In a remote town on the large island of Madagascar, off the southeastern coast of Africa on Blue Star's Southern Hemisphere, an air of silence permeated everything.
The honking of cars from the past had vanished. Streets that had been bustling with crowds from morning onward were shrouded in stillness. Every household had its doors tightly shut, their curtains fully drawn even during the day.
Inside a pitch-black room, a family lay on their beds with their eyes tightly closed, as though they were in deep sleep. Even their breathing had become faint.
Their faces were twisted in pain, and from time to time, faint murmurs and groans seeped through their clenched teeth, as if they were experiencing something terrifying in their dreams.
If someone were to take in the entire scene, they would discover that it was not merely the family in this room suffering from nightmares. The entire town had been engulfed by them.
Yet in the sleeping family's living room, the television had somehow been switched on, broadcasting news about the Divine Land Alliance's recent major operation.
"Heh heh, this is where that idiot died, is it? What a major operation indeed."
The figure seated on the sofa in the shadows spoke as though sighing, but his tone was filled with mockery.
Behind him stood a black figure resembling smoke, motionless, its eyes hollow as though it were nothing more than a puppet at someone else's disposal.
The shadow beneath it stretched endlessly into every home in town, greedily drawing in the nightmares produced by the entire settlement.
Within a volcano somewhere in the White Eagle Alliance, aboard an icebreaker bound for the polar regions, and inside an underground shrine radiating an ominous aura, countless gazes turned toward Viridian Forest within the Divine Land Alliance.
After all,