The ninth underground level of the Imperial Capital Dungeon, a deep prison where light never reaches.

The air here carries no scent of dust, only the pungent mixture of dampness, rust, and decay.

The walls are covered with mottled moss, blood long since seeping into the crevices, forming dark strands like some eerie heraldry.

Joseph Kadari, once a spirited Pioneer Noble of the Northern Territory.

Now reduced to a heap stripped of dignity, skin, and human form.

He curls up in the iron interrogation chair, hands hanging, ankles tightly bound by rusted chains, wounds festering, in a state even crows would disdain to look at.

He lowers his head, strands of hair cling together like dark ropes, indistinguishable from mud, blood, or tears.

"Speak, Lord Joseph,"

The interrogator on the right approaches with a smile, his mouth twitching, revealing misaligned teeth from burns, "This is your fourteenth confession. We want to hear the fifteenth."

Joseph does not answer.

He merely lifts his swollen eyelids, staring at the scarred face.

The other interrogator lazily steps forward, extends his prosthetic limb, and with a snap tears off a small patch of Joseph's unscabbed flesh.

"Ah... Ah–"

His scream seems unable to echo completely even in the dungeon, because the sound is too familiar, even the stone walls have grown numb.

Pain only compels him to repeat words he has spoken countless times.

Initially, amidst the cries he still pondered:

Who betrayed me?

What role did Louis play?

But now, Joseph no longer thinks, he only desires one thing: "Kill me... let me die... I beg you..."

He no longer remembers when he began to pray for death.

"Do you want to die?" the burnt-faced interrogator whispers, his tone almost flirtatious, "I'm sorry, the Emperor hasn't approved your death yet."

"Besides, we want to see how many times a proud dog can bark."

They laughed, as if sharing an incredibly amusing joke.

One dragged out his voice, the other sneered audibly.

Joseph listened to the laughter and began vomiting, yet he could not expel anything.

He was once the invincible strategist of the Northern Territory, spirited and commanding, yet now he cannot even articulate a sentence.

He began to envy those cellmates who died swiftly under the blade.

"It's just about done."

The interrogator with the metal prosthetic recorded Joseph's words once more, then flexed his wrist.

He seemed tired too, leaning against the damp stone wall and stretching: "He's said all he could, repeated it many times."

The one-eyed interrogator murmured lowly while rolling up the blood-stained parchment: "Information consistency is over ninety percent; discrepancies are less than two sentences."

"Hmm, probably can't extract anything new." The metal prosthetic nodded, "Send his confession, letter copies, accounts, and that correspondence letter up... directly to the Emperor."

"The Emperor should smile upon seeing these, right?"

"At least his lips would move."

They no longer bothered with Joseph trembling on the ground, leisurely packing up their tools, as casually as butchers cleaning their cutting boards.

Before leaving, they exchanged whispers about terms like "should be beheaded publicly."

Finally, the iron door closed with a click, the torch was extinguished, and the dungeon returned to stillness.

In the darkness, only one person remained whispering intermittently, mixed with blood froth: "I beg you... let me... die..."

Joseph's wish ultimately came true.

Three days later, Imperial Capital — Longyang Square.

This was the crossroads of the Empire's oldest and busiest main paths, half-sealed streets, patrolling troops sword in hand on guard, their positions like a forest.

A three-layer iron chain fence circled the plaza, nominally "prohibiting miscellaneous persons from approaching," but beyond the fence, crowds packed with onlookers.

This was the usual scene at Longyang Square.

Since the current Emperor's ascension, this place had become one of the Imperial Capital's most infamous "political purge execution grounds."

Every two or three days, a head would roll, the charges varied bizarrely, yet the most beheaded weren't ordinary folk, but former elites.

Disgraced nobility, merchants, officers, scholars, anyone who angered "the one above," couldn't meet a good end.

In recent years, this kind of "cleansing" had become even more frequent.

An old joke among the people goes: "If summoned to the Internal Affairs Hall for tea, family should order a coffin from the blacksmith."

Yet ironically, despite the bloodshed, the populace didn't feel fear.

"Here it comes again."

"Who is it? Do you know them?"

"Don't know, probably another noble who committed a crime."

"Heard it's the family selling arms? Anyway, with so many executions these years, I can't recall who's who."

Among the crowd, there are vendors selling seeds and roasted chestnuts, children riding on fathers' shoulders watching the spectacle, and old men squatting at the front holding their spots.

It all resembled a fair rather than a place of execution.

They could not see the charges posted on the platform, nor did they care who was on it.

They only knew that today another "powerful and influential person" was going to die.

In the plaza's center stood a solemn platform forged of cold iron, draped with black cloth.

Bulletins hung on all sides, inscribed with: [Treason, aiding the enemy, conspiring in Northern Territory unrest, deceiving the court]

Gold edges, silver pins, chillingly gleaming.

But in the eyes of the gathered crowd, it was merely "routine" decoration.

"Do you think he'll beg for mercy?"

"Nobility often act tough... but they sure scream when their heads roll."

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