Xuan City was on high alert. In the treetops, the nightingales that chirped every night had fallen silent. Even the adjoining foul-water ditch held no sound of crawling creatures. The stone-paved streets in the city center stood empty and pitch-black. All the torchlight and figures were gathered at the four city gates, four hundred soldiers at each, totaling more than sixteen hundred.
Pitch-black cavalry spears two meters long, thick wooden barricades bristling with terrifying spikes, and ranks of shield bearers whose overlapping shields formed walls three meters high-everything felt tense and frightening.
Inside the command room, neither large nor small, Qin Zihui reclined in a chair, holding some beef jerky. He fed pieces into his mouth while looking up at the map of the Xuan City region hanging on the wall.
Han Ling stood beside him, lighting an oil lamp for him.
Apart from that slowly wavering light, the only sound in the room was his faint chewing, which drifted into the dark corners and vanished without a trace.
Thump, thump...
A distant drumbeat drifted over. Even from so far away, he could still hear it with an Elementalist's hearing, far beyond that of ordinary people.
Swallowing the last piece of jerky in his mouth, Qin Zihui slowly rose. The distant drumming in his ears grew faster and fiercer, prompting him to start moving.
"General, are you going out?" Naturally, Han Ling could not hear those faint sounds, though his ears felt a little itchy, as if someone were blowing into them.
"A great battle is upon us, yet tonight I have a bad feeling. It's worse than what I felt a few days ago, when we withdrew and fled for our lives." His voice was soft, yet it still echoed through the room with a faint, hollow resonance.
Han