Heat waves rose from the churning crimson lava, climbing the sheer cliffs and steaming the deeply buried gambling den like a steamer basket. The smell of sulfur mingled with the stench of scorched human flesh did not disperse in the wind, but clung instead to the lining of everyone's nostrils.
The enormous bubble that had swallowed Ghost Hand Zhang had long since burst. Wisps of bluish-black smoke circled beside a half-charred piece of broken timber-the last traces the once-insufferably arrogant warden of Block B had left in this world.
The wreckage of the gambling tables lay scattered across the ground. The Ivory Dice and Golden Silk Nanmu Wood Chips, usually treasured as life itself, now lay mixed with sludge and ashes, casually trampled underfoot. Hundreds of prisoners lay prostrate, their backs arched high, their foreheads pressed firmly against the scalding ground.
This had once been the greatest money pit in the Divine Capital Underground, the final carnival ground for desperate outlaws. Here, as long as they had silver, even condemned prisoners could drink Imperial Brew and bed women with tender skin and soft flesh. Severed hands and feet were commonplace, and someone driven red-eyed by losses killing himself on the spot merely gave the spectators a little more to talk about.
Yet these madmen, who had long since put life and death out of their minds, now dared not even breathe loudly.
The young man at the head of the room merely stood there, yet the chill emanating from him froze their marrow more deeply than the Earth Fire lava below. It was not merely the oppressive presence of an expert, but the indifference of a butcher surveying livestock awaiting slaughter in a pigpen.
Fang Mo withdrew his gaze from the lava pool. The gold token he had just won,