The heavy blast of a royal brass clarion pierced the underground air. It shook through the rock with the arrogant power of the capital.
The sudden sound shock made Lin Ke’s ears ring with fresh, sharp pain, a reminder of the burst tiny blood vessels still knitting together behind his ears. He sat on an upturned stone crate near Console B-02, his bare chest wrapped in coarse linen bandages steeped in Apothecary He’s pungent, green Centipede Bone Gall Broth. Every breath tasted of sour vinegar and dried blood. But the newly forged Fourth Turn hummed deep within his belly, solid and iron-hard.
Above them, through the central upright access shaft, a shadow fell across the sunlight.
A massive, hundred-foot golden war barge slowly dropped on humming anti-gravity repulsors, its polished bronze hull adorned with the coiled five-clawed dragon sigil of the Great Yan Empire’s Ministry of Works.
The downdraft from the barge’s spiritual engines whipped crushed dark rock dust into blinding squalls.
The war barge touched down on the deep gap floor. Then, its boarding ramp dropped with an earth-shaking CLANG.
Three figures marched down the ramp, clad in matching crimson silk official robes trimmed with gold embroidery. Each wore the tall, winged court cap of a Royal Checker, and around each man’s waist hung a heavy jade tablet pulsing with the tyrannical spiritual pressure of the Mid Golden Core.
