Anxiety had begun to spread through Lysna City, the great port-metropolis nearest to Eclipse Island.
At first, it was subtle—too subtle for commoners to understand. Ships that should have remained for days of celebration instead arrived early at the city's outer portals, their crews pale and silent. Noble envoys departed without ceremony. Delegations vanished into teleportation light without explanation.
Those with cultivation felt it first.
The higher-realm citizens sensed violent fluctuations in the world's breath—pressure waves rippling through ley lines, spatial distortions crawling across the horizon like invisible storms. The weaker could not sense it, but they heard it: distant thunder that did not belong to the sky, roars that echoed across oceans.
Then Aeterna Gratia began.
What should have been a joyous alignment of moon and sun—an auspicious eclipse revered by the Astiel for generations—became a herald of catastrophe.
The eclipse darkened the sky.
