The violence began just before the fourth bell, shattering the cold, industrial dawn.
Sector Nine was not a city; it was an extraction engine. A sprawling, soot-stained grid of Cinnaite foundries, workers' barracks, and central rail hubs, it existed solely to process the raw faith-reactive ore pulled from the eastern earth. At its heart stood the primary condenser—a massive, six-story structure of iron and glass that refined the raw faith of the laborers before transmitting it westward to Ashenveil. It was the mechanical heart of the Sovereign Imperium's eastern expansion.
When the warning sirens screamed, they were almost instantly drowned out by the roar of crude alchemical explosives.
