Somewhere in the Midlands, where the sky hung dark as if veiled with a blood-red curtain and the earth looked long dead and rotten, a group of black-robed figures knelt on dry, lifeless, foul-smelling soil.
There were hundreds of them, but even the weakest of them exuded the aura of a Rank 4 Practitioner, waiting in total silence, unmoving, kneeling on the dead soil, heads bowed, and all facing the same direction.
All of them were strong enough to found a kingdom and rule their own lands in the Outer Region, yet the place where they now knelt as if in worship held nothing grand. There was no towering palace, no sacred monument, only a small pond of blood with a small body lying calmly on its back on the still surface.
It was a baby.
Its tiny hands were clenched into fists and resting on its chest, giving it the illusion of peaceful sleep, harmless at first glance.
