Both were masters of stealth and assassination.
They had also gained the support of brand-new Totem Armor.
Like two faint shadows, they blended into the smoke and dust blanketing the ground, silently arriving at the armory and granary at the southeastern corner of the Blood Skull Arena.
They found a high point amid the nearby broken walls and ruins, then climbed up close against the wall.
Meng Chao smeared the dust and mud on his hands evenly across the helmet of his Totem Armor, reducing the glare from the firelight.
He poked out half his head, narrowed his eyes, and gazed into the distance.
He discovered that the walls of the armory and granary, along with the towering arena walls pressed tightly against them, had all collapsed in the explosions.
One enormous hole after another had formed a Green Channel leading straight toward the street.
Countless ragged ratmen with hunger written across their faces caught the distinctive fragrance wafting from the Mandala Fruit. Driven by appetite, they gathered into a surging, roaring tide and charged toward the armory and granary.
After Meng Chao's earlier sneak attack, even counting the temple guards, only several dozen Clan Warriors remained in the Blood Skull Arena.
Aside from the temple guards, most of the warriors had lost arms or legs, or suffered hidden injuries that hindered combat. That was why Kassava had left them behind.
They had all gathered around the armory and granary, forming a solid defensive line.
Like a dam bristling with thorns, they blocked and tore at the Stormy Waves.
The ratman slave laborers, who had received no professional training and had been squeezed dry of half their lives in the Casting Workshop, were like weeds in a hurricane beneath the wild dance of the Clan Warriors' Giant Swords—uprooted and flung