The sky turned red at exactly the twenty-four-hour mark.
Not orange.
Not sunset.
Red.
The kind of red that told everyone in Zethara that the world itself was warning us: time's up.
I stood with the others outside the town gates, looking up at the swirling clouds bleeding across the horizon. It didn't feel real.
None of this ever did, in the sense that my brain kept insisting I'd wake up in my cramped apartment, late for class, missing breakfast again.
But then the system window hovered in front of me, cold and merciless.
24:00:00
And the pit in my stomach tightened.
"We should rest," Luna murmured. "It's pointless to stay out here stressing ourselves."
Zeref nodded. "The materials are prepped, the potions are stocked, the talismans are distributed. If we try to do more, we'll only make mistakes."
Keiji stretched his arms behind his head. "Let's go to the square. Citizens are offering food again."
"The last supper," Kael muttered under his breath.
