The words had barely left Lin Mo’s lips when the world went dark.
It was not the slow creeping darkness of dusk, nor the heavy shadow of a storm cloud. It was a sudden, violent tearing of the firmament itself.
KRA-KOOOOOOM!
A sound like a thousand continents colliding ripped through the stratosphere above the Central Heavenly Capital. The azure sky tore open down the middle like a piece of cheap silk, exposing the cold, pitch-black void of outer space.
High above the clouds, the ancient Nine-Province Astral Star-Road Gate ignited with sickly crimson lightning.
The gate was a colossal ring of petrified stellar iron, ten miles in diameter, built in the primordial era when the planet still traded with the wider cosmos. For ten thousand years, it had slumbered in silent orbit, sealed by ancient ancestors who sought to protect the realm from off-world predators. Now, fueled by the pulsing violet beacon beneath the palace, the ancient gate groaned to life.
Through the tear in the void, three colossal shadows drifted slowly into the planetary atmosphere.
They were not wooden flying boats. They were not spirit-beasts or cloud-chariots.
