Era beginning/end
Making a deal with the far off Aenorian Empire of the High Lamia, the up and coming Tyrant Cao Lu invited the legendarily dangerous High Lamia into his burgeoning empire as his royal guard - using them to drive off the High Human Hegemony of Man from Zheng-Kitar, tricking the High Lamia and the Princess that led them and luring them in with false promises to get them to support him in his insidious rise to power.