Bronze boots three feet wide crushed frozen gravel into fine powder as dawn broke over the eastern ridge.
The morning mist burned off under a pale, wintry sun.
Down in the scarred valley, the earth vibrated with rhythmic, tectonic force.
Siege General Vorn rode atop an armored war-beast, his remaining eye fixed on the jagged outline of White-Lotus Academy.
Behind him marched six colossal automatons of ancient bronze and blackened meteorite iron.
Each construct stood twelve feet tall, their barrel chests pulsing with violent crimson light from high-grade spirit matrices. These were relics from the bloody northern unification wars, weapons built to crush city gates and shatter sect formations.
They felt no pain, required no food, and possessed skin thick enough to deflect Golden Core sword light.
“Assault wave fourteen!” Vorn bellowed, raising his serrated saber toward the mountain. “No holding back! Break the walls, butcher the elders, and drag that sleeping brat from his grotto!”
