The lead mercenary never reached Yan Zhiqiu.
As his heavy iron-shod boot struck the fourth course of pavers, a heavy gray blur tore through the smoky gloom from the center of the hall. It moved with terrifying speed. It spun horizontally along an invisible axis, producing a low, rhythmic whirr like the sound of an iron anchor whistling through a gale.
It was the twelve-pound six-sided lead sinker.
CRACK.
The blunt, fluted face of the heavy lead weight struck the mercenary squarely in the center of his chest.
The impact was total. The overlapping iron scales of the man’s brigandine jacket shattered into bent fragments. His chest bone caved inward under three hundred and eighty foot-pounds of packed striking force. The mercenary was lifted entirely off his feet, hurled backward eight paces through the air before crashing heavily onto the stone flags, his eyes rolling into his skull, dead before his body stopped sliding across the smooth hard speckled rock.
The six-fathom braided horsehair line that trailed behind the lead snapped taut with a musical ping.
Twenty paces away, Qiao Ming stepped out from behind the pink coarse grey rock stone stand of the Sovereign Master builder.
