Duke Mordent's head lay still by the shattered window, but his death was not an end. It was merely the overture to a much larger horror.
WUUUUUUU—!!
The shrill, piercing wail of anti-air sirens erupted across the Iron City. The Mid-Sector of the Black Prison, previously a chaotic sea of fire, was suddenly sliced open by dozens of blinding, high-intensity searchlights. In the distance, three massive [Adjudicator-IV] heavy armored carriers roared through the air, their pale exhaust flames trailing behind them as they sped along the administrative district's mag-rails.
Standing atop each carrier were Executioners clad in pristine white robes, their faces hidden behind cold, metallic masks.
"It's the Adjudication Trial Squad..." Su Qingyue leaned against the stone pillar, her eyes reflecting a hollow despair. She could feel three rapidly approaching auras, at least two of which belonged to [Blood-Engraving Realm] Vice-Captains. For the current Gu Hanzhou, this was nothing short of a death sentence.
Gu Hanzhou dropped to one knee, gasping for air. As the heavy gate in his sea of consciousness slammed shut, the flow of Order-energy in his body felt as if it had been flash-frozen. The Imperial Gold blood that once surged like a Great River had been throttled down to a mere trickle.
Early-stage Blood-Ignition.
In the face of the Trial Squad, this level of power was as fragile as an ant beneath a boot.
"Hanzhou... leave me..." Gu Qingshan murmured again from the edge of unconsciousness. The side effects of the Biological Lock's removal were causing his internal organs to fail at an accelerated rate.
Gu Hanzhou said nothing. Mechanically, he reached into his tunic and pulled out the blood-soaked scroll, his fingertips digging into the dried, crusty gore on the surface.
"Mordent said... this blood is called the 'Reverse Scale of Eternal Night,' a curse." Gu Hanzhou's voice was a jagged rasp, filled with a madness that refused to yield. "If it's a curse, then let it curse my very life as well."
He snapped his head up, looking at Su Qingyue. "Su Qingyue, are you dead yet?"
Su Qingyue startled, then offered a bitter, weary smile. "I have just enough Primal Blood left to ignite my divine sense one last time. What are you planning?"
"Beneath the administrative hall of the tower lies the abandoned gravity-refuse chute. It leads directly to the sewage canals at the very bottom of the mines." Gu Hanzhou pointed toward the floor beneath them. "I need your [True Vision] to find the structural stress point of this composite armor plating. I don't have enough Order-energy left; I have to trigger a precision collapse."
"You want to use a free-fall to escape? That's a bottomless abyss down there!"
"Fall, and there is a slim chance of life. Stay, and death is certain."
Gu Hanzhou lunged to his feet, refastening Gu Qingshan to his back with the chains. His movements were crude but precise, seemingly oblivious to the agonizing pain of the "Dead-Qi" wounds in his shoulders.
At that moment, the first [Judgment Holy Light] missile locked onto the tower's apex.
BOOM—!!
A corner of the tower vanished into ash. The violent shockwave sent the three of them tumbling across the floor.
"There! Scion of the Reverse Scale, submit to your execution!"
Three white-robed Blood-Engraving Adjudicators crashed through the shattered windows. Their heavy "Judgment Greatswords" radiated a holy, yet freezing white light. Under that radiance, the dark-gold energy within Gu Hanzhou's body began to sizzle and hiss, suppressed by the holy attribute.
"NOW!" Gu Hanzhou roared.
Su Qingyue's eyes erupted with a blinding violet glare. Her vision pierced through layers of alloy flooring, filtering through the mess of structural lines until she locked onto a single, vibrating red dot.
"Three meters to your right! The center of the load-bearing axis!"
Gu Hanzhou moved. He drained the very last drop of Imperial Gold blood from his dantian, condensing it all into the tip of [Black Order].
Due to the suppression of the Consciousness Shackle, this strike lacked any earth-shattering visual effects. It looked dim, almost mundane.
[Dark Order · Piercing Bore]!
CLANG!!
The tip of the blade struck the crack in the load-bearing axis with surgical precision.
The floor, already loosened by the earlier explosion of the Inverted Tower, finally lost its structural integrity. Ten square meters of reinforced metal shrieked in mechanical agony before collapsing inward.
"Thinking of fleeing? Leave your life behind!"
One Adjudicator swung his blade in mid-air, unleashing a white crescent of sword-qi aimed directly at Gu Hanzhou's back.
As he began to fall, Gu Hanzhou twisted his body in mid-air. He didn't block. He chose to take the hit with his left shoulder to protect the two people he was holding.
SHLICK!
Blood erupted in a gruesome spray. Gu Hanzhou's entire left arm was nearly severed at the root, the bone shattering under the impact. But he used that terrifying momentum to pull Su Qingyue and his father closer, accelerating their descent into the pitch-black refuse chute.
"Madman..."
The Adjudicator stood at the edge of the jagged hole, watching the darkness swallow them. His eyes twitched. The vertical drop of that sewage chute exceeded two kilometers. Even a Blood-Engraving expert jumping down would likely be incinerated by air friction or pulverized by the kinetic energy upon impact.
"He won't survive. Notify the ground search teams. Intercept the corpses at the sewage outlet at the bottom of the mines."
The Adjudicator gave the cold command.
Within the howling wind of the abyss, Gu Hanzhou kept his eyes shut.
He felt the white-hot agony in his shoulder, the shallow, rattling breath of his father, and Su Qingyue's hands gripping his tunic with everything she had left.
The shackle in his mind remained heavily closed, silent and cold. But in the weightlessness of the fall, Gu Hanzhou felt a freedom he had never known in his ten years of slavery.
"Mordent, you were wrong."
"Hell... is my home."
The three of them transformed into a falling star, vanishing into the depths of the eternal night.