Seven hundred miles northwest of Iron-Blood Pass, where the jagged volcanic ridges of the Black-Ash Mountains met the outer toxic marshes of the Ten-Thousand Peaks Calamity Forest, a cold, gray autumn rain hissed against the hot black stones of a hidden hillside cavern.
Inside the cavern, protected from the rain by an overhanging shelf of basalt and a simple concealment array etched into the mud by Corbin's sword, four battered men sat around a sputtering fire of dry iron-wood branches.
They were Flame King Feng Xiao, Sea Devil Long Chen, Soul Eater Qin Wu, and Corbin.
