Beyond the Border

It was a magnificent "lightburst."

A "Light Arc" roughly equivalent to a quarter of the Sun Rune Ring disintegrated in the sky, then broke into more than a dozen larger luminous structures. For a brief time after the initial breakup, they still climbed and moved through the sky along Phenomenon 001's normal trajectory, as if each glowing structure retained some residual propulsion and navigation capability. But only moments later, their movements showed obvious signs of losing control.

The luminous structures began to fragment further. Large and small bodies of light scattered across the sky like a fleet torn apart by a storm, tracing bright lines that gradually diverged. Countless smaller lights split off from the larger glowing bodies—compared to the major fragments, they were as inconspicuous as fireflies—and fell from the sky amid flickers and a series of tiny explosions.

Light poured down like rain from the clouds. From the eastern border to the western archipelagoes, the lightburst illuminated the night, casting the entire sea in an intense, eerie golden sunlight.

The larger fragments, meanwhile, fell relatively slowly. Shedding glowing debris continuously, they descended along their respective trajectories toward the entire world. Most of the falling objects were headed for the southwestern waters, while several smaller fragments fell toward the central and northern regions.

It was now the eighteenth hour after "nightfall." The Boundless Sea was briefly illuminated by the sun's latest massive disintegration. Because the falling objects were at a relatively low altitude, even a quarter of a rune Light Arc was enough to light the sky. Thus, this "meteor shower," heralding the approach of the end, instead brought the world nearly an hour of "daylight"—and during that brief day, the entire world fell silent.

Duncan stood at the second-floor window of the antique shop. He opened the narrow