Two hundred armored boots slammed against the perimeter flagstones in thunderous unison.
Heavy iron chains dropped across the archways of the Sky-Bridge. Links of cold, grease-coated iron clattered into locking stanchions, walling off the lower walkways and stairwells.
Enforcers from the Four Great Pill Houses formed a bristling ring around the arena floor.
They wore lacquered bronze armor and held heavy hooked poleaxes. Their Golden Core auras flared in jagged waves, pressing against the tiered seating galleries like a rising tide.
Patriarch Morvane stepped to the edge of the high dais, looking down at the trapped cultivators.
His embroidered gray robes swirled around his shins. In his right hand, he held a heavy iron scroll stamped with the three-pronged seal of the Ducal Regent.
“By edict of the Iron-Crown Duchy,” Morvane declared, his voice carrying through the acoustic flues with biting authority. “All uninspected, black-market medicinal trade within this valley is hereby suspended.”
A hush fell over the three tiers of spectators.
