BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Four deep golden shockwaves rolled across the four corners of Golden-Crow Capital as the twenty-foot Golden Boundary Pillars drove ten feet deep into the stone plazas of the North, South, East, and West districts.
Strange enough, not a single house wall cracked. Not a single roof tile fell onto a civilian’s head.
In the South Market Plaza, old Cobbler Zhang was lying on the cold cobblestones, gasping for breath as the red blood-runes in the street gutter sucked the warmth out of his chest. Beside him, dozens of neighbors and stall owners were curled up on the ground, their faces pale as paper while thin pink threads of blood-Qi floated out of their foreheads toward the Imperial Palace.
Suddenly, the giant golden pillar landed right in the middle of the dry market fountain twenty feet away.
“Watch out! The rebels are shooting iron pillars into the market!” a terrified cloth merchant croaked, trying to shield his wife with his weak arms. “We’re going to be blown to pieces!”
Old Cobbler Zhang squeezed his eyes shut, waiting for flying rock shrapnel to tear through his ribs.
Instead, a sound like a cool mountain stream rushing over smooth pebbles echoed from the golden pillar.
