Deep within the Inner Perimeter of the ruins, inside a relatively well-preserved underground stone chamber, chaos reigned, and killing intent soared to the heavens.
More than half the bluestone tiles on the floor had shattered, and the air was thick with the stench of blood. Clearly, a fierce melee had just erupted.
At the center of the stone chamber, two ancient bronze boxes, each half a man's height, rested quietly atop a stone platform.
Anyone could see that treasures must be hidden inside those two boxes.
To the left of the stone platform, A Jieluo, a Third-Turn Grandmaster of the Kangju Kingdom, stood with his saber held across his body. A claw wound deep enough to reveal bone marked his left arm, blood gushing from it as the flesh around the wound had already turned black.
The veins bulged on the hand gripping his curved saber. The True Essence of a Third-Turn Grandmaster erupted from his body without restraint, causing the surrounding rubble to tremble and float slightly.
At his feet lay a corpse that had long since gone cold.
It was his younger brother, Su Piluo, a Second-Turn Grandmaster of the Kangju Kingdom.
The savage bloody hole in the corpse's chest was horrifying to behold. He could not have been more dead.
The Nineteen Kingdoms of the Western Regions were sparsely populated and cramped in territory, their martial arts inheritances far less flourishing than those of Yan Kingdom and Golden Court. Within their own nations, a Grandmaster Realm expert was an existence who could stand on equal footing with the ruler. Losing one here was no different from losing an arm for the Kangju Kingdom—a calamity of the highest order.
Standing opposite the stone platform was Ying Li, a Fourth-Turn Grandmaster of Golden Court's Frost Eagle Tribe.
He wore