Several days later.
Styxia, within an ancient ruin severely eroded by the Black Tide.
This had once been a magnificent undersea palace. Now, only crumbling walls remained.
Stone Pillars once carved with waves and schools of fish lay scattered at odd angles, coated in a layer of viscous blackish-purple matter that slowly writhed without cease.
The air reeked so intensely it was nauseating, a mixture of rotting organic matter and a pungent sulfurous stench, as though they stood inside the festering entrails of some enormous creature.
Beneath the soldiers' feet were pools of blackish-purple ichor of varying depths. Each step produced a wet, sticky squelch. Bubbles occasionally rose from the depths and popped, releasing an even stronger, more irritating odor.
As far as the eye could see, there were traces of battle everywhere.
The ground was littered with the lifeless corpses of grotesque Black Tide monsters resembling sea creatures.
Some looked like rotten starfish magnified hundreds or thousands of times over, covered in pustules and tentacles.
Others still retained some fishlike traits, but their scales had fallen away, exposing black flesh that constantly oozed fluid. Their fangs jutted outward, while the faint violet flames that had once burned in their eye sockets had already gone out.
Their blood and bodily fluids mixed with the ichor on the ground, taking on an even more ominous hue.
Kryudera's punitive army had only just cleared this area at considerable cost. Yet in the deeper darkness all around them, countless malicious presences seemed to be watching, restless and eager to strike.
Within this profoundly sickening environment, a small group of generals in mismatched armor, clearly from different city-states, stood gathered before Kryudera.
Their faces held a mixture of exhaustion, fear, and—most intensely at this moment—dissatisfaction.
Compared to the Okhema Chrysos Heirs warriors standing silently