Heavy iron boots pounded against the spiral ramp of the Seventh Tower at noon on Day 15.
Blood-Cauldron Master Vex was not a man who knocked on doors.
As Grandmaster Volkov’s chief inquisitor, Vex had spent thirty years terrorizing the alchemy towers. He wore crimson enforcer robes stitched from the hide of fire-drakes, and his Nascent Soul Mid aura burned like a suffocating furnace.
Behind him marched twenty elite inquisitors clad in spiked iron mail, carrying barbed chains and heavy execution glaives.
On the third floor, terrified apprentices scrambled into coal chutes to get out of the inquisitor’s path.
Down on the fourth floor, Elder Mordan had caught one glimpse of Vex’s scarlet robes and immediately dived behind a stack of empty charcoal barrels. The old elder was quivering in terror, desperately clutching his jade pill boxes against his chest.
Vex ignored the trembling cowards and climbed straight to the fifth floor.
“Elder Mordan!” Vex bellowed as he reached the landing.
