Deep within the underground palace, the air had grown almost oppressively still.
A Blood Pool a hundred meters across occupied the very heart of the subterranean complex, its surface shimmering with a sickly yet sacred dark-gold sheen.
Around the Blood Pool, five thousand hulking figures knelt on one knee.
They had once belonged to the Empire's three most central and untouchable forces-the Imperial Capital's First Legion, the Dragonblood Legion that embodied the Empire's soul, and the emperor's own royal Imperial Guard.
But now, they no longer possessed fully human forms.
Their heavy armor was no longer protective equipment. Their exposed skin had turned a coarse, blackish gray, covered in grotesque scales. Dark-red veins pulsed faintly beneath them, like magma crawling slowly beneath a cooling crust.
Unnatural joints bulged along their necks and backs. Some had already broken through the skin, becoming the bony roots of wings that had yet to fully unfurl.
Some had grown incomplete wings; others' arms had transformed into scaled claws. Yet without exception, they held the same posture, kneeling silently, utterly motionless.
Like five thousand living stone statues.
And in this inhuman hell, Lin Ze seemed completely out of place.
He still wore his impeccably tailored black-and-white chief steward's formal attire, its hems spotless. Standing at the edge of the Blood Pool, he calmly lowered his gaze to the pocket watch in his hand.
The hand ticked softly. With that almost inaudible click, the air throughout the underground palace seemed to tighten in the sudden grip of an invisible hand.
At the center of the Blood Pool, the slowly flowing dark-gold liquid abruptly stopped.
The next instant, ripples burst across it.
Ring after ring of dark-gold waves surged outward, slamming against the edges of the Blood Pool and throwing spray several meters into the air.
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