"Night gave way to dawn, swallows returned to the southern shore—open~ the~ city~ gates!"
"Boom!"
"Rumble..."
As the sun's hazy silhouette crossed the distant horizon, a thunderous voice rang out from atop the towering pass city, proclaiming the end of Sin City's one hundred and twenty-eighth night patrol.
After a dull roar, the city gate mechanisms groaned to life, slowly opening the frost-covered gates that stabbed straight into the clouds.
Since arriving in Sin City, Qin He had witnessed their opening and closing more than a dozen times, yet he still found them awe-inspiring.
They were simply too tall. The city walls soared skyward, plunging directly into the heavens.
Looking up, he could only make out the huge, shadowy defensive machinery through the dark clouds. Occasionally, through gaps in the cloud cover, he glimpsed the upturned eaves of the gate tower and a massive brass-colored bell gleaming with golden light.
If there was anything in Sin City that had endured forever, there was only one thing.
It was this Demon Suppressing Pass, whose age of construction was unknown. Sin City had been destroyed countless times, but this pass city had been patched and repaired, remaining in use to this day.
With it, there was Sin City.
The immensely heavy gate split open with a crack, then slowly swung wider.
Extending several hundred paces beyond the gap were swathes upon swathes of Sin City's low houses.
This gate was several hundred paces thick. It looked less like a gate and more like a deep mountain gorge slowly opening.
The black, icy gate was covered in ice a yard thick.
As it cracked apart, shards of ice and snowflakes came showering down, striking white marks into the iron-hard ground before the gate. Dull thuds rang out in an unbroken stream.
This was