The universe held its breath.
Outside the subterranean sanctuary, the world was bathed in a ghostly, bruised twilight. The sun was gone, replaced by a perfect obsidian disc rimmed with a corona of shimmering, violet-white fire. In the Southern Capital, the fires of war seemed to freeze mid-flicker, and the screams of soldiers died in their throats as they looked up at the impossible sky. The eclipse was not a mere astronomical event; it was a cosmic herald, marking the exact second a new sovereignty was carved into the fabric of reality.
Within the sanctuary, the blinding gold-violet explosion had subsided, leaving behind a thick, shimmering mist of mana that tasted of ozone and ancient stone. The silence that followed was absolute. It was a silence so heavy it felt like a physical weight, pressing down on the lungs of everyone in the room.
