By late afternoon, the forward trenches running parallel to the Nine-Dragon Barrier were fully occupied by the mortal vanguard.
Ten thousand smiths, quarrymen, and militia workers stood behind heavy earthen low roof walls, their polished copper mirrors mounted on star-iron tripods and hidden beneath coarse burlap covers. At each squad station, an apprentice watched the rhythmic dripping of a sound water-clock. That kept time with a muffled wooden mallet against a sheepskin drum. tap-tap-tap-tap, twenty-four beats per second.
Lin Tao and Tie Shan stood at Trench Node 32, the central vantage point directly opposite the Great Golden Bastion.
High above on the floating sky castle, banners of royal silk fluttered in the stratosphere. Suddenly, the golden glow of the barrier deepened to a harsh, blinding violet. A figure clad in flowing sky robes of white and gold stepped onto the highest low roof wall of the castle wall, his form magnified ten times by a floating projection array.
It was Archon Zhao Xuan, High Director of the Imperial Firewall Consistory.
“Mortal vermin of the Southern Basin!” the Archon’s voice boomed across the plain, amplified by deep ringing hum arrays until it shook the gravel in the trenches like thunder. “You crawl through the dirt with your mining tools, imagining that the fall of the underworld gives you leave to approach the threshold of the throne! You’re ants scuttling before an iron wall. Scatter, or heaven’s wrath will turn your bones to white ash!”
