Inside the underground burial hall, the air smelled of ancient embalming pitch, rancid sheep fat, and crushed limestone powder.
Across the vast expanse of the royal chamber, rivers of liquid silver flowed through carved stone canals. Their silvery surfaces reflected the sullen crimson glow of eternal bronze lamps.
At the center of the hall rose the Great Jade Terrace. A ninety-foot pyramid of tiered white green jade, built eight hundred years ago to elevate the First Emperor above mortal dust.
Now, a monstrosity perched upon the jade steps.
High Eunuch Wei was no longer a man.
The ancient black dragon-blood drained from the royal sarcophagus had completed its violent graft. It tore his withered frame into a fifteen-foot draconic corpse-monster.
His hunchbacked spine had erupted through his silk robes in a ridge of jagged black glass plates.
His chest was split wide open, the splayed ribs serving as an iron cage for the pulsating, grayish-purple lungs of the Nine-Headed Corpse Hydroid.
