Three days later.
Linburg Province, the provincial capital.
This was Hector's stronghold, a magnificent fortress city built against a mountain.
Yet within the marquis's private palace at the city's highest point, the silence was eerily deep.
This was the Gallery of Art.
Once, even its walls had been covered with the classical oil paintings and rare treasures Hector took such pride in, each worth a fortune. Now, however, those vulgar decorations were nowhere to be seen. The entire gallery had been remodeled, leaving it spacious and solemn.
A towering dais stood incongruously in the center of the hall.
Hector had specifically ordered its layout modeled after the Hall of Kings in the imperial palace, where His Majesty, the supreme emperor, attended to affairs of state. He had gone to all this trouble to build the dais for one reason alone: to display a peerless "work of art" worthy of such a height.
It was a throne still under construction.
Its base consisted of thousands of thighbones from various races, stacked in neat rows. Its armrests were two rows of curved ribs, while countless delicate finger bones had been woven into intricate patterns to form its back.
Hector stood atop the dais.
He wore a pure white silk shirt, its cuffs rolled up to expose his pale, slender forearms.
He held a skull.
It was an exceptionally perfect skull, with fine bone, flowing contours, and a full forehead. This was the "crown" he had spent so long preparing to place at the very top of the throne.
For this skull, he had specifically executed a beautiful elf ranger and personally soaked it in a chemical solution for an entire year.
"My lord."
The voice that broke the suffocating silence belonged to the steward standing behind and to one side of the