The black suppression chains clinked against thirty iron cuirasses as the detachment climbed the rocky gorge.
The morning mist still clung to the hemlocks, but the sun was rising rapidly toward the ten o’clock mark. On the narrow cliff staircase leading to Cold-Spring Grotto, Senior Disciple Vayne led his thirty armored enforcers upward.
Each guard carried a six-foot iron pole-hook designed to drag fleeing cultivators by the ankles.
Behind the front ranks, four heavy enforcers carried two rolls of barbed spirit-snare nets. The black wire nets were weighted with lead balls and etched with blood-draining runes, ready to entangle anyone who resisted.
Inside the quiet cavern above, Kaelen lay motionless in his hammock. The azure light of eighteen hundred spirit stones pulsed gently beneath him, reflecting off the dark stalactites.
Through the rock floor, the rhythmic scrape of thirty pairs of boots traveled up the cedar posts.
Clink. Clank. Clink.
Thirty armed men before mid-morning, Kaelen thought, his eyes half-closed beneath the warm quilt. Marching up mountain trails on an empty stomach ruins your liver Qi. If they had any sense, they would stop at the herb shed for scallion pancakes.
