mercenary dared reach down to pull up his trousers. It had casually leaned his back against an abandoned merchant cart while nibbling on a handful of dried melon seeds. Every time Scarface Ba twitchy hand crept toward his beltless waist, Gu Qingfeng’s willow twig twitched in the air. Ba froze as though struck by lightning.
Meanwhile, Tie Shan strode into the center of the dusty plaza.
The bear-kin titan carried four massive forged bronze boundary stakes, each as thick as a man’s thigh and inscribed with stabilizing earth-runes. With four thunderous stomps of his iron-soled boots, Tie Shan drove the bronze stakes into the granite cobblestones, marking out a clean thirty-foot square outer edge.
“Stand back, brothers and sisters!” Tie Shan’s booming deep rolled across the square like distant thunder. “Give the Master room to work! Keep your little ones behind the bronze markers!”
The five thousand mortal citizens obeyed instantly, surging backward in an orderly, hushed wave. Mothers gathered their children close, shopkeepers leaned out of second-story adobe windows, and very thirsty laborers perched atop crumbling clay low roof walls. Every eye was locked on the young scholar in the dark blue robes.
