The morning of the sixth day arrived not with the usual chaotic hustle of a market war, but with a tense, unnatural stillness that choked Crimson Iron City.
Outside the Cao Clan's grand flagship dispensary, a massive, unruly ocean of people had already gathered before the first light of dawn.
Thousands of rogue cultivators, mercenary groups, and iron miners stood packed shoulder-to-shoulder, holding copper receipts and wooden deposit tokens tightly in their calloused hands.
Having paid upfront for bulk crates of the suicidal sixty-three percent discounted pills the day before, their greed had completely transformed into a desperate, volatile hunger.
Inside the locked doors of the dispensary, however, the atmosphere was a literal living nightmare.
"What do you mean there are none?!" Cao Yan's voice exploded through the communication talisman, so laden with raw, unadulterated panic that the jade token in the chief manager's hand nearly cracked.
