Across the world, the tears grew.
What had once been narrow, unstable rifts—barely wide enough for lesser horrors to squeeze through—began to expand with alarming speed. In the frozen northern wastes, a vertical scar of distorted space stretched from the ice to the low clouds, edges pulsing with sickly light. In the humid southern jungles, a circular wound in reality hung above the canopy, slowly rotating as if something on the other side were forcing it open from within. Along major trade routes, near capital cities, and in remote wilderness alike, the same phenomenon repeated. The barriers between realms were no longer merely cracked. They were widening.
Those who monitored such things—the council's seers, independent mages, and even ordinary people sensitive to mana—felt the shift at the same moment. A collective, sinking realization settled over them.
They were too late.
