In the center of New Dunkirk, after leveling three hundred homes, Arthur had built an exceedingly magnificent palace. This was his residence in New Dunkirk, where he handled government affairs, and the central hub from which he controlled the ever-growing forces under his command.
On ordinary days, flowers filled the air with fragrance, evergreen trees flourished through all four seasons, and countless prettily dressed young girls laughed and played. It was like the divine kingdoms of legend, giving one a feeling of ease and leisure.
But today, wave after wave of pig-slaughtering shrieks made this breathtaking palace seem especially grim and oppressive. The flowers had lost their scent, the birds had flown away, the fish had sunk to the bottom, and the girls huddled fearfully in the palace corners, not daring to approach the great hall at its center.
The lavish hall was empty, save for a massive pool in the middle, forged from crimson flame-gold essence of abyssal volcanoes.
Arthur lay in that pool, large enough for a hundred wild boars to bathe in at once. His blackish-green body had swollen to two meters across, floating in the dark red bloodwater like an enormous, air-filled bladder.
Several high-level Magic Beasts lay panting beside the pool. More than a dozen handsome men in golden armor, radiating the powerful battle qi fluctuations of peak Heaven-rank warriors, pinned the Magic Beasts down tightly, continuously squeezing their veins and forcing blood from the wounds on their necks.
Amid wet puff, puff sounds, increasingly thin jets of blood sprayed into the pool. These high-level Magic Beasts were enormous, and every one of them held a considerable amount of blood. In the end, their blood filled the great pool to the brim.
Arthur soaked in the pool as blackish-green venom continuously seeped from his pores.