Across the Central Ring plaza, three ominous black dreadnoughts hovered over the ancient terracotta rooftops of the Alchemy District.
Their heavy plasma cannons pointed directly down at the courtyard of the Grand Alchemy Hall. Red laser targeting grids painted the carved stone pillars, sizzling against the weathered masonry. The deep hum of their anti-matter engines rattled the roof tiles like an ongoing earthquake.
Inside the grand hall, two million alchemists, herbalists, and apprentices stood in tense, solemn silence.
Seventy-two ancestral cauldrons stood in a grand circle, radiating faint, flickering heat. At the head of the assembly stood Grand Alchemist Pill-Cloud. He was a tall, stoic elder with a flowing silver beard and calm, dignified eyes. In his right hand, he held a dragon-headed staff carved from thousand-year peach wood.
Before him stood Deacon Mo, the chief enforcer of Vault #6.
Deacon Mo wore spiked steel gauntlets and waved a heavy parchment roll stamped with the black wax seals of the Usury Syndicate.
“Grand Alchemist Pill-Cloud!” Deacon Mo barked, his voice dripping with venomous arrogance. “Ancestor Xue Qidan is failing by the hour! The Council of Ancestors has issued an absolute emergency decree! All seventy-two sects must pool your earth-fire cauldrons and refine the Nine-Reversion Blood-Resurrection Pill before dawn!”
