Sure enough, when the captives set out again and passed the Casting Workshop, granaries, and barracks still half under construction, overseers came forward to point through the crowd and select the slave laborers they fancied.
The warriors from the captive-hunting squads haggled with the overseers.
They pried open the captives' mouths, letting the overseers see how sharp and beautiful their teeth were.
Then they squeezed the captives' bones hard, making them crackle and pop, making the captives bare their fangs in pain, thus proving how healthy and strong they were so they could demand a few more Bone Coins polished from Totem Beast skeletons.
But the strongest and most nimble captives were not for sale.
The warriors directly slipped sacks woven from Mandala Tree leaves over those captives' heads, marking them as "not for sale."
Very quickly, seven of Ye Zi's companions were picked out by the Casting Workshop and construction sites.
Ye Zi heard the soft sighs from his companions behind him and knew that those who had been selected were doomed.
In the resplendent Era of Glory, they were destined to use their piled-up corpses to pave the Clan Lords' glorious road to the ancestral spirit temple.
The Broken Horn Minotaur Warrior approached with a sack woven from Mandala Tree leaves in hand, grinning broadly.
Ye Zi's heart pounded wildly.
Sure enough, the other man put the sack over his head.
Darkness swallowed Ye Zi's vision. The last thing he saw was the Broken Horn Minotaur Warrior's encouraging gaze.
The man gave his shoulder a neither-light-nor-heavy pat and whispered, "Keep going. Stay alive. I'm hard to kill."
Dazed and muddled, Ye Zi was led into Black Horn City.
He could see nothing. He could only listen with his ears and smell with his nose.
He heard the warriors