Smoke clung to the broken skies above Ebonreach. The obsidian towers were cracked, bleeding aether into the heavens like a wounded god. Craters scarred the land. The remnants of the Wyrmgate still glowed faintly, pulsing like the final heartbeat of a dying titan. And in the center of it all stood Valerian Nightshade—draconic wings tattered, obsidian coat torn, and silver eyes no longer glowing with the System's tethered power.
The world had changed.
And the gods knew it.
All over the continent, ancient seals cracked. Leylines surged like tidal waves. Mana storms tore through cities. The sudden collapse of the System—the very mechanism that kept the balance between fate and chaos—had triggered a reaction unlike anything seen in the last thousand years.
And it had all begun with a single word.
"Ascend."
