The screams echoing through the subterranean execution chamber of the Imperial Palace had long since lost their humanity.
They were reduced to the wet, ragged gasps of the dying, drowning in the smell of scorched ozone and vaporized blood.
Emperor Aurelius stood in the center of the carnage. The Ruler of the Central Empire, a 7th-Order Grand Mage whose very name usually demanded absolute reverence, looked nothing like a sovereign.
His pristine white-and-gold robes were stained a horrific, chaotic crimson.
A dwarven merchant, his beard singed and his heavy iron chains rattling against the blood-slicked stone, tried to crawl toward the heavy iron doors.
Aurelius snapped his fingers.
A concentrated beam of solar mana erupted from the Emperor's hand, instantly piercing the dwarf's chest.
The intense heat cauterized the wound a fraction of a second after blowing a hole straight through his heart.
