The gale howled, and dark clouds massed.
The rumbling thunder, like war drums, jolted the silent night awake.
Zhang Yang stood tall atop the city wall, his hair streaming in the wind and his eyes flashing like lightning, as though he were undergoing a heavenly tribulation.
But in truth, it was his royal city—his entire power—that was undergoing the tribulation.
Though torrential rain was about to fall, everyone, from Zhang Yang down to every craftsman—even Zhang Liang, that death-fearing fellow—had erupted with a terrifying will to survive.
That was right. Ever since Zhang Yang had quietly slipped back, the entire royal city had entered a state of super-high alert.
The royal city now had three completed official roads. The first led beyond the great mountains, but it was not yet fully open, reaching only five hundred li.
The second official road extended to a mountain forty li due south of the royal city. Geographically speaking, this was the Southern Heavenly Gate of a Level Six Royal City, reserved alongside the outer city when Zhao Zhou had designed it.
The third official road extended thirty li due west of the royal city. There was another great mountain there, which served as the Western Heavenly Gate.
These two mountain peaks and two military structures would form the iron-triangle core defense system of the Level Six Royal City. At that moment, Zhang Yang was personally supervising the construction of those two fortresses. According to the schedule, they would take no more than fifteen days to complete.
In the central area of this iron-triangle defense system, soldiers were also working through the night. They needed to level every hill and valley, then pave the ground with square stone slabs. In the end, this area would become a massive battlefield one hundred li from north