The iron arm of the bastion’s grand catapult groaned under the tension of eight braided steel cables.
High atop the volcanic cliffs, an iron counterweight crashed into the stone battlements.
THUMP.
A boulder of black coral the size of a carriage launched into the gray sky.
It was soaked in burning abyssal pitch, trailing a dense tail of black sulfur smoke as it arched toward the anchored fleet.
On the high spire, Vice-Warden Hesper gripped the stone parapet with both gauntlets, his face contorted in furious disbelief.
For two full hours, his expensive Black-Coral Soul-Siphon Array had hovered over the harbor like a crimson ceiling.
Yet not a single drop of rebel Qi had flowed into the fortress collectors.
