366 Crimson Corpse

Eclipses had been regarded as dangerous omens since ancient times.

On this day, as countless citizens of Great You gazed up at the sky, the sun that had previously shone with dazzling brilliance suddenly seemed to have a piece bitten away. The heavens darkened, and a dense wave of black qi swallowed the sun whole, forming an eclipse.

"An ancient classic says: When a ruler is fickle in joy and anger, kills the innocent, executes the guiltless, scorns Heaven and Earth, and neglects ghosts and gods, then an eclipse shall occur."

Not long after the eclipse appeared, rumors immediately spread throughout Great You's Five Paths and Eight Wastelands. They claimed that the eclipse had occurred because the Great Emperor You had failed to cultivate political virtue; because the court was full of petty, treacherous schemers; because taxes and levies had grown ever heavier, draining the common people dry and sparking uprisings in every region. Meanwhile, the local authorities ignored the people's livelihoods and dispatched troops everywhere to suppress them, thus bringing about this celestial omen.

The Mud Sect, the Fragrance Sect, evil cults across the land, and the various factions of the unorthodox path all seized this opportunity to spread word like mad: Great You had gone against the natural order, the present Emperor You had lost all virtue, and this abnormal celestial phenomenon—the eclipse—was Heaven's wrathful punishment, as well as a sign that Great You was doomed to perish.

"A ruler without virtue who fails to govern by virtue shall suffer disasters without end: the sun and moon shall be devoured, the five planets shall stray from their courses, mountains shall collapse and rivers burst apart, springs shall gush forth, and ten thousand calamities shall descend from Heaven. The day of ruin is surely at hand!"

"The sun governs