In the early morning, soft light spilled through the window, bathing the room in a faint orange glow.
Though the Divine Realm had no sun, it still had day and night.
Dark clouds gathered above the blood-red castle. Occasionally, a few drops of crimson blood fell from the sky onto the castle below, coating it in a distinctive shade of red.
Any deity who came here would feel an unmistakable sense of oppression, for this was Asura Castle, the domain of the Asura God, one of the Divine Realm's Five Great God Kings.
An immense aura of slaughter filled this place. Even the Sea God, a friend of the Asura God, rarely came here lightly, for it teemed with murderous intent born of all manner of creatures slaughtering one another in the mortal realms below. Only the Asura God could convert and absorb it, turning it into his own power.
Ordinary gods who absorbed this intent would often suffer ill effects.
In the dimly lit hall, a scarlet carpet stretched from the entrance to the deepest part of the castle, where an exceptionally large chair stood. Red and purple crystals adorned it, arranged in the shape of a skull.
Apart from that chair, everything here was dark red.
A crimson streak flashed past the window, briefly brightening the hall and revealing a figure seated upright in the chair at its far end: the Asura God. Dark-red armor covered in demon markings encased his entire body, while dark-red light swirled around him.
Below the Asura God stood four chairs on either side, occupied by eight people of differing appearances-or, more precisely, eight deities.
Among these eight deities, the first man on the left was tall and broad-shouldered. In the Divine Realm, he appeared to be twenty-seven or twenty-eight, with exceptionally handsome