The Grand Hall of Vael was built to intimidate, and it succeeded. It was a neutral ground, a needle of white marble piercing the clouds of the central mountain range, technically owned by no nation but funded by the fear of all. It was here, at thirty thousand feet, that the world decided who starved and who feasted.
Ambassador Kaelen of the Ironclad Empire swirled the wine in his glass. It was a vintage from Oravus, the Northern valleys—a deep, brooding red. A rare thing, now that the borders had been tightening for months.
He frowned. The wine wasn't moving right. The liquid lagged behind the glass, a micro-second of inertia that shouldn't exist.
"The rumors are getting theatrical," Kaelen murmured, leaning against the balcony railing. Below them, the clouds drifted like slow, white oceans, but the wind sounded shrill, like a bow drawn across a broken violin string.
Matriarch Vanya of the Free Trade Coalition adjusted her silk shawl. She didn't drink. She watched. Her eyes, augmented with intricate brass clockwork lenses, clicked softly as they zoomed in on a cluster of diplomats near the buffet.
"Theatrical is useful," Vanya replied, her voice a dry scratch, like parchment sliding over stone. "But specificity is better. My sources say it wasn't just a coup attempt. They say someone tried to murder King Aethelred in his own throne room."
Kaelen snorted, a harsh sound that made a passing server flinch. "Aethelred? The man is a paranoid recluse. He hasn't been seen in public for three years. You can't assassinate a ghost."
"You can if you burn the haunted house down," Vanya countered. "There was an explosion. A gas main, they said. But my seismic readers in the border towns picked up a Lattice tremor. A sharp one. Like a bone snapping."
They fell silent. Around them, the cocktail party buzzed with the polite, venomous energy of high diplomacy. Representatives from the southern Theocracies were arguing with the Technocrat Envoys about import tariffs on mana-crystals. It was business as usual. The world turned on the axis of greed and leverage.
But the air felt… thin.
Kaelen loosened his collar. He felt a strange pressure in his ears, a popping sensation, like the drop in altitude before a catastrophic storm. The crystal chandeliers overhead began to chime, though there was no breeze.
"Do you feel that?" Kaelen asked, his hand drifting to the sidearm concealed beneath his dress coat.
Vanya frowned. She tapped the side of her temple, checking her internal barometer. The gears in her eyes spun frantically. "Pressure drop. Significant. Is a storm coming?"
"No," a third voice joined them.
High Priestess Iana of the Sanctum walked up. She was blind, her eyes covered by a band of silver cloth, but she saw more than anyone in the room. She was trembling, shivering.
"Not a storm," Iana whispered, clutching her staff so hard her knuckles were white. "An amputation."
Kaelen straightened, his military bearing taking over. "Explain, Priestess."
"The Song," Iana gasped, tilting her head as if listening to a distant scream that only dogs could hear. "The Song of the World… a verse just went silent. A massive, screaming silence."
Before Kaelen could ask what that meant, the massive oak doors to the Grand Hall slammed open.
BOOM.
It wasn't a servant. It wasn't a standard courier.
It was a Void-Runner—a specialist messenger used only for catastrophic, Class-A emergencies. The runner was covered in frost, but not from weather. It was the frost of absolute entropy. His skin was grey, his lips blue, his eyes wide with a terror that bypassed discipline and went straight to madness.
He stumbled into the room, his boots skidding on the polished marble.
The music stopped. The chatter died. The silence that followed was heavy, suffocating. The crystal chandeliers stopped chiming.
"Lord Kaelen!" the Runner screamed, spotting the Imperial uniform. He didn't bow. He didn't salute. He fell to his knees, gasping for air that felt too thick for his lungs.
"Report," Kaelen barked, stepping forward. The entire room turned to watch. This was theater, but unscripted.
"We lost contact," the Runner choked out. "The relay station at the Northern Border... it went dark. So we sent a gryphon rider to investigate."
"And?" Vanya stepped in, her clockwork eyes spinning rapidly, recording every micro-expression. "Did they shoot him down? Has Oravus declared war?"
The Runner looked up. His face was a mask of impossibility.
"No, Matriarch. There was no one to shoot him down."
The Runner swallowed, his voice trembling so hard it cracked.
"The border is gone."
"Gone?" Kaelen frowned. "They closed the checkpoint?"
"No!" The Runner shrieked, hysteria taking over. "The land! The mountains! The sky! It's gone!"
He gestured wildly to the north.
"There is a grey wall! A dome! It cuts through the ocean, it cuts through the bedrock! We saw a flock of geese fly into it... they just stopped. They didn't hit a wall, they just... ceased to be! We tried to tunnel under, but the earth stops! Everything behind the 54th parallel is just... grey!"
The room erupted.
Denial. Laughter. Anger. The sound of a hundred powerful people realizing they were powerless.
