The twenty two-headed Iron-Beak Vultures hovered fifty feet above the archway of the Ten-Mile Border Job Fair Plaza, their forty giant wings beating down gusts of foul-smelling wind.
Standing on the saddle of the lead vulture was Chief Overseer Zhao Kuang, a bulky, cruel-faced Rank 5 Early Foundation Establishment cultivator from the Joyous-Gold Sect. Beside him rode Overseer Liu, a sharp-nosed Rank 5 Early enforcer from the Azure-Sword Sect’s quarry division, along with eighteen other black-robed Mine Overseers.
When they had woken up half an hour ago in their warm mountain guardhouses and walked out to collect the morning ore quota, they had nearly choked on their own spit—ten entire mining pits and quarries were completely empty! Only by following the trail of discarded straw sandals and the mouth-watering smell of honey-roasted beef had they tracked their ten thousand missing workers down to the Great Yan border.
“You bunch of ungrateful mud-rats!” Chief Overseer Zhao roared, channeling his liquid Rank 5 Qi into his thirty-foot barbed iron whip until it crackled with terrifying purple sparks. “Your thirty-year Indenture Contracts belong to the Joyous-Gold and Azure-Sword Sects! Who gave you permission to drop your pickaxes and come down the mountain to eat beef?!”
