The Ten Thousand Beasts Mountain Range, once a jagged landscape of impenetrable peaks and ancient forests, had been scarred into a hollow memory two years prior.
It had become a battleground of such catastrophic intensity that the common folk whispered not even a blade of grass would grow there for a century.
But nature is indifferent to the wars of men.
Two years were enough for the world to begin hiding the jagged traces of that day; wild grass had begun to carpet the scorched earth, emerald vines and thick moss clung to the shattered boulders, and hardy tree saplings were already sprouting from the silt.
The only permanent scar was the massive, unnatural plain—a literal erasure of several mountains that had once acted as a barrier.
Now, the Eastern Region sat exposed to the vast, lawless wilderness outside the empire, a gateway for both opportunity and ruin.
