Clang!
Clang! Clang!
Signal smoke rose all along Golden City's walls, and the great bell in the central square rang again and again.
The slave traders, smugglers, bandits, and brigands gathered in the city looked up in astonishment.
They could not understand what could have put Golden City on such high alert.
After all, on this land, even Burning Dawn could not shake Golden City's position.
Over the past century, Golden City's reputation, forged through repeated displays of force, had long eclipsed Burning Dawn's might a hundred years ago. Or rather... through certain people's deliberate arrangements, everyone who came to Golden City had forgotten that, a century ago, it had been nothing more than Burning Dawn's forward camp.
"Could it have something to do with those fireworks earlier?"
"That demon's head?"
"Is it the Burning Family?"
"Can the Burning Family even leave Dawn City anymore? Don't make me laugh!"
"The emperor of Saint Seanda would love to keep the Burning and Dawn Families leashed at his feet like dogs."
The discussion prompted a wave of mocking laughter.
But that laughter abruptly died a moment later.
They saw Qin Ran in the sky.
In his demon form, Qin Ran hovered in midair. After his flaming eyes swept over all of Golden City, his newly enhanced [Flame Impact] crashed straight down like a pillar of flame reaching into the heavens.
Golden City's supposedly towering, impregnable wall crumbled like tofu beneath the blow. The arrow towers on and behind it, along with their soldiers, were reduced to ash.
Then the people in the city saw what had prompted Golden City to send up signal smoke and sound the alarm.
The undead!
An endless army of undead!
Looking at the cold yet burning soul fire in the undead's eye sockets, they shuddered.
"City