The iron knocker on Kaelen’s front gate hammered three hundred times in ten minutes.
Outside the walled courtyard, boots stomped on the damp morning turf. Shouted arguments, clattering scabbards, and rustling parchment filled the narrow lane of the inner city.
Word of the Red-Crag Pass victory had crossed the province overnight.
More importantly, rumors of Master Ash’s sediment-purging Cloud-Veined Supreme Seven-Soul Pills had spread like wildfire. To twenty-four besieged sects across the Central Continent, zero-poison pills were the difference between freedom and total spiritual harvest.
Before the morning mist could clear, twenty-four fleeing sect leaders had flooded into Seven-Tower City.
They were patriarchs, grand elders, and sect mistresses from the northern ranges. Behind them trailed two thousand battered core disciples, all seeking sanctuary before the Blood-Hound General’s eighty thousand regulars arrived.
Now, all twenty-four sect masters were crowded onto Kaelen’s lawn.
“Master Ash must lead the war council!” an elder in green robes roared, brandishing a blood-stained parchment map. “The Blood-Hound General marches from the north! If we strike his supply lines today, we can cut off his siege engines!”
