At eleven-forty in the morning, twenty minutes before the noon default deadline, the air above Sector Four smelled of smoke and pine timber.
A convoy of five thousand heavy transport skiffs had just arrived at the Central Refugee Plains.
Two thousand four hundred mid-tier sect masters leaped down from the cargo beds.
Their bright yellow debtor vests were smeared with soot, stone dust, and sweat, but their posture was straight and proud.
Behind them, millions of displaced mortal families emerged from their newly built stone homes, watching in stunned silence.
The sect masters were not carrying weapons.
Instead, they began unloading countless brass chests, iron trunks, and sealed storage sacks.
They carried ancestral spirit-grain reserves, stolen heirloom talismans, and land-deed scrolls that their sects had unjustly confiscated over hundreds of years.
