The central market square of Iron Sword City smelled of horse manure, sour vinegar, and panic.
At the gates of the Grand Fortune Grain Depository, six golden-armored judge guards stood with their four-pronged axe-spears drawn. They held back a crowd of four thousand starving mortals.
“By order of Envoy Chu Rong!” a royal procurement clerk screamed, standing on an overturned rice cart and waving a sheaf of crisp, golden Celestial Merit Scrip above his head. “All surplus millet, dried pork, and forging charcoal are hereby requisitioned for the construction of the Heavenly Ascension Platform! Pushback is treason against Heaven!”
The clerk threw handfuls of the golden paper into the crowd.
The bills fluttered down like gold-trimmed locusts. A mortal mother caught one against her chest, staring down at the sweeping calligraphy promising “Eternal Blessings upon Transcendence.”
“My children can’t boil paper!” she shrieked, tears cutting through the soot on her cheeks. “Give us grain! Give us flour!”
An judge guard swung his axe-spear butt, striking the woman in the collarbone. She collapsed into the dirt with a sickening crack, clutching her crying infant.
The crowd surged forward with roars of fury, only to be met by a wall of crackling golden lightning from the guards’ weapons that scorched the cobbles to ash.
