The Dragon Emperor's massive body shifted slightly as he regarded Mo Xuan. The ancient sorcerer trembled, his crystallized soul energy flickering like a dying flame.
"You expected me to be your prize," the Emperor said, his voice made the broken chamber resonate. "A power to be claimed, a body to be possessed. How small your vision has always been."
Mo Xuan tried to speak, to explain his grand design, but the words got caught in his throat. The being before him was so far beyond anything he had prepared for that his millennia of planning seemed like a child's game.
"I will not be the one to end you," the Dragon Emperor continued, and for a moment, hope flickered in Mo Xuan's eyes. "That honor belongs to another."
The Emperor's gaze shifted upward, toward his own massive back, and Mo Xuan's hope died as quickly as it had been born.
"I have remade our friend."
All eyes in the chamber turned to follow the Emperor's gaze, and what they saw surprised them.
