As morning light pierced through the clouds, Ye Fan’s boot soles crushed the gravel lodged in the gaps of the city bricks. He leaned against the battlements and looked down. The Black Armor Guards were moving like ants, piling rolling logs and boulders at the base of the city tower. General Lǐ’s dark cloak billowed in the wind, revealing the tiger-head short blade hanging at his waist—the very weapon he had used back in Mobei to slay the Chanyu of the Xiongnu.
"Young Master Ye, the Repeating Crossbow Camp has arrived." Qín Wǎnshuāng’s voice came from his side. She had somehow shed her outer robe, leaving only a moon-white martial outfit. The light of the Zhaoming Pearl in her hair had converged to the size of a bean, yet it illuminated the red mole at the corner of her eye all the more clearly. Her silver spear leaned diagonally against the crook of her arm, its crimson tassel caught by the wind, brushing across the back of Ye Fan’s hand.
Ye Fan withdrew his gaze. Down in the drill ground below, three hundred crossbowmen were mounting bronze crossbow mechanisms onto the parapets, the clicking sound of taut strings rising one after another. He could feel the Heavenly Dao Fragment within his Inner World burning hot like a piece of glowing charcoal, warming even his Sea of Consciousness—this was the resonance of his "Unity of Heaven and Man" talent, stretching his perception infinitely outward.
Chapter 189