News traveled fast across the continent when Great Families bled.
Within three days of Leoric Northwind's kidnapping, communication crystals hummed with urgent messages between distant capitals, and the delicate balance that had maintained peace for decades began to show cracks that threatened to become chasms.
In the pristine halls of Celestial Harmony Academy, situated at the geographical and political center of the human continent, an emergency session of the Inter-Family Council convened with unprecedented urgency.
The academy's neutral status made it the only place where representatives of all nine Great Families could meet without any single house claiming territorial advantage.
Headmaster Valdris Celestine, the continent's only confirmed Pre-Celestial cultivator, presided over the gathering with the serene authority of someone whose power transcended ordinary political concerns.
