The midnight hour chimed from the bronze water-clock in the bathhouse row of stone pillars. Then, the high sky heavens reached a moment of transcendent stillness.
For ten thousand years, the skies above the Azure Cloud Realm had been graced by two moons. The ancient Silver Moon, vast and pearl-white, which governed the ocean tides and the Yin-cycles of the earth. And the Azure Moon, a smaller, glowing sapphire sky sphere that governed the high spiritual winds and the leylines of the stratosphere.
In ancient myth and dark astrological prophecies, the rare convergence of the two moons was feared as a world-ending omen. Thousand years ago, when the moons approached conjunction, the unstable gravity forces would rip open sea trenches, shatter coastal breakwaters, and provoke violent beast tides across the nine continents. Ancient empires would shutter their gates, light scared bright light fires, and offer bloody sacrifices to appease the raging heavens.
Tonight, on the eve of the culmination of five hundred years of peace, the two moons met once more.
Yet there was no disaster. There were no tidal waves or world-ending storms.
Having been cleansed of cosmic void breakdown and nourished by Lin Xiao’s Primordial Genesis Dew, the sky bodies drifted together in total, heat-powered harmony. Rising slowly above the eastern horizon of the Floating Mountain, the Silver Moon and the Azure Moon climbed into flawless sky-high conjunction.
