The Second Terrace courtyard was a slaughterhouse under an open, bleeding sky.
Lin Ke hauled himself up the spiral stone stairs, leaning heavily against the blood-slicked banister. Every step sent a jolt of dull, metal ache through his hip bones where the leather kidney belt pinned his damaged Dai Mai. But his breathing remained steady, cold, and measured.
He stepped out onto the backup walkway overlooking the courtyard.
The massive iron drop-gate was gone.
In its place lay a jagged, eight-pace breach filled with crushed stone, twisted bronze drop-gate teeth, and burning pitch. Through the smoke, dozens of demonic shock troops poured into the enclosure like black ants swarming a burst hive.
Leading the charge were four gore hounds. Monstrous, twelve-foot bio-engineered hunting beasts stitched together from drake bone, desiccated sinew, and boiling blood-flesh. Their jaws dripped with yellow gastric acid that dissolved the flat stone slabs wherever it splashed. Their six eyes burned with mindless, leech-like hunger.
The citadel’s outer defense line was shattering.
Dozens of outer sect students, overwhelmed by the sense horror and the choking reek of rotting marrow, broke formation and fled toward the inner keep, abandoning their crossbows and pike lines.
