With a shriek that rattled the underground bedrock for ten miles around, the stone-hard gates ground slowly back.
BOOM.
The first footstep shook the arena floor.
Out of the yawning gulf of total darkness, a giant statue stepped through the threshold of the Netherworld Gates.
It stood thirty-two feet tall, an ancient titan of bone and rusted metal that filled the breach like an iron castle.
Its torso was wrapped in thick, green rust-stained royal plate armor forged during the ancient dynasties before the Great Yong was ever dreamed of.
Beneath the bronze plates, its musculature was not composed of crimson flesh. But of stone-hard dragon joint cords, pale cadaveric tendons, and braided strands of black corpse-silk.
From its broad, giant stone shoulders grew six titanic arms.
