WOOOOOO—WOOOOOO!!
A deep, thunderous brass steam-horn echoed from the top of the Dry-Well Military Barracks, rolling across all ten miles of the capital city and out over the green spirit-rice fields of the Red-Sand Oasis.
Within fifteen minutes, the wide Eastern Assembly Plaza outside the city’s east gate was shaking under the synchronized footsteps of a hundred thousand armored boots!
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
Four million citizens across the twenty connected cities watched through the live Crystal Jumbotron Network as the full might of Dry-Well City assembled for the final campaign to liberate the Great Yan Kingdom.
Up on the high command platform beside the East Gate, Madame Red-Silk unrolled a twenty-foot-wide silk map of the Eastern Royal Province across Pei Xuan’s war table.
To earn her promised bonus jar of Supreme Night-Repair Scorpion Eye Cream, the former Second Immortal Advisor had stayed up half the night drawing every single secret watchtower, poison-pit trap, and granary on the road to Golden-Crow Capital!
“Lord Pei, look right here!” Madame Red-Silk pointed a manicured fingernail painted with #101 Phoenix-Red Lipstick at a narrow mountain gorge fifty miles west of the Royal Capital. “Between us and the capital lie six rich central prefecture cities—starting with Jade-Bell City—and right behind them is the only way through the mountains: Tiger-Jaw Pass!”
