A deep, rhythmic thrumming shook the continent from its granite roots.
From the northern tundra of Frost-Reach to the southern salt marshes of Iron-River, the earth shuddered under the pull of a colossal invisible pump. Across thirty provinces, one hundred and eight Blood-Tax Altars flared with blinding scarlet light.
The sky above thirty thousand leagues turned the color of bruised flesh.
In three hundred mountain valleys, the mist did not evaporate in the morning heat. It turned dark red, clinging to the pine needles and rising in swirling vortexes toward the clouds.
Millions of cultivators felt the sudden, sickening drain in their lower bellies.
In roadside tea houses, in sect meditation halls, and across peasant farming plots, men and women dropped their tools. Their dantians grew icy cold. Faint threads of scarlet vapor were wrenched from their pores, rising into the upper air like millions of thin red strings.
Far to the west, in Seven-Tower Alchemy City, Master Bao stood atop the central guild tower.
Around him, two thousand apprentice alchemists tended twelve defensive array cauldrons, trying to shield the outer residential wards from the atmospheric siphon. The red sky reflected in Master Bao’s copper goggles as he watched the imperial censors’ war-kites circle high above the city walls.