"Preposterous!" a Technocrat shouted, spilling his drink. "A dome covering a continent? The energy requirements would drain the sun!"
"It's a trick!" a General roared. "An illusion! They are masking troop movements!"
"Silence!"
The voice wasn't loud, but it carried the weight of a gavel strike. It resonated in the bones of everyone present.
The Elder of the Summit, a being whose skin was etched with the living history of the First Era, stood up from his high seat. He raised a withered hand, and the room's ambient mana froze. The noise died instantly.
"Verify," the Elder commanded.
A holographic map materialized in the center of the room, projected from the floor. It showed the world—the sprawling continents, the oceans, the ley lines glowing in intricate blue webs.
"Update topography," the Elder ordered.
The map flickered.
The northern continent, the landmass of Oravus, blinked.
And then it turned black.
Not the black of territory, but the black of Void. Data failure. The land simply ceased to exist at the border. The ley lines that usually flowed through Oravus, connecting the East to the West, were severed. They flailed wildly at the edge of the black zone, bleeding raw magical energy into the ocean like severed arteries.
A collective gasp sucked the oxygen out of the room.
"By the Gods," Iana whispered, horror dawning on her face. "They didn't just hide. They left the server."
Kaelen stared at the map. He was a man of war. He understood sieges. He understood blockades. He understood borders. But this?
This was a country taking its ball and going home, but taking the stadium with them.
"The ocean currents..." Vanya muttered, her face pale as she read the scrolling data projected in her lenses. "Without the northern landmass to break the swell... the displacement... The tsunamis will hit the Eastern Coast in four hours."
"Forget the water!" The Technocrat yelled, pointing at the projection. "The Lattice! Look at the tension lines! The Global Lattice is trying to bridge a gap that is no longer there! If we don't stabilize the surrounding reality, the neighboring countries will unravel!"
Chaos. Absolute, unbridled panic.
Diplomats were screaming into communication stones. Generals were shouting orders to mobilize fleets that had nowhere to sail. Priests were falling to their knees, praying to gods who were likely just as confused by the sudden vacancy in creation.
"Seal the room," Kaelen said.
He didn't shout. He said it to his personal guard, a whisper of steel.
"Sir?" the guard asked, eyes wide.
"I said seal the damn room," Kaelen growled. "No one leaves. If the world is falling apart, we decide how it lands."
The heavy doors groaned shut, the locks engaging with a final thud, locking the panic inside.
Kaelen walked to the center of the room, near the holographic map of the void. He looked at Vanya. He looked at Iana. He looked at the representatives of the Great Powers.
"Sit down," Kaelen commanded.
"You don't have the authority—" a southern diplomat started, his face red.
Kaelen drew his sidearm—a heavy, magical revolver etched with runes—and placed it on the table.
Clack.
"We just lost a continent," Kaelen said, his voice cold iron. "Authority is whoever is still standing. Sit. Down."
Slowly, one by one, the representatives took their seats around the massive circular table. The fear was palpable. It smelled like sweat and spilled wine.
"We have three problems," Vanya said, her voice shaking but her logic intact. "One: The environmental fallout of a missing continent. Two: The magical backlash on the Global Lattice. And Three..."
She pointed a trembling finger at the black void on the map.
"...What happens when that dome comes down?"
High Priestess Iana raised her head. "It won't just come down. A seal of that magnitude... It requires a cost. A sacrifice of biblical proportions. And when the debt is paid..."
She turned her blindfolded face toward the gathered leaders.
"...Whatever comes out of that cage will be hungry."
Kaelen looked at the map. He saw the black hole where Oravus used to be. He didn't see a missing country. He saw a cocoon.
"We need a Containment Protocol," Kaelen said. "We don't treat this as a disappearance. We treat this as a hostile incubation."
"We can't declare war on a country we can't touch!" the Technocrat argued.
"We don't declare war," Kaelen corrected. "We build a wall around the wall. We blockade the nothingness. We form a perimeter, and we point every cannon, every spell, and every prayer we have at that grey dome."
He looked around the table, meeting the eyes of the world's most powerful people.
"Oravus didn't leave to hide. They left to change. And when they come back... I don't think they're going to want to negotiate tariffs."
"Then it is decided," the Elder said, his voice grave. "We form the Alliance of the Ring. We surround the Void."
"Wait," Vanya interrupted. "If they are sealed... what is happening inside? To the people? To the resources?"
Kaelen stared at the black void. He imagined the darkness. He imagined the desperation. He imagined a King who would burn his own land just to rule the ashes.
"Inside?" Kaelen whispered.
"Inside... it's evolution. Or extinction."
He poured himself another glass of the Oravus wine. He stared at the dark red liquid—the last blood of a dead nation.
He drank it in one gulp. It tasted like ash.
"God help them," Kaelen said, slamming the glass down. "Because we certainly can't."
END OF ARC 1