Dawn did not arrive gently.
It came with drums.
A deep, rolling thunderbeat that shook sleep from the city's bones and pulled people into the streets as if the sound itself had hooks. Lanterns still burned in the early mist, their flames pale against the rising day, but the tournament grounds were already alive...flooded with motion, noise, and bodies moving toward one place with a single shared hunger.
Twenty thousand.
That number felt like a myth until Jun Kai saw it.
From the elevated terrace reserved for officials, the field below looked like a living tide...lines of cultivators and merchants' sons, wandering fighters, sect disciples, desperate commoners who had scraped together entry fees, and men who carried themselves like they had never known desperation at all.
Some wore polished armor. Others wore simple cloth. Some held weapons openly. Others wore nothing but a calm expression and empty hands, as if the world itself was their blade.
