The face-off inside the fourth-floor hall was a standoff between institutional madness and unbending physical mass.
Guild Master Jin stood backed by forty elite hired blades, their black star-iron scale armor glistening in the dim lantern light, their heavy two-handed headsman blades resting at the low-guard. These were men who had been paid thousands of silver bits to put down peasant rebellions and slaughter rival merchant houses in the dark. Their eyes were cold, skilled, and devoid of fear.
Yet standing in the center of the narrow ten-foot hall, blocking their advance toward the central offices, was Tie Shan.
The giant didn’t draw a sword. He didn’t manifest spiritual energy.
He simply lowered his twelve-pound cold-drawn iron pry-bar from his shoulder. He gripped the middle of the shaft with both calloused hands, planting his iron-toed boots four inches into the rosewood floorboards with a splintering crunch:
CRACK.
“Passage closed,” Tie Shan rumbled, his voice shaking the lantern glass in the walls.
The forty hired blades paused, their boots sliding to a halt. Even the most hardened killer in the front rank knew the mathematics of bone thickness. An unranked mortal who could splinter hardwood floorboards through raw body weight possessed an unmoving physical leverage that no sword strike could easily displace.
