The brass armor smelled of clove oil, horse sweat, and weapon grease.
Twelve guards in overlapping scale mail formed a semicircle at the foot of the gangplank, their axe-spears angled forward at thirty degrees. Behind them stood two men in stitched charcoal robes, their hands folded into their wide sleeves. The air around those two didn’t ripple with heat. It grew dense and heavy, smelling faintly of molten lead and ozone. The clear spiritual field of steadied Early Golden Core.
Lin Ke walked down the wooden gangway, his boots hollow against the timber.
His right forearm burned with a steady, dull throbbing where the boiling river water had peeled the outer skin. But his gaze remained fixed on the center of the guard line.
“Hold your ground, junior,” the taller of the two charcoal-robed retainers said.
His name was Elder Qi, an elder of the Grand Fortune Merchant Guild’s security bureau. A long, thin scar bisected his left eyebrow, running down to a jaw set like an iron clamp.
“You cut three approved guild spreading channels,” Elder Qi said, his voice ringing with cultivated lung power that shook the river air. “You trespassed on private town public works leased under royal seal. By the power of the Provincial Governor’s Commerce Edict, you owe fifty thousand high-grade spirit stones in property payback and immediate punitive damages.”
