The nights in Iron Hearth were no longer truly dark. Since the completion of the Central Mana-Electric Power Station project, the city had pulsed with a constant, artificial life. The East Gate—a massive, imposing structure of reinforced concrete and cold steel—was currently bathed in the steady, bluish luminescence of mana-electric streetlights. However, even this modern brilliance seemed to flicker and dim as the horizon to the east was suddenly consumed by a vast, shifting darkness. The clouds were torn asunder by the rhythmic, thunderous beat of wings that shook the very air.
The roar that followed was not the natural growl of a storm. It was the terrifying harmony of five hundred dragons shattering the sound barrier in a collective descent.
