RUMBLE-RUMBLE-RUMBLE!
The ground at the western foot of Mount Azure shook so hard that loose pebbles danced down the mountain steps like jumping beans.
Up on the high cliff terrace overlooking the main mountain gate, Sect Master Ling Xiao and his eight Sword Elders rushed to the stone railing and looked down through the morning mist.
Their jaws dropped open at the exact same time.
Coming straight across the plain wasn’t a traditional army of spear-men or flying sword cultivators. Instead, it was a dead-straight black ribbon of freshly paved eight-lane highway that was actively growing closer by the minute!
At the front of the road rolled fifty massive Self-Heating Spirit Asphalt Rollers, each one thirty feet wide with glowing red furnace runes carved into its ten-ton iron front drum. Behind the rollers marched ten thousand muscular cultivator-workers wearing matching neon-yellow reflective vests and hard-hats, carrying heavy Type-5 Stamped-Steel Flying Shovels over their shoulders like rifles.
And flanked on both sides of the construction crew were five hundred Rank 5 Armored Spirit-Tanks commanded by General Tie Zhan, along with twenty giant loudspeaker trucks broadcasting a cheerful, rhythmic work song across the valley:
“Dig the ditch! Pour the tar! Make the road as flat as a star! Two copper coins gets you near or far—Dry-Well Highway is the best by far!”
