Liang Prefecture, Eastern Border.
Beyond the Great Wall stretching across the land in blackstone, the landscape lay open to view.
Gray clouds hung low, and no wind stirred the grasslands.
Inside the Great Wall lay the vast border defenses, where lightly armored patrol squads made their rounds.
In the military camp, Li Tiangang held a military report detailing the recent intelligence gathered from across Liang Prefecture.
Demons had attacked the north half a year ago, but he had sent a secret letter to the Xia Family, asking them to dispatch their border defense army and help drive the demons back.
The Xia Family had initially been unwilling to cross the border. After all, this was the Li Family's business. Though the two families were on reasonably good terms, sending troops across the border to help was still asking a little too much, unless some tremendous calamity threatened to throw the cities into turmoil.
But Li Tiangang had made it clear in his letter that this was very likely a probing attack by the demons. If the Xia Family refused to act and watched from atop their walls, the demons beyond Liang Prefecture would use the north as their point of breakthrough, turning it into the largest battlefield.
When that happened, the fighting would inevitably spill over into the Xia Family's Ji Province, causing them even greater losses.
To that end, he had shared some of Liang Prefecture's military intelligence, including the formidable defenses along its eastern and western borders and the Four Establishments Realm expert stationed at Heaven's Gate Pass in the south. Finally realizing that this fire might burn them too, the Xia Family had joined forces with the Liang Province Military Headquarters in the north and driven those demons away.
After that, just as Li Tiangang had predicted,