The drums were the signal for the Crown Prince's personal troops to batter open the Meridian Gate.
Two thousand troops poured into the inner Imperial Palace along three routes. Torches lit the white jade balustrades of the Golden Water Bridge, and the clash of weapons and cries of battle echoed through the palace complex late at night.
Fang Mo heard them.
The entire Divine Capital heard them.
But the Heavenly Prison's iron gates did not budge.
Fang Mo stood beside the Blood Pool, looking down at the enormous black shape nourished by the Heaven Devouring Hou's remains.
Wumian.
His body had grown another size larger since Fang Mo last saw him. His black form curled in the Blood Pool, his featureless face as smooth as a mirror, with dark red ripples occasionally passing over its surface.
Fang Mo crouched and pressed his right hand against the stone rim of the Blood Pool. Prison Suppressor Patterns seeped from his palm into the liquid.
Wumian stirred, his blank face slowly turning toward Fang Mo.
"Can you understand me?"
Wumian made no sound, but his body rose and fell slightly once, sending a ring of ripples through the Blood Pool.
Fang Mo raised his right hand and pointed somewhere beyond the Heavenly Prison's gates.
"The Imperial Palace. Have you been there?"
Wumian's body rose and fell again.
"You have." Fang Mo nodded. "Then you know where the Palace of Heavenly Purity is."
Wumian reacted more noticeably this time. His upper body rose from the Blood Pool, and he tilted his blank face toward Fang Mo, as though confirming his instructions.
Nian Nu'er interjected from the Sea of Consciousness.
"My lord, his intelligence is roughly that of a three-year-old child. He may not understand complicated instructions."
"They don't need to be complicated." Fang Mo