On the city walls, the guards' horns sounded mournfully, one blast after another, shrill and piercing.
In the air outside the city, the demon soldiers of the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains stood in formation, a vast black mass.
It stretched beyond sight.
The cold gleam on their armor radiated chill beneath the dark-red sky, their weapons as dense as an autumn Reed Swamp.
At the very front of the formation, a jet-black imperial carriage floated in midair. Seated within was a tall figure draped in a dark cloak, his face cast from iron, demonic aura surging around him in tangible whirlpools.
The figure thrust his chin forward slightly, his two vertical pupils sweeping down from above over the entire city.
Whomever his gaze fell upon felt their legs go weak.
He was the Flood Dragon King.
"People of Chentang Pass—listen—!"
"My son is dead."
"Beaten to death on the hillside outside the city."
"Skinned and stripped of his tendons, leaving no intact corpse."
His voice suddenly dropped, each word crashing into everyone's heart.
"The murderer is hiding in Chentang Pass."
"Hand him over within one day."
"For every day you refuse, I kill a hundred."
"If you refuse for ten days—"
The Flood Dragon King's gaze slowly swept over the guards on the walls, over the rooftops within the city, before finally settling in the direction of the General's Mansion.
"I slaughter the city!"
On the gate tower, Li Jing's face turned deathly pale.
Slaughter the city!
He turned and looked at Chentang Pass behind him. Hundreds of thousands of lives weighed upon his shoulders.
The city erupted.
Panic spread from the gates to every street and alley like a plague.
First, Aunt Zhang, the tofu seller with poor hearing, heard a muffled boom overhead. She looked up at the