From the southern mouth of the Ashen Bottleneck, the rhythmic thunder of marching iron boots echoed against the sheer dark rock walls.
Commander Yan Ding and a calm distance of eighty elite royal border guards crested the rocky ridge, their heavy broad-swords drawn and shields locked. They had force-marched three leagues from Iron Pass Fort through freezing sleet. Their hearts were clenched in dread, expecting to find a slaughtered vanguard and a desperate, blood-soaked last stand against an unstoppable undead tide.
Instead, they stepped onto a battlefield that looked like a royal victory parade frozen in time.
Five thousand heavily armored walking corpses stood in four flawless, sharp-angled phalanxes across the valley floor. Their six-foot iron glaives were held in strict parade-rest position against their chest plates. Not a single blade trembled. Not a single armored boot shifted in the snow.
In the center of the defile lay the crushed, smoking crater that had once been the nine-foot giant beast bone carriage. Scattered around the wreckage were the shattered skeletons of eight drake-hounds and the crumpled, motionless robes of five Ghost Sect Elders.
And kneeling in the yellow mud, his Core Formation dantian fractured and his wrists clamped in heavy star-iron chains, was Patriarch Gui.
