Passing through the Great Hall, now a graveyard of bullet-riddled marble and cooling corpses, Gu Hanzhou stepped into the Administrative Sector of the Black Prison.
He had expected a crossfire of heavy turrets or the metallic clank of heavy-duty security mechs. Instead, he was met by a wide, sterile white corridor that felt unnervingly clinical. The overhead lights, damaged by the internal power fluctuations, flickered with a rhythmic bzzzt-zt, casting long, jagged shadows across the polished floor.
At the end of that flickering path stood a silent army.
They wore the tattered remnants of Inquisition uniforms, but the men inside were no longer human. Some had exposed wires from crude prosthetic limbs hanging out of their sockets. Every single one of them stood with their heads bowed, their skin a sickly, ashen grey. Beneath their translucent flesh, dark-purple veins pulsed and writhed like a nest of parasitic worms.
But it was their eyes that chilled the blood—they had no pupils. In their place were two hollow pits filled with a milky white fog, the signature side-effect of a massive overdose of "Sin-Washing Elixir."
"They're... The Fallen," Su Qingyue whispered into Gu Hanzhou's ear, her fingers digging into his shoulder in a death-grip. "Mordent... that monster... he pushed all the wounded soldiers and low-level administrators into the Sin-Washing Vats. Their pain receptors have been cauterized, and their cerebral cortexes dissolved by the chemicals. Now, they are nothing but living slabs of meat."
Gu Hanzhou came to a halt, the blade of [Black Order] tilting slightly to the side.
He could feel the aura emanating from this crowd—it was thick, viscous, and utterly chaotic. This wasn't a battle of skill or strategy. This was a war of attrition, a psychological meat grinder designed by Duke Mordent to drain Gu Hanzhou's physical and spiritual reserves until he had nothing left but despair.
"Heh—!"
There was no battle cry. No command.
As if controlled by a single hive-mind, The Fallen raised their heads in unison. A guttural, beast-like lowing erupted from their throats, and then they surged forward—a grey, tide-like flood of rotting flesh rushing down the white corridor.
Gu Hanzhou's gaze remained frozen. Behind him, Gu Qingshan let out a violent, hacking cough in his coma. Every vibration of his father's body sent a jolt of pain through Gu Hanzhou's fractured ribs, reminding him of his own mortality.
"You want to drown me in meat?"
A cruel, razor-sharp smile tugged at the corner of Gu Hanzhou's mouth. The Imperial Gold blood in his heart began to roar, sounding like a tidal wave crashing into the shore. "Then before I fall, I'll pave this entire hallway with your shattered bones!"
[Dark Order · Flow-Sever]!
Gu Hanzhou lunged. He became a blur of dark-gold light, his speed so intense it left an afterimage against the white walls. He swung the blade in a wide, horizontal arc, sending a crescent of energy screaming through the air.
PLAP—SHLICK!
The first row of five Fallen was instantly bifurcated at the waist.
However, a sight that would turn a lesser man's stomach inside-out followed: the bisected creatures didn't even flinch. Their faces remained expressionless as they used their pale, bony fingers to claw at the marble floor, dragging their spilling intestines and severed torsos forward. They didn't care about their missing halves; they only cared about sinking their teeth into Gu Hanzhou's ankles.
No pain. No fear. As long as the central brain stem remained intact, their hunt would never end.
"Madness," Gu Hanzhou hissed. He brought his boot down, crushing the skull of a creature trying to grab his thigh into a slurry of grey matter.
He began to shift his rhythm. He stopped using wide, sweeping strikes that wasted energy. Instead, he condensed his Order-energy into a single point at the tip of his blade, dancing through the crowd like a surgeon of death.
Thrust. Twist. Pull.
Thrust. Twist. Pull.
Gu Hanzhou moved through the gaps of the monsters with high-speed precision. He was a perfect killing machine. Every time he stepped past a Fallen, a new hole appeared in their forehead, and they collapsed like puppets with their strings cut.
But there were too many. Mordent had released ten years' worth of "Inventory" from the prison's vats.
Slowly, Gu Hanzhou's breathing became heavy and labored. His black tactical gear was drenched in a thick, foul-smelling black sludge—the chemical-laden blood of The Fallen. The pile of corpses was growing so high it reached his shins, dragging at his movements and slowing his pace.
An armless Fallen seized a moment when Gu Hanzhou paused for air. It lunged with unnatural agility, its jaw—filled with jagged, rotted teeth—snapping toward Gu Hanzhou's throat.
"Die!"
Gu Hanzhou didn't have time to swing his sword. He thrust his left hand out, his fingers curling into a claw. He seized the creature's jaw, and a burst of dark-gold energy exploded from his fingertips, vaporizing the monster's head from the inside out.
But for every one he killed, three more hands grabbed at his shoulders, his legs, and his coat.
"Gu Hanzhou! They're going to bury you!" Su Qingyue cried out. She tried to use her Primal Blood suppression, but these soulless husks were immune to mental influence.
A massive weight of negativity began to settle over the corridor. The collective death-energy of the Fallen was forming a dampening field, interfering with the rotation of the dark-gold vortex in Gu Hanzhou's heart.
In that moment of suffocation, another flash from the "Ancient Court's Fall" vision seared through his mind.
He remembered the titan figure in the dark. Faced with ten thousand chains, the warrior didn't just slash—he transformed the very essence of his will into a Heavenly Fire.
"As long as the Order-Blood flows... the Ancient Court shall never fade..."
Gu Hanzhou felt a sudden moment of enlightenment. He closed his eyes, ignoring the cold, rotting hands clawing at his skin. He stopped fighting the tide and instead allowed the Imperial Gold blood within him to reach its boiling point.
"BEGONE!"
With a roar that shook the entire sector, the energy radiating from Gu Hanzhou changed. It was no longer just a blade-light; it manifested as a visible ring of dark-gold fire, crackling with arcs of divine electricity.
[Dark Order · Ash-Blight]!
This was the "Purification" attribute of the Royal Blood.
Any Fallen touched by the ring of fire suffered an immediate, violent reaction. The Sin-Washing Elixir in their veins acted as fuel, igniting instantly. Their resilient, dead flesh didn't just burn; it carbonized and crumbled into ash in a matter of seconds.
The corridor fell into a sudden, haunting silence.
Gu Hanzhou stood in the center of the devastation, a faint halo of golden flame still licking around his body. The severed arms and hands that had been clutching him dissolved into grey dust and blew away in the draft. He lifted his head toward the end of the administrative block. High above, behind a massive observation window in the central tower, a pale, withered figure was staring down at him.
Duke Mordent.
Gu Hanzhou slowly raised [Black Order], the flaming tip of the blade pointing directly at the Duke's heart.
"I've cleared this floor. Mordent, prepare your neck."
With a staggered but unbreakable stride, carrying the weight of his father and the life of the girl, Gu Hanzhou walked toward the tower that symbolized the peak of the Iron City's power. Behind him, the hundred-meter corridor was a scorched wasteland. Not a single corpse remained whole.