The sky above the Jiuzhou Continent didn’t simply darken. It curdled.
Across one hundred thousand miles of troposphere, the azure high sky congealed into an oily soup of bruised violet, charcoal, and screaming magenta star-fire.
Earth-shaking plates three thousand miles away groaned in sympathetic agony. Deep within the bedrock of the Heaven-Piercing Ascension Summit, granite seams shook at forty-seven hertz. It shook loose pebbles that bounced down the sheer cliff edge into the swirling cloud sea below.
It was the kind of sky that made mortal emperors draft abdication scrolls and ancient sect patriarchs cry into their silken sleeves.
“The Extinction Tribulation of the First Epoch...” murmured Saint Preceptor Kong, his white beard trembling as he clutched his jade measuring ruler.
The revered leader of the Master Teacher Pavilion sank onto one knee upon the flat stone slabs of Tongtian Apex. His eyes reflected the churning vortex above.
“Ten million leagues of ancient thunder marrow,” Grandmaster Tie Ji rasped. His thick hands shook as his heavy casting tongs clattered against the stone floor. “The sacred scrolls spoke of this only once. When Heaven decides a great realm has overstepped its mortal boundaries, it deploys the Ninefold Extinction Canopy. Not even ash will remain.”
