The registry clerks crouched behind their desks while the guards groaned outside, and the rusted brazier shook under Hajin's pressure.
"How can one child release enough aura to bend the brazier flame from here?" the fat clerk whispered, gripping the edge of his desk.
The greasy-haired clerk peered through a crack in the shutter, then ducked when blue light pulsed across the square.
"The capital reports said he cleared a Beast King Gate alone," he replied, swallowing against a dry throat.
Marrick kept one hand on his ledger and listened to the other clerks panic around him.
Outside, Hajin released the guards and watched them crawl away from the carriage without looking back at the town.
The square held more frightened faces than people, with hollow cheeks pressed against dirty windows and thin children hiding behind broken carts.
The townspeople did not celebrate the arrival of a new lord, and nobody dared approach the man who had just crushed the office guards.
