[The First Day of Destruction, 19:15]
[The Inner District — Plaza of the Six]
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The air in the Inner City no longer smelled of sanctity. It smelled of old incense choking on new ash.
The Plaza of the Six, a vast expanse of white marble usually reserved for silent prayer, had become a cage. Pilgrims stood shoulder-to-shoulder, a singular, trembling organism of wool cloaks and terrified breath. Above them, the spires of the Six Grand Cathedrals pierced the smoke-choked sky like fingers clawing for salvation, but the heavens offered no answer.
Dong. Dong. Dong.
The bells were ringing. They had been tolling for an hour, a low, mournful rhythm that vibrated in the teeth of every soul present. It was the alarm for a siege, but to the thousands gathered here, it sounded like a funeral dirge.
A child, no older than five, sat on the base of a statue of the Wind God. He wasn't crying; he was too exhausted for that. He simply traced the carved runes of the saint's feet with a dirty finger, over and over, seeking comfort in the stone. Beside him, an old woman clutched a faded wooden pilgrimage token, her lips moving in a silent, frantic litany.
"The gate..." a man whispered near the fountain, his voice cracking. "They say the Middle Gate has fallen."
"Quiet," a woman hissed back, clutching her shawl. "The walls hold. The walls always hold."
But the horizon betrayed them.
To the north, beyond the high white ramparts of the Inner District, the sky was not black. It was a bruised, sickly green. A river of viridian light was licking at the skyline of the Middle District, silhouetting the guard towers in an eerie, chemical glow. It wasn't a natural fire. It didn't flicker; it pulsed, a steady, rhythmic heartbeat of destruction that seemed to be eating the very air.
The noble houses that lined the square were shuttered tight, their iron-reinforced doors barred against the mob. The government institutions had turned into makeshift sanctuaries, their windows glowing with the frantic light of mana lamps.
The history of six centuries, the unshakable dominance of the Theocracy, felt fragile now. The green light washed over the white stone of the plaza, turning the faces of the faithful into ghostly masks. They waited. They watched the wall. And they prayed to gods who felt very, very far away.
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[The Plaza — Northern Quadrant]
"Let us in! Open the cathedral doors!"
The shout broke the murmuring tension like a stone through glass.
A man in a torn merchant's tunic was shoving against the line of temple guards. Behind him, the crowd surged, a ripple of panic moving through the mass.
"Back!" a guard shouted, his voice cracking. He held his spear horizontally, using the shaft to push the mob back. "The sanctuary is full! There is no room!"
"Liar!" a woman screamed. She held a bundle of cloth to her chest, an infant. "You're saving the nobles! You're leaving us to burn like the Outer City!"
The accusation ignited the fear. The metallic tang of terror was heavy on every tongue. People began to shout, their voices overlapping into a cacophony of desperation.
"The green fire is moving! It will burn all of us!
"Where are the Cardinals?" Someone shouted, "Where are the Angels?"
"My son is in the Middle District! Let me out!"
A bottle smashed against the cathedral steps. A guard stumbled. The line wavered.
"Peace!"
A group of priests from the Water Sect moved through the crowd. They didn't carry weapons. They carried buckets of consecrated water and bowls of ash. They moved with a practiced, rhythmic calm that seemed alien in the chaos.
One priest, an elderly man with shaking hands, stepped up to the shouting merchant. He didn't argue. He didn't shout back. He simply dipped his thumb into the ash and pressed it to the man's forehead.
"Breathe," the priest commanded softly. His voice was a drop of oil on turbulent water. "Name your fear. Give it to the Six."
"I... I don't want to die," the merchant sobbed, his anger collapsing into grief.
"Death is a threshold, not an end," the priest murmured, tracing the sign of the Water God. "Stand firm. The bells answer your heart."
He moved to the next person, and the next. The rituals were small, a touch on the shoulder, a whispered blessing, the scent of lavender water, but they were tactile anchors in a world spinning out of control.
Near the sealed gates of the Inner Wall, however, the panic was harder to quell. People were pressing against the iron portcullis, fingers bleeding as they clawed at the metal. They were searching for a way out, a way in, a way to be anywhere but here.
"Don't look at the sky," a father whispered to his son, turning the boy's head away from the green glow. "Look at me. Just look at me."
But the boy looked past him. The green light was brighter now. It was cresting the wall.
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