(Emperor Zhao Shen Awakens from Mind-Control)
The silence in the royal bedchamber was so deep that the soft crackle of candle wax sounded like tiny thunderclaps.
On the massive sandalwood dragon bed, the transformation unfolding across the monarch’s body was nothing short of miraculous. With the Grade-6 Abyssal Soul-Slug digested inside Lin Xiao’s Primordial Chaos Dantian and the underground bone altar reduced to ash, the foul rotting tether that had strangled the sovereign’s soul ocean for a decade was cut forever.
Like dark ink washed away by a surge of mountain spring water, the oily black veins etched across Emperor Zhao Tai’s parchment-pale cheeks began to dissolve. The sickly grayish-purple hue that had shadowed his hollow temples faded, replaced by the faint, healthy pink of circulating blood. The dry, crusty sores around his lips smoothed over, and the shallow, rattling death-gasp that had scraped his throat gave way to a deep, smooth breath in.
HUUUUUUU...
The seventy-eight-year-old ruler drew in a lungful of crisp, starlight-infused air. The first uncorrupted breath he had tasted in ten painful years.
Suddenly, deep within the monarch’s lower belly, a spark of royal divinity ignited.
THUMP.
