The black-crimson cloud boiled across the evening sky like a churning sea of toxic blood.
At the center of the tempest, Sima Kuang’s robes tore open in the raging gale, revealing heavy chest armor forged from cursed Netherworld bronze.
His hair whipped wildly around his shoulders, his eyes completely submerged in foul, crimson madness.
“Lower-realm filth!” Sima Kuang roared, his voice reverberating through the heavens like cracked thunder. “You dare mock the Central Heavenly Capital?! You dare repossess an imperial flagship?! My brother is Grand Preceptor Sima Quan! My bloodline has served the Dragon Throne for eight thousand years! Today, I will wash Taichu Sanctuary City in rivers of boiling blood!”
The three-thousand-foot spectral blood-guillotine suspended above the city trembled violently, casting an ominous black shadow over every building and street.
Carved along its obsidian blade were screaming soul-faces, the tortured remnants of innocent peasants from the twelve drought-relief provinces he had starved to death over centuries of embezzlement.
A suffocating, bone-chilling pressure pressed down upon the mountain valley, threatening to crack the outer defensive barrier like an eggshell.
Down in the square, Grandma Chen gripped her wooden rolling pin tightly, her knuckles white with rage. “That monster... how many innocent lives did he consume to brew that foul blade?! He dares call himself an imperial official?!”
