In the 3,729th year of the Azure Crossing calendar.
In the Far Eastern Lands, at the end of a thousand-zhang stretch of level ground, a mighty pass linked the mountain ranges on either side and stretched hundreds of li from east to west.
Sevenfold Pass.
Its walls rose over a hundred zhang high. Their foundations plunged just as deep into the earth, built upon massive stones weighing a thousand jin apiece and bound with poured, tempered steel. They had stood there for three thousand years.
And at this mighty pass, there were seven such walls in all.
That was how Sevenfold Pass had earned its name.
Countless soldiers had once stood guard here.
Sevenfold Pass lay nineteen hundred li from the Eastern Phoenix Dynasty's border.
Over the past three thousand years, the pass had fallen eleven times to the Outer Dao Puppets.
Each time it fell, the cost of retaking that lost ground was terrible.
Now Sevenfold Pass had been back in the hands of the dynasties for more than two hundred years.
Fifty thousand soldiers were stationed here year-round as its standing garrison.
Two more enormous fortified passes, each no smaller than this one, still stood before Sevenfold Pass. Together, the three formed a defensive line extending over six hundred li. Just half a year ago, the two forward passes had housed a full Far Western Elite Army and three mixed legions drawn from the various dynasties.
Including reserve support forces, five million defenders had been stationed across those two forward passes.
Yet in just half a year, most of the Elite Army's main force and two entire mixed legions from the dynasties of the Far Eastern Lands had withdrawn from the army that had once kept the Outer Dao firmly beyond the passes.
Word was that only a