First Light of a New Age

Chapter 151: A Nation No Longer Alone

A/n: It is time for the pain plot of the 4th Volume. The previous 10 chapters were merely prologues.

Okay, enjoy :]

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Earth

Year 2002, 1st Day, 1st Week, Month of January.

The dawn of a new year. A moment that should have been marked by fireworks, joyous cheers, and hopeful resolutions for the people on Earth.

But instead, the world trembled.

It began with a sound, a soul-piercing roar that defied nature itself. It was neither thunder nor the rumble of an earthquake, but something far more greater. A voice that echoed across the planet and vibrated through the very bones of every living being.

It was as if the Earth itself had awakened, screaming in unbridled fury or uncontainable ecstasy.

From the skyscrapers of Los Angeles to the frozen wilderness of Antarctica, from the neon-lit streets of Tokyo and other densely populated megacities to the silent deserts of the Sahara and the most isolated islands, all heard it. All felt it.

The air shuddered, the oceans churned, and the ground beneath countless feet cracked like brittle glass.

For a single breathless moment, time itself seemed to stop.

Humans, animals, plants, marine life, each and every one had come to a still, as if the planet held its breath in anticipation of what was to come.

A primal instinct, buried deep in every species' collective memory, screamed that something beyond existence had arrived.

Then, the light came.

Cracks began to form on the very fabric of space across the sky throughout the entire world, followed by a burst of cascading waves of color, brilliant unearthly hues that defied the known spectrum.

Reds that burned like molten lava, blues deeper than the ocean abyss, and greens that shimmered with an otherworldly luminescence. These radiant torrents of magic did not merely illuminate the land, they consumed it and suffused the world with power beyond mortal reckoning.

Night became day. Shadows ceased to exist.

The Great Cataclysm had erupted, not as a creeping phenomenon, but as an unrestrained world-changing cataclysm.

And in that instant, all life on Earth felt it.

In Washington, Beijing, London, and countless other cities where billions of people suddenly freeze as if an invisible force has wrapped around the entire planet, silencing even the wind.

Then, much to the astonishment and horror of countless onlookers, a low rumbling sound begins, shaking the earth beneath towering skyscrapers and ancient structures alike. Street lights flicker, windows tremble, and the world itself seems to groan under an immeasurable pressure.

Without warning, spatial cracks began to form on the entire sky that stretched endlessly, and mana began bursting out from it in cascading waves of radiant energy, spiraling down like liquid flames. The unseen force gripping humanity tightens its hold, blinding and forcing billions to their knees.