In the gray, murky fog, a colossal altar built from thousands of continental fragments lay across the way. Those fragments were still seeping blood—the last lingering warmth left behind by shattered worlds.
At the altar's edge, the sound of iron chains dragging over the ground fell as densely as rain.
Tens of thousands of humans had been stripped naked and driven toward the central blood trough like livestock. Barefoot, they trod upon the scorching altar stones covered in barbs. With every step, a piece of flesh was torn from their soles.
"Move faster! Delay another half breath, and your whole family will be fed to the fish!"
A Heavenly Pride in a moon-white robe stood high above, gripping a long whip covered in barbs. A curl touched his lips as he violently snapped his right hand, drawing a deathly pale arc through the air.
Splat.
The sound of flesh splitting rang out. An old man staggered and fell, the bones of his spine faintly visible through the bloody mist on his back.
Chu Qing stood at the prow of the black ship, his fingers slowly stroking the shaft of the Overlord Spear. The faint rasp of his fingertips passing over its rough patterns was swallowed by the chaos storm.
He stared at the altar, and the muscles at the corner of his eyes twitched slightly.
That heavy stench of blood bored into his nostrils, making his stomach churn.
He remembered Stone Rock County. That spring, the Mantis Martial Arts Hall's senior brother had stood with his hands behind his back, looking over the linen-clad, barefoot poor as though inspecting pigs. The sounds of usurers demanding repayment and the dull thuds of clubs striking spines overlapped with the screams from the altar at this moment.
Back then, he had been an