In Seven Blood Eyes, it was still considered the depths of autumn, but the cold of winter had already reached the Violet Lands. Wind carried the snow far and wide over the ancient capital city.

Crimson palaces and halls rose up, like a sea of jewels surrounded by pure white. The snow fell in flurries. Not many pedestrians were about, and those who were on the streets wore heavy jerkins. They didn’t bother sweeping the snow off, and thus it gathered on their heads and shoulders. The falling snow and the numb expressions on the faces of the pedestrians filled the city with a pervading sense of torpor and depression. 

This place embodied the spirit of the Violet Lands. It had once been the imperial capital of the entire continent of South Phoenix. Many millennia ago, there had been only one royal dynasty in South Phoenix, and it had been called the Sovereign Kingdom of Violet and Cyan. It had unified South Phoenix, and had taken Flame Phoenix as its totem. Unfortunately, it wasn’t able to survive the world’s descent into chaos and brutality.

When civil unrest struck, the Sovereign Kingdom of Violet and Cyan became a thing of the past. The royal clan and its wealth was divided among the rebel factions, and its bloodline fractured and declined. The dividing of the royal clan resulted...