Outside Bloodline Pass, at the Northern Frontier Army camp.
Xiao Jin reined in his horse on the rise before the Central Army Tent and looked down toward the pass.
Morning light spilled from behind him, washing the ranks of the Thirty Thousand Cavalry in cold white. Spears stood like a forest; iron armor surged like a tide.
The black mass of troops filled the open ground, advancing slowly toward Chiyan Valley like a massive iron wedge.
He watched for a while, the corner of his mouth twitching.
"Chiyan Valley won't hold out much longer."
He turned to the lieutenant beside him, his tone flat. "That old man Fencang has some backbone, but with only those battered remnants left, how will he stop my Vanguard Camp?"
"One probe yesterday cost him three hundred Death Warriors. Today we'll press the whole line. The pass will fall within an hour."
The lieutenant cupped his hands. "A wise judgment, General."
"Daoist Fencang and Su Qinghan are both at the pass. If we take them in one stroke, the Three-Sect Allied Army will lose both its arms."
"The Kaoshan Sect alone is no threat."
Xiao Jin said nothing. He kept watching the pass.
He knew, of course, that the Kaoshan Sect was one of the three sects in the allied army.
When news of the Three-Sect Alliance Summit at Broken Cloud Ridge reached his tent, he had assumed Daoist Fencang was the Alliance Master and the Kaoshan Sect had merely followed along.
But today, he had paid particular attention to the banners above and below the pass. Red filled his view—the color of Chiyan Valley's banners;
here and there, a plain white pennant flickered among the cliffs, marking a Tingyu Tower covert post.
Only the Kaoshan Sect had no banner in sight.
"Any movement from