A thick purple vein pulsed against Ancestor Draven’s temple as the sixty-eight warships behind him drifted in stunned silence.
The ocean breeze carried the faint scent of dried jasmine blossoms across the ruined sea-gate. It was a bizarre, delicate aroma that had no business existing on a battlefield drenched in blood-mist.
Draven’s four spectral arms strained with apocalyptic force. The cursed iron shaft of his seventy-foot halberd creaked, yet the two pale fingers holding the blade did not waver by a single millimeter.
“Turnip mud?” Draven hissed, his voice trembling with sheer disbelief. “You dare speak of turnip mud to an Ancestor of the Blood-Star?”
Kaelen floated quietly in the air, his faded flannel bathrobe fluttering around his shins.
He took another unhurried sip from his celadon teacup, cradling the warm saucer in the palm of his right hand.
“The smell is unmistakable,” Kaelen said in a flat, conversational tone. “Cheap sulfur fillers. Five hundred years of unrefined slag. An alchemist who charges premium silver for pills that taste like burnt turnips should be flogged.”
A roar of pure madness tore from Draven’s throat.
