Ten miles from the outer walls of the Vermilion Capital, the Grand Vermilion River widened into a vast, glassy basin.
Beyond the low river bluffs, the plains stretched flat and scorched under a blood-red sky. Where green wheat fields and plum orchards had flourished a month ago, the earth was now cracked into geometric fissures of boiling crimson light.
Six colossal obelisks carved from black basalt towered three hundred feet into the air, forming an unbroken crescent ring around the capital approaches.
These were the remaining six Dragon-Vein Lock Pillars.
Each pillar was wrapped in heavy star-iron chains and anchored to deep subterranean magma arteries. Above them, the city-wide sacrificial boundary burned with blinding, purple-tinted heat, locking ten million screaming citizens inside a colossal refining furnace.
The three southernmost pillars had fallen to Sera, Sterling, and Mina a week earlier.
To prevent the loss of the remaining six, the God-Emperor had deployed his most ruthless general: Royal Uncle Vermilion-Hound.
A massive fortified citadel stood anchored between the fourth and fifth pillars, flying the black-and-crimson banner of the Imperial Blood-Hound Corps.
