Circe was sitting inside a grand hall where there were a thousand elaborate platforms set up. She had organized their arrangement in a circular pattern with her in the middle. For the last eight months, it had been an endless whirlwind of activity as she prepared the candidates selected for the last stage of Ascendance.
The first stage was the selection stage where Circe had to find the right people who were not just hungry for power but carried a great grudge against the seven royal families of Trion.
Not surprisingly it was incredibly easy for Circe to find people like this, from rebels and freedom fighters to maids and gardeners… entire generations over the last million years who were nothing but slaves, their lives worth less than dust.
During the selection process, Circe had been able to come across the seedy underbelly of the Empire and she almost wept in anger and sorrow over the suffering that countless billions had endured over the millennia.