At this moment, dawn gradually emerged. At the edge of the sky, the night quietly receded, gradually replaced by bright blue. The faint chill in the air also dispersed, and vitality began to spread, heralding the arrival of a new day...
Here stood a city of considerable size. In terms of area, it was only slightly smaller than the Royal City where the Imperial Palace stood. In terms of prosperity, its resources were exceptionally abundant. Combining the two, this city's status was likely among the highest in the entire Ai Lu Empire.
The arrival of morning awakened the people within the city. Every household began to rise and work, tightly shut doors opened one after another, and the Trading Firms began operating as usual, hoping for unexpected gains in the new day...
The people of the city did not know that, as they began their busy routines, a Black Light tore through the air. In an instant, it reached the skies above the city, trembled throughout its body without making the slightest sound, then turned and shot straight into the city, vanishing from the sky...
At the center of the city, within a luxurious, castle-like residence, one room was filled in every corner with the faint stench of blood and medicine.
The room, which looked extraordinary and clearly belonged to an important figure, had been rendered as lifeless as a sickroom... In the center of the room, a man in his twenties lay on a bed. Beside him stood another man who resembled him by seventy or eighty percent but was visibly older, along with a middle-aged man.
Not a single sound could be heard in the room, leaving the surroundings deathly silent. The two young men had fixed their eyes on the middle-aged man, seemingly waiting for an