City of Sin (Yanyu Jiangnan)

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People walked out of their residences in every tiny town all across the Land of Dawn, staring at the sky. The could all feel the world shuddering as the one thing they had hoped for since falling into the Darkness was coming true. They felt the call of order as the Lighthouse of Time was completed, knowing that it only needed to be lit.

Everyone prayed by instinct, motes of light flying out from their bodies to merge into the timeflames in their cities. Everything converged into the golden beam of light that shot into the distance, using the power of the souls from order to protect the Lighthouse of Time from the Darkness.

Standing atop the Lighthouse, Richard adjusted completely to the laws of distortion and was granted a changed view of the entire world. The sky in the Land of Dawn was a faint purple, motes of energy floating down to sustain the locals’ lives. The tall soul trees were surrounded by purple bushes where berries were being foraged, some natives carting the food back to their villages. This type of bush seemed to surround every village, and the wastelands were throbbing with all types of flora and fauna. It was just that those of order could only see a barren field under the influence of the distortion.

There were large black sectors on this endless plain, places completely lacking in energy that the natives carefully avoided. Within those black sectors were the cities and their veils of order, contaminating the purity of this land. A black spot suddenly appeared and expanded in the distance, contaminating everything like ink that had landed in water. A person struggled to stand up in the centre of that spot, someone who had just fallen to the Darkness that was still radiating the energy of order.

The man struggled to his feet, staggering towards the closest city. It seemed like he was both lucky and powerful, capable of making it to the city to survive, but he left behind a pitch-black line that branded the colourful fields. A group of natives seemed to cry in despair at the sight, slowly appearing behind and spraying colourful liquid from their bodies to ease the contamination. However, it seemed like it would take an entire week to completely eliminate the black poison.

The walking man couldn’t hear nor see any of this, only continuing to lumber on while Richard saw everything. The natives desperately tried to replenish their source of food, but it was all doomed for failure. Once the Lighthouse of Time was lit, the Land of Dawn would disappear from the Darkness and they would simply be collateral damage.

He suddenly understood the gravity of the words Flowsand had left behind in the Book of Time. The truth of this world was indeed the opposite of what one saw when they arrived here. This was a bright world full of life, not an empty wasteland. It was outsiders like him that actually distorted the laws of the Darkness, and the Eternal Dragon was the worst offender of them all. Its Chosen worked tirelessly over many generations to successfully destroy the places they arrived in, forcing the land to accept the laws of order so it would separate from the Darkness and join the old dragon’s domain. In the eyes of these inhabitants, the Chosen and people like Richard were no different from the reapers.

And were they wrong to feel that way? He sighed, understanding that the truth wasn’t always pleasant. Sometimes, knowledge was a burden and nothing else. Flowsand certainly wasn’t the only one who had realised all this, but it was difficult to tell what they thought about it. Was this any different from Norland conquering other planes? Would the same logic they justified themselves with even apply here?

Unfortunately, such emotions no longer affected Richard’s actions. He wouldn’t give up on the Lighthouse of Time out of remorse or pity; there were others like him struggling here and he had his own goals to meet. He turned around and opened the Book of Time, a golden radiance shooting out from within and lighting the wick. Golden sparks immediately burst into a small flame, and he heard a snap as the image in front of him cracked apart. Fragments of this world separated themselves and tumbled down into the endless void below.

The snaps grew louder and more numerous as the laws of the Darkness were shattered, giving Richard one last glance at black marks now marring the entirety of the bright purple plains. The sky seemed to crack apart as well, pitch-black energy dripping through and infecting this world. The natives started rushing about aimlessly, but the black energy boiled into a dark fog that burnt away the purple pastures. One lump of darkness fell right onto a village, destroying its protection and drowning it out in the black tide.

The apocalypse had descended upon the Land of Dawn, with countless natives being forced out of hiding and flying around in despair. Unfortunately, there was nowhere for them to go; the black tide enveloped the place, turning even the butchers to dust. A momentary blink into the world of order revealed the black tide as the golden current of time, but from the perspective of the Darkness this was a flood of destruction.

Richard suddenly turned back, seeing the timeflames raging within the copper brazier. However, these flames were now black as well, sending ripples of dark energy all around that powered a majority of the destructive tide. The colours of the plane were constantly defiled and annihilated.

At this point, it was obvious that the timeflames were a construct that created a channel between the Darkness and the domain of order, allowing timeforce to flow in and destroy the local laws. Richard quickly felt his eyes starting to burn in the presence of this timeforce, the Eternal Dragon’s energy considering even him an enemy given that he had tuned himself into the locals.

A momentary switch of perspective quickly fixed that problem, and what he saw was now the golden timeflames connecting to gorgeous beams of light from the various cities. The sky was no longer grey but a burning red, with huge slits that were bathing the world in a golden radiance. The barren wastelands were being filled with radiance and warmth, about to become a land of hope filled with life. Richard heard cheers as those in every city sang and danced like lunatics, bringing out the food and wine that they had been so miserly with before. Everyone was smiling at the sight that they had been waiting for all this time.

The sky began to rupture, large chunks falling to the ground with earth-shattering rumbles. The earth split as the wastelands were cut apart, a black curtain separating the Land of Dawn from its neighbours. Someone was shouting desperately as he tried to enter the Land of Dawn, but in front of him was a widening chasm. The curtain was about to cover the place, but he suddenly leapt across with all of his strength. Unable to cross the chasm that was hundreds of metres wide, he cried out in despair as he fell into the empty space.

The Land of Dawn broke away from the Darkness, the isolating barrier quickly vanishing into the distance. The sky continued to break and fall apart, burning flames reducing all life outside the cities into ash. The light of order became an impregnable shield that protected each city as the earth started to break apart as well, revealing the void behind.

Timeforce rapidly converged around the Lighthouse of Time, expanding space to the point that the most distant cities quickly stretched beyond Richard’s perception. The Land of Dawn had only been a few hundred thousands of kilometres in diameter, but it instantly grew a thousandfold in size, continuing to expand at an unfathomable speed.

The various broken sections started to twinkle like stars in the void, turning into convergences of energy. In the distance they seemed no bigger than a finger’s width, but these nodes would birth new planes in the future that could perhaps match or even exceed Norland. Richard felt like he was seeing the birth of the myriad planes, the foundational laws of existence being exposed as they built the new planes up bit by bit.

A single sector of the Darkness had given birth to an uncountable number of planes.