The years passed with a disconcerting rapidity, as if time itself had been sucked in by the invisible gears of human ambition. Babylon now stood in its austere splendor, its three monumental towers dominating the narrow valley. Yet Konstantine had not contented himself with building a city of stone and knowledge; he had undertaken the work of his life, the one that would finally give meaning to his rebellion against the Constellations.
In the basement levels of the Tower of the Alchemists, where daylight never reached and where the air was laden with metallic odors mixed with iridescent fumes, the heterochromatic sorcerer conducted his most audacious experiments. Crystal cradles were aligned against the walls of damp stone, and these translucent structures were connected to each other by pipes of liquid mana that pulsed like still-warm veins. These cradles housed the first subjects of his genetic manipulations, beings whose very existence was an affront to the laws of nature.
