At the third watch of Yin hour, the night over the Imperial Capital had not yet faded. A lead-grey sky hung low, pressing down against the towering silhouette of the imperial city.
With a harsh, grating screech, the heavy black-lacquered gates of the Estate of the Marquis Suppressing the North slowly swung wide. A cold, stern breath—a mixture of rust, leather, and the frost of the northern steppes—pushed outward first.
Five hundred members of the Liefeng Honor Guard, clad in dark heavy armor, bearing strong bows and powerful crossbows, and with the thick-backed execution sabers unique to the Northern Frontier buckled at their waists, filed out in silence like five hundred iron statues stepped straight out of a frigid hell.
Chapter 324