The next moment, all of Backlund began to shake.
It was not the dull roar of an earthquake rising from deep within the crust.
It was more like an invisible hand had seized the entire city and given it a vicious shake.
In a cheap rented room in the East Borough, a man just home from the factory was soaking his last half-piece of black bread in potato soup. The glass on his table slid over the edge and shattered on the floor, its crash drowned out by the creaking of the entire building.
In the Empress Borough, a dinner party was only halfway through when an entire set of silverware began bouncing and clattering on a long table covered with a damask cloth. Feynapotter red wine worth three thousand pounds a bottle spilled from the stemmed glasses, staining the hostess's silk gown red.
Then, after the shaking, everyone felt a dread that reached into their very marrow.
Beyonders felt it especially keenly. Their powerful spirituality allowed them to pick up far more information than ordinary people.
The shaking was not merely physical—
It was more as though some higher existence was trying to descend into the material world.
Immediately afterward, from the direction of the tremors—
An inexplicable pressure surged like a tide, engulfing all of Backlund in an instant.
Then—the rules began to unravel.
A drunk who had just left a bar belched and casually tossed his empty bottle toward a corner.
But instead of falling in an arc, the bottle paused in midair, then began drifting unsteadily upward like a leaking balloon.
The flames in the street lamps turned from warm orange to a sickly blue. Yet anyone who approached them discovered that the flames were bitterly cold.
In shop windows, the colors of exquisite dresses and