The twelve pairs of heavy, pitch-black iron boots did not kick up a single cloud of silt as they marched out from the deep shadows of the canyon walls. Forged from Nine-Folded Profound Iron and powered by Peak Grade 6 Demon Beast cores, the twelve Profound Iron Dao Soldiers moved with synchronized, mechanical precision. Each construct stood nine feet tall, holding a tower shield in its left hand and a rune-etched halberd in its right, forming an unbroken iron cordon around the six-thousand-foot basin of the Dragon-Spine Trench.
Atop the flat, horned skull of the slain Grade 7 Abyssal Chimera-Wyrm, Ye Fan froze. His bruised left hand remained extended inches away from the six-foot gap between the hundred-foot stone doors of the Primal Dragon Grotto.
