The night sky split open like torn parchment, a jagged wound of blinding white light spilling into the darkened chamber of the Eye of the Conclave. The air screamed, a high-pitched wail as reality itself buckled under the strain. The ancient obsidian walls, etched with glyphs that had withstood millennia, began to unravel. The runes peeled away, floating upward like dead leaves caught in a storm, their golden light flickering into ash-gray embers before dissolving into the void.
Valerian Nightshade stood at the heart of the chamber, his boots rooted to the cracked stone floor, his heart pounding in his chest. The world was breaking, and he could feel it in his bones—a primal, unshakable wrongness. Magic surged and collapsed in erratic pulses, time stuttered like a glitching hologram, and the very fabric of existence seemed to fray at the edges.
