Luoyang, the Han Empire's capital as the sun dipped behind the western hills, lay serene and quiet beneath the night sky, north of the Luo River. This city, which had borne over two hundred years of the Eastern Han Empire's splendor, glory, and prosperity, had no idea that a world-ending disaster was slowly drawing near.
At that moment, a faint, crisp sound of a cup shattering came from within a luxurious mansion in northern Luoyang.
"What's going on? What the hell is going on!?" A hysterical roar rang out, nearly bursting through the paper windows. "Seventy-one people! A full seventy-one people!? In less than one short hour, seventy-one people died! Can anyone tell me what the hell happened? Did our people commit mass suicide, or did they stand there like straw targets and let Eastern Victory slaughter them!? Ah!"
Real-time death notifications had reached the minds of every academy student. To the people of Western God Academy, each notification was like a needle driven viciously into their hearts. It had stabbed them seventy-one times in total!
Watching the man before him, who resembled a crazed lion, Henry wiped cold sweat from his hand. He humbly lowered himself, afraid of provoking him further. "Lord Tagore, we still don't know the specifics. I believe Esna's side will send a detailed battle report soon."
Henry was a thief-path enhancer. Unlike most tall, burly Westerners, he was thin and small. No one knew whether he had always been that way or had been altered later. In battle, he handled disruption and assassination; outside battle, he gathered and analyzed intelligence—this was the primary work of Western God's thief-path enhancers.
The person he addressed so humbly was an impossibly handsome elf. Of course, that was only when he was not angry and twisting his features out