The sound of sixty pounds of serrated steel clearing a sword sheath was enough to empty thirty paces of crowded highway in two seconds.
Mortal wagon drivers, vegetable peddlers, and outer sect apprentices scrambled into the mud, ducking behind stone walls and overturned cabbage crates.
Vice-Inquisitor Kuang Yan stood beside the armored carriage, his five-foot blade resting point-down against the cobblestones, cracking a granite paver with casual downward pressure. Behind him, four Imperial Iron Guards leveled heavy repeating crossbows. The brass quarrel-tips shone with dark green neurotoxin.
“I said unseal the bay,” Kuang Yan repeated, his voice like iron plates grinding together. “Bring the crowbar.”
Fifty paces away, in the mouth of the backup drainage alley, Lin Ke held the handles of his coal cart. Beneath thirty pounds of hard coal, the real casket of Nine-Sun Quenching Jade sat cold against the wooden planks.
If Kuang Yan cracked the fake casket, the game was over.
Spirit-hardened fire melted rock waste looked matching to raw ore from five paces away. But up close, the crystal-clear fracture lines were fully different. Kuang Yan smelled the sulfur ash. Then, every exit from the customs square would be sealed with royal dragon fire.
Branch, Lin Ke commanded.
