The underground palace had almost been reduced to ruins. Corpses lay strewn everywhere, packed thick across the ground.
Burst heads, severed limbs, charred remains... together they formed a bizarre tableau amid the wreckage. Everything was still; only scarlet blood flowed in every direction, like Blood Snakes still possessed of spirit, greedily seeking something to devour in the darkness.
Amid shattered walls, broken tiles, and rubble, Zhang Linchuan sat in the sole intact grand chair. He wore a cult robe black as its base and patterned with white markings. Both his robe and his throne appeared spotless, without a speck of dust.
Before the cult leader's throne, several corpses that still retained formidable auras lay scattered over the stone steps.
The corpse closest to the cult leader's throne had belonged to a powerful woman. Her long black hair was soaked in blood, and she lay face-down, yet still strained to stretch her right hand forward, as though trying to seize something.
Only two steps short, her hand could have crossed the end of the stone steps and reached closer to the throne of that evil cult leader. Sadly, it no longer could.
Zhang Linchuan seemed not to care about any of it. The stone steps were already dirty, so he could only sit here. Holding a handkerchief embroidered with bamboo leaves in his right hand, he unhurriedly wiped the bloody mess from his left.
His movements were exceedingly meticulous. He cleaned every knuckle until it was spotless, until it had turned deathly pale; even the crevices beneath his nails received careful attention.
"I can understand Winged Ghost wanting to kill me,"
he said calmly.
As he spoke, dim lightning flickered through his hair.
He treated his fingers as though they were a piece of fragile porcelain.
He continued in the same