The roar of the four brass dreadnought barges shook the coffered rosettes of Entry hall 012 like a sustained thunderclap.
Having bypassed the ground-level barricades of the Eleventh Entry hall, the leftover strike force of the Jade Court had navigated through the huge upper air-flow chimney pipes seventy arm-lengths above the floor. These vessels were two hundred paces in length, armored with heavy sheets of beaten bronze and equipped with underslung void-marrow harvest torpedoes. Deadly potion-made canisters designed to burst upon impact, vaporizing organic tissue into high-thickness spiritual vapor.
Below them, on the vast floor of Entry hall 012, more than six hundred thousand mortal refugees were marching in dense columns toward the safety of the inner courtyards. If the torpedoes fell, the enclosed space would become a potion-made charnel house within minutes.
Yan Zhiqiu stood on the high water gate-control terrace forty arm-lengths above the eastern arcade, her hand gripping the rusted iron dog of the main balance weight spindle. Her face was grim, her teeth clenched against the ear-splitting whine of the barges’ anti-gravity turbines.
‘They are opening their bomb racks!’ she shouted to Qiao Ming, who was sprinting along the narrow upkeep narrow high walkway toward the central valve chamber. ‘Thirty seconds before the first salvo drops on the column!’
