As soon as they entered the cave, the two saw corpses strewn across the floor, roughly several dozen by their estimate. Judging by their clothing, there were guards from the slave market, nobles who had come to select slaves, and slaves imprisoned in cages.
Torches burning on the surrounding walls bathed the place in bright firelight. This seemed to be where the slaves were confined. There were many cells made of iron bars around them, along with instruments of torture that appeared to be used to discipline disobedient slaves.
A high platform built from black stone stood in the center, with a corpse bound to each of several pillars on top. In the middle of the platform was a square recess about three meters long and wide, from which a strong stench of blood spread.
More than a dozen Zombie Warriors had been summoned to lift the corpses from the floor and throw them one by one into the blood pool at the center of the platform. Each intact corpse sank into the pool with a splash, then bloody bubbles gurgled to the surface. After a while, the bubbles subsided, and the level of the pool rose a little.
As corpse after corpse was thrown into the pool, the blood within it grew ever more plentiful, almost spilling over the edges. At one corner of the platform, the Necromancer Han Shuo had seen last time stood revealed, holding a white bone Magic Staff. His body was gaunt, and he watched the blood pool expressionlessly, not a trace of life visible in his grayish-brown eyes.
As soon as Han Shuo and Emily entered, they retreated to a corner and observed everything through a gap there. Emily set up a soundproof barrier around them and immediately whispered, "It looks as though this