High above the central rostrum of Mount Apex, the cold wind reeked of burning brimstone.
Scribe Lord Mo Sha perched upon his rusted pig-iron throne like a black glass gargoyle. He grabbed his second metal pen in trembling, blackened fingers.
The first dragon-bone metal pen lay shattered at his feet, reduced to dead chalk by Shen Shitou’s newly stamped star-iron collarbone.
“Mortal insolence,” Mo Sha hissed, his black glass eyes bulging with manic, curdled fury. “You anchored one brute with physical steel. But what’s steel against the royal lineage of an empire? What’s mortal iron against the old family destiny of heaven?!”
Mo Sha raised the jagged nether-brimstone metal pen above the open page of the Grimoire of Absolute Erasure.
On the thick parchment rested the glowing vermilion characters recording the royal bloodline of the Great Southern Empire.
At the very apex of the lineage, surrounded by dancing tiny golden dragons, was the name:
Jiang Ling’er.
